Entrance of the Newspapers

Michael Ubaldi, October 24, 2004.

The New York Times has released its Monday-morning front-page story for the final full week before Election Day. Headline, "Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq." It's not news, mercifully killed by the article's second-to-last sentence: "Administration officials say Iraq was awash in munitions, including other stockpiles of exotic explosives." As if modern explosives were invented in Iraq, currently exist only there, and that terrorists would be at a loss if not for the looting of the Al Qaqaa military base. Or, unfortunately, that Iraq weren't knee-deep in Saddam's 130 sprawling weapons dumps. The Times is not for want of motivation or effort, but this release will stiff on the charts.

CANCEL ALARM: Tom Maguire is thinking the same thing.

National Review's Jim Geraghty has been receiving indignant letters all morning long from soldiers who are serving or have served in Iraq. This one is particularly explicative; Jim tacked on a bonus repudiation from the Bush campaign to John Kerry. It's hard to deny that the Democratic candidate has been reduced to clinging to headlines like monkeybars, which in turn describes a failed campaign. (Slip Kerry an Onion story and let the fun begin.) [Later:] Another letter to Geraghty, this one underscoring the very unspectacular nature of the story. [Later still:] Even CNN is acknowledging that the supposed looting is likely to have occurred before the invasion. It seems that the Times story is collapsing within eighteen hours of publication.

Matt Drudge is reporting that the rumored Washington Times exclusive is an investigation revealing that John Kerry's claims to have met with leaders of United Nations Security Council member countries are unfounded. From Joel Mowbray, here is the lede:

U.N. ambassadors from several nations are disputing assertions by Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry that he met for hours with all members of the U.N. Security Council just a week before voting in October 2002 to authorize the use of force in Iraq.
An investigation by the Washington Times reveals that while the candidate did talk for an unspecified period to at least a few members of the panel, no such meeting, as described by Mr. Kerry on a number of occasions over the past year, ever occurred.

The Times has reproduced Kerry's claim, made in the second presidential debate, and the meaning is quite plain. This won't affect dedicated Kerry supporters, who have a wealth of the senator's embellishments and outright falsehoods to contend with already, but then it's not a question the Kerry campaign would look forward to answering so near the election.

The Washington Post is yet intent to demonstrate why, if the New York Times were to shut down presses tomorrow, it would not assume the mantle of "paper of record."

Though not a franchise lead above the fold, the press at large is doing its part trying to mangle President Bush's suggestion to Sean Hannity that safety from terrorism is "up in the air." Reading his full remark, it's obvious that the president is subtly criticizing his opponent. This is the second time the mainstream media has tried to accuse the man they usually portray as a warmonger of defeatism; something that failed in late August and will fail again now.