Net War Room for Bush vs Kerry Debate

ancice writes "Article by Wired. Seems like Bush and Kerry are going to battle in cyberspace. The Bush Team is going to have a War Room to provide live rebuttals to thousands of conversative blogs. Not much info on Kerry's response though. This seems like a good use of the Information Super Highway. Would be interesting to see how this War Room will affect the election. Will this tactic be successful or will it be information overload? Worse still, will technology be exploited? Tune in on Thursday."

Comments

Wired helps excuse the media

[jamie]

The Wired piece helps perpetuate a myth: that in 2000, after the first Bush-Gore debate, it was the GOP that changed the perception from "Gore won" to "Bush won":

After the first debate, Gore advisers thought he had handily won. But a few hours later, the Bush campaign was able to change that perception by disseminating press releases on its websites, through faxes and in e-mails.

Gore's advisers thought he won because he did win. As the Daily Howler points out, the five "instant polls" of viewers after the debate gave Gore the win by an average of 9.6% -- a huge margin, especially considering more Bush supporters were watching.

And that perception did change in the hours and days to come, until finally the American people were browbeaten into believing that Bush had won. But one can't blame GOP press releases and emails. The fault lies squarely on the media, as the Daily Howler has been demonstrating all week.

Whether you think our media has a conservative bias or not, it's indisputable that it let Bush get away with murder after that first debate, refusing to do even basic fact-checking on his blatant errors, and it crucified Gore, mostly by focusing on absurdities and trivia like the color of his suit or his body language. Let's put the blame where blame is due.