Say Anything Blog

Michael Rule, in NewsBusters:

On Tuesday’s “Imus in the Morning,” Newsweek editor Jon Meacham opined that George H.W. Bush, the 41st president, had been vindicated by history. He suggested that Newsweek runs stories based on partisan preferences, i.e. we helped defeat President Bush in 1992, but in hindsight, George H.W. Bush was right. Meacham also revealed that journalists often make hasty judgements and treat those judgements as “infallible.” In the same segment, Meacham admitted that journalists are wrong. Meacham offers as an example the coverage of President Bush 41 during the 1992 campaign and before:

“What’s important is journalistically, one of the mistakes we make is we kick people in the shins and we tend to make instant judgements and act as though our judgment is infallible and absolute. It’s not. See ‘wimp factor,’ see the mistakes and the misperceptions of the first Bush at the time when everybody was saying he was out of touch and was no good. Now we see with hindsight that he’d done pretty well.”

[...]

“I think that everything he did that got him beaten in 1992, that only got him 37% of the vote, only slightly more than you or I would have gotten that year, has been proven in the light of history to have been the right thing to do.”

In January 1992, Newsweek contributor Howard Fineman suggested that Bush 41 ought to run on a platform of higher taxes and of asking the American people to sacrifice. In the August 24, 1992 issue Fineman portrayed Bush as out of touch with the American public on domestic issues. A look at the Bush 41record suggests he was out of touch with conservative voters. Bush 41 raised taxes and the economy soured. Bush 41 refused to topple Saddam Hussein in the first Gulf War, and let the problem fester for future administrations. And Bush 41 gave David Souter a seat on the Supreme Court, and he has turned out to be one of the most liberal justices. So by whose historic standards is Bush 41 vindicated? Apparently the standards of liberals.

Bush 41 was attacked by Newsweek in 1992 not because he was a conservative. He was attacked to elect Bill Clinton. An objective look at the Bush record show’s the Newsweek attacks to be politically motivated.

Read the whole thing.

Well, Duh!  After 14 years of this kind of crap, he admits one of his many mistakes.
Justice delayed is justice denied.