Right after they highlight Bush's Guard service ... Given the pretty appalling track records of David Halbfinger and Jim Rutenberg, I confess I'm surprised at the sober tone and relative even-handedness on display in today's A1 article about the big Kerry campaign ad buy ("Kerry Life Story Will Be Focus of Big Ad Buy"). We still have the obligatory scattering of quotes (and I do mean scattering—there seems almost no principle of organization in the piece) from anonymous Democrats fretting about the lateness of the ad buy, along with the convenient repetition of Republican anti-Kerry themes, but muted, even perfunctory. (The obligatory, irrelevant attack quote from Dick "Dick" Cheney gets shoveled in, but not until four grafs from the end of the piece—usually in these things you expect it in the first four grafs.) The writers even allow Kerry campaign aides a sharp observation or two:

Mr. Kerry's aides asserted that the president's strategy was little more than to "destroy John Kerry," and that it had failed because the two men were still running neck and neck in the polls.

"While George Bush has spent $60 million to run negative ads," said Mary Beth Cahill, Mr. Kerry's campaign manager, "John Kerry is up with a stronger message that will define the themes of his presidency: 'Together we can build a stronger America.'"

None of which means the worm is turning on A1—but the article certainly makes a break from the unrelieved Bush triumphalism that characterized the Times' campaign-strategy coverage just a month or so ago.

And let's not neglect a moment of unusual drollery in the piece. The fact that one of the Kerry ads "associates Mr. Kerry with Senator John McCain, ... showing a picture of the two senators side-by-side and noting their cooperation with each other" in the effort to account for American MIAs in Vietnam, has had its intended effect: Rutenfinger have taken notice. (Could that be the reason their article doesn't hew so closely as you'd expect to the Approved Narrative of Kerry weakness?) Not only do they devote the piece's third graf to the McCain appearance, they pull a hell of a snarky quote about it from a McCain spokesman:

Mr. Kerry's use of Mr. McCain's image came without his permission, though a campaign aide contacted the Arizona senator's office on Monday morning to inform him, said Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for Mr. McCain.

Mr. Wittmann said Mr. McCain was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

"A plethora of presidential candidates have mentioned Senator McCain over the past year," Mr. Wittmann said, alluding to Democrats like Senator Joseph I. Lieberman who invoked Mr. McCain's name in the primaries.

Mr. Wittmann added: "The Kerry ad is factually correct, and who knows? Perhaps the Bush campaign will highlight Senator McCain's work with the president as well."

Halbenberg omit mention of the snicker that accompanied that last statement, but context is more than adequate to supply it.

posted by michael  5:01:44 PM  
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