Safire --- hah!

http://slate.msn.com/id/2109017/

Keepers—No Finders
William Safire's dubious discovery.
By Jack Shafer
Posted Monday, Nov. 1, 2004, at 4:17 PM PT

That the press might hold a blockbuster story until the closing days of a campaign in order to damage a candidate is not so paranoid a notion that such an accusation can't get a public hearing. Today's (Nov. 1) New York Times devotes part of a 1,500-word news story ("Media Timing and the October Surprise") to the accusation that the Times and CBS News timed their Al-Qaqaa scoops to subvert the Bush-Cheney ticket.

"Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political strategist, said he thought the paper deliberately timed the report in an effort to hurt Mr. Bush's chances in the week before the election," the Times reports, as it proceeds to knock down the allegation.

Meanwhile, over on today's Times op-ed page, columnist William Safire levels the same charge against CBS News ("Osama Casts His Vote") but does Rove one better: Safire claims the technique of deliberately holding a story to punish a candidate in the 11th hour is common enough in journalism to have a name: It's called a "keeper," he writes. And he believes there is enough evidence that CBS News was aiming an Oct. 31 60 Minutes "keeper" at Bush that CBS's current internal investigation over the forged National Guard documents should be expanded to include the Al-Qaqaa affair.

Safire writes in his column:

Journalists call that hyping device a "'keeper"—holding a story for the moment when it causes the most damage—which the victim cannot refute until after Election Day, by which time it's too late.

Alas, nobody but Safire seems to have heard of "keepers."

SNIP

Read more at:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2109017/

"Give it to Safire. He'll leak anything we want."

...because of the "librul media" and their damned stories.

Yeah, that's it. It's the media's fault. It couldn't be that * is the most inept president our nation has ever had. It couldn't be that the Iraq adventure has been one lie after another with NOTHING, going according to plan. Speaking of plans, it couldn't be because $hrubco had absolutely no plans or contingencies in place. No plans to occupy. No plans to exit. No plans whatsoever.

No, it's the media's fault.