The Daily Howler rightly praises E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post for today's column, "Stooping Low to Smear Kerry.
Dionne asks the long overdue question of those who are so shamelessly attacking Kerry over his war record: "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"
The answer is obviously no, they have no sense of decency. They attack Kerry for being in Vietnam, Clinton for not being in Vietnam, and Bush was playing volleyball. Who knows what Cheney was doing, he "had other priorities." One can only assume these included scowling lessons.
The Howler goes on to point out that while Dionne is finally fighting the good fight, it's not all good news from the Post. David Ignatius, in a sort of pretend mea culpa, explains why the media wasn't more on the ball about the false pretenses leading up to war in Iraq.
And the cat is out of the bag. He is actually saying, right there in black and white, that it is not a journalists job to "create a debate" unless the parties have already decided to debate the issue. If party leaders aren't talking about it, well then journalistic professionalism demands that we not lift a finger to find the truth. His statement that foreign policy experts weren't criticizing the war is completely ridiculous.
In any case, it's good to see E.J. Dionne, and some others, starting to ask the real questions in this debate. The real questions are not about the details of this or that scandal, or this person or that person's military service. The real questions are about honesty, respect, honor, and decency.
