According to Hugh Hewitt US papers are letting their readers down badly in reporting the election. In particular he claims "...the secondary nature of the old media is becoming quite obvious. Reporters...all know about the magic hat and the now discredited claims of Christmas Eve in Cambodia. Most of them know that Douglas Brinkley also raised the stakes last week by citing three or four missions to Cambodia with SEALs, Green Berets and CIA men and that Brinkley must have gathered info on those missions from the Kerry journals." The failure to accurately report these matters appears diappointing to Hugh. So to aid my US readers in the search for good 'old media' news coverage of the election issue I thought I would scour the UK newspapers.

The Telegraph reports reports Brinkley's Cambodian inteligence mission claims and that Kerry's biographer has stated there is no basis for these stories.

But the Telegraph doesnt seem to like Kerry very much, with a peice from 10th August claiming he is 'strange' and then running like this-

"even before any gaffes or scandals, the official narrative makes no sense. He's publicly opposed to the Vietnam War. But he volunteers for it. Then he comes back disgusted with his experience in war, publicly hurls his medals away (or someone else's: that story keeps changing), denounces his fellow veterans as war criminals, torturers and rapists, and claims that he personally committed atrocities.

But then he decides to run for president and suddenly Jane Fonda morphs into John Wayne and all those war criminals are war heroes he wants at every rally and he's got his medals back and his disgust at his wartime experience has mysteriously turned into pride in his wartime experience to the exclusion of all else."

Patriotic Americans wouldn't like the Guardian's attack on the US electoral system claiming it is "constructed around patronage, corruption and fear of the media" and that "it will always throw up dreadful candidates". Americans should one day "choose a man or woman who is prepared to turn the system upside down and reintroduce democracy" to their country.

There is no mention of the Kerry and Cambodia together in the Guardian newspaper archive, nor that of the Times or Independent. There is no other UK coverage of the Cambodia story that I can find. Even the BBC US election newspage fails to mention it, although it does have some rather good and extensive coverage of the election in general.

I hear that now it is Kerry's turn to distance himself from an add that criticised Bush's military service record. Republican Senator John McCain says this year's presidential race is "the bitterest, most unsavory campaign" in history As a Brit observing from the sidelines I would tend to agree.