Think the media doesn't follow scripts?

[Memekiller]

The media has already written the script for this campaign: Bush is steadfast. Kerry is a flip-flopper. Everything they do will be crafted to fit these story lines. This demonstrates that better than anything I can think of:

George Bush was asked whether, knowing what he knows now about the situation in Iraq and WMD, he would have still gone to war. Bush said yes, and the press portrayed him as "standing firm."

The press asked John Kerry, if knowing what he knows now, he would still have voted for the resolution to go to war (not to go to war). What did Kerry do? Stubbornly refused to change his position. How did the media portray him? As a flip-flopper!

Kerry's position through the primaries and into the campaign today has been the same. He gave the President the same authorization he would expect if he was President so that he could have the leverage to negotiate peace. (Bush, at the time, made clear it was not a vote for war but a vote to enforce the peace.) But Kerry has said, throughout the primaries and until today, that he would have used that leverage very differently. You can agree. You can disagree. But how is standing by that position a flip-flop, unless the press has already written the story line?