From Media Matters, found in Editorials. Thought y'all might like to read:

[babylonsister]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x215015

snip//

Enter John Kerry. Sure, Clinton, and Gore, and Dean had all been misleadingly slimed by the national media. But that's just because, by stunning coincidence, they were all deeply flawed candidates who brought it on themselves. But John Kerry was a genuine war hero -- and so people who should have known better by then were surprised when right-wing activists connected to the Bush campaign smeared his military service, with the ready assistance of the nation's leading news organizations. And they were surprised (or worse, thought nothing of it) when Kerry was portrayed in the media as a flip-flopper and Bush was given a pass on his own lengthy history of flip-flops.

And still, too many journalists, pundits, progressive activists and Democratic leaders chalked this up to John Kerry's failings as a candidate, or his consultants failings. They blamed the victim (again): Kerry talked too much about his military service, they said: he was asking to be smeared by Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. He spoke with too many qualifiers (remember: when Dean was blunt, he was derided as angry and crazy). He flip-flopped too much (Bush's own flips and flops escaped similar scrutiny).

Those who would apologize for the media's treatment of Clinton, Gore, Dean, and Kerry -- or who somehow fail to recognize it even now -- chalk it up to Clinton's supposed slickness, or Gore's trouble with the truth, or Dean's craziness, or Kerry's liberalism, and on and on and on -- somehow failing to recognize that they're excusing flawed media storylines about these candidates by citing those same flawed storylines. Hopefully hoping for the day when a progressive leader would emerge without these weaknesses.

Enter Democratic Rep. Jack Murtha. Murtha is, by general consensus, a conservative Democrat. A U.S. Marine and a highly decorated veteran of the Vietnam War. Ranking member of the Defense Appropriations committee. The kind of politician the media tends to refer to as a "pro-military Democrat" (buying into the ridiculous and offensive right-wing smear that most Democrats are anti-military). A serious, plain-spoken man with an impeccable record of serving his country and a "leading Democratic hawk."

Surely, if Clinton, Gore, Dean, and Kerry faced such abusive media coverage because of there own faults, here was a Democrat who didn't share those flaws.

snip//

[wisteria]

1. And now, Murtha is getting the same treatment as the others.

This convinces me that we have to continue speaking up and backing up those who do. We can not continue to allow the Re pubs and their media cohorts to control and manipulate our messages.

[ginnyinWI]

2. And once people realize that good people can be smeared,

maybe they'll also realize that bad people can be spun into figures of heroic proportions. Witness the Cult of Bush.

Or am I being too optimistic?

To this day, my mother believes that Kerry lost the election because of the Mary Cheney comment!! Shows you were some people's heads are at--simplistic answers to complex problems.