To the National Review

I read your editorial on Kerry's "Gas Bag" with huge frustration this week.

I'm not a Kerry ideologue, but I do believe he's the best we'll have this year. I feel a great deal of compassion for the man, having heard him in person three times now here in Portland, Oregon. The press simply doesn't cover what he says. They follow their adrenal glands, and cover what appeals to their basest instincts, to their nose for controversy and headline sidebars.

John Kerry wouldn't be obsessing on gas prices if it weren't for the media's insistence to obsess on one theme at a time. As I reported on my blog, Unitarian Universalists for Kerry (http://UUsforKerry.blogspot.com/), on 5/18/2004:

Later in the day, I check the internet for stories filed from the press on the morning meeting, but I am dismayed. From this intimate message of hope, there is only one sound byte that gets picked up. "Kerry will lower gas prices." That was a footnote! It had nearly nothing to do with the well-integrated job and education platform he presented. It was not a showcase for the warmth he showed -- in fact it might have been the geekiest moment in the whole presentation.

This is the filter of the press. This is why I urge you to read his stuff on the website and see him in person if you can.

A week later, he was here headlining gas prices (since that seemed to be the blood the press corps was hungry for this week) -- but his education and job programs were most of his presentation. Maybe he thought that if he headlined any particular idea, the press would glom onto another issue out of spite? But no, even with a great presentation on the difficulties facing public education (including funding bus transportation) and local government, and how we might be able to build jobs in a hard economy, support veterans, and so on -- again, the eight seconds on gas prices seized the headlines.

Kerry's campaign staff has been riding this horse until it drops. So long as the media reports on his "gas bag" issue, and nothing else he says, you'll harp on him for beating the horse to death.

Then, the press corps will find some other inconsequential non-issue to obsess on, and you'll criticize him for that.

But if he doesn't pander to the taste of the press corps, they cover nothing at all that he says, or start looking for gaffes.

Take the beam out of your own eye! We need press corps -- and editors/publishers -- that are willing to devote more than eight seconds to an issue, if you want real issues covered. You should be reading his transcripts, rather than the AP. Break out of the manufactured consent, and criticize your own industry! Now *that* would be news. Let's shame the daily rags for their current reportage, rather than waiting until after the NYTimes facilitates the next war.

If you want to have a service for your readers, why don't you collect the transcripts from all the public addresses made in a week by Bush, and by Kerry, so people can easily find what they are saying, not just these "press worthy" snippets?

I read the New Republic at Common Grounds Coffeehouse in SE Portland, or at the Multnomah County Libraries, as well as tnronline.

I know this is too long for publication, but in this case, I am truly writing a letter to the *editors*, suggesting that you rethink your position, rather than a 500-max-word snippet to your readers.

Thanks for a generally admirable product!