Kurtz was asked a number of times during his online chat today about his column this morning. (See earlier post.) He ignored my question asking his opinion. But in the end, he says that reporting that candidates lie is just too hard for working scribes.
It’s much harder to crawl out on a limb and say, I have studied what the two campaigns have said on issue X and here is my factual analysis of where the truth lies. You take a lot of heat when you do that, as opposed to “President Bush and Senator Kerry traded charges today on whether the senator is soft on terrorism…” It also happens to be good journalism to try to untangle the competing claims and counterclaims.