Eleanor Clift writes about Rove, the media and the attacks on Kerry: The Kerry campaign thinks it has succeeded in discrediting the scurrilous attack on Kerry's military service, but Rove got what he wanted. Instead of talking about a failed war in Iraq and a new report that shows 1.3 million more Americans living in poverty, we're debating what happened in the Mekong Delta in 1968. The strategy "came straight from the West Wing," says the GOP staffer. "Nobody should be confused." Asked to explain, this Republican says Rove is smart enough to keep technical distance. But all it takes is a well-placed wink to activate a web of Bush family hit men, confidantes and deep-pocket donors. "They know what to do--it's like sleeper cells that get activated," he says, likening the players to "political terrorists." Actually, Clift is wrong. This strategy is straight out of the precursor to the West Wing, Aaron Sorkin's The American President:INT. THE LIBRARY - NIGHT

The look and feel of old money. Rumson is holding court with a half-dozen political insiders. Some smoke cigars; others sip their drinks.

RUMSON (continuing) Voters aren't interested in how to achieve economic growth, and they don't want to hear our plans to strengthen foreign policy.

STAFFER #1 So it comes down to character.

STAFFER #2 The press like him, Senator. The networks, the newspapers, they're--

RUMSON Reporters like him. Networks and newspapers like ratings and circulation. For all the bitching we do about liberal bias in the press when it comes down to a character debate...

STAFFER #3 The press is an unwitting accomplice.

This works because the press is a failed institution. To demonstrate this, I just did a few Google News searches, always restricting my search to news sources from the United States:

"Scott Peterson": 6,690
Darfur: 6,330

Genocide is taking place in Sudan, and the American media gives more coverage to the Scott Peterson trial. Sudan is not a partisan issue, as prominent Democrats and Republicans have called for intervention in Sudan. Instead of ideology or party bias, this instead demonstrates how the "news" media in America is actually more interested in character driven, real-time, "reality" TV narratives than actually reporting news.

How can it ever be justifiable for an editor or news director to give more time to Scott Peterson than ongoing genocide? How is can it ever be justifiable to even give close to the same amount of time to these two stories? How can it ever be justifiable to focus on what a bunch of guys who hate John Kerry have to say / lie about his military record when the poverty rate is rising in America and overtime rights are being slashed?