A political question about news coverage of the third debate

Most of you reading this journal will know the background to this question, but here it is anyway. The question is in bold at the end of this entry.

One of the low points of the third presidential debate was this:

Transcript: Third Presidential Debate

SCHIEFFER: Anything to add, Senator Kerry?

KERRY: Yes. When the president had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden, he took his focus off of them, outsourced the job to Afghan warlords, and Osama bin Laden escaped.

Six months after he said Osama bin Laden must be caught dead or alive, this president was asked, "Where is Osama bin Laden?" He said, "I don't know. I don't really think about him very much. I'm not that concerned."

We need a president who stays deadly focused on the real war on terror.

SCHIEFFER: Mr. President?

BUSH: Gosh, I just don't think I ever said I'm not worried about Osama bin Laden. It's kind of one of those exaggerations.

Of course we're worried about Osama bin Laden. We're on the hunt after Osama bin Laden. We're using every asset at our disposal to get Osama bin Laden.

What Bush said was, of course, false; the documention of him saying pretty much exactly what Kerry said exists.

March 13, 2002: President Bush Holds Press Conference

Q But don't you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won't truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven't heard much from him. And I wouldn't necessarily say he's at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don't know where he is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country. I was concerned about the fact that he was basically running Afghanistan and calling the shots for the Taliban.

Here's the question.

Has any American television news show actually shown Bush saying exactly what he denied saying?

For these purposes, I will count The Daily Show. But really, anything?

Since all the cool kids are doing it

( Not the serial killer I would have guessed )

Do Not Call Registry

We've been getting a lot of "Mr. Nobody" calls over the last couple of days--calls where the phone rings, we screen it through the answering machine, and whomever it is hangs up without a message. After the call I just received, I suspect it's because the telemarketers have just implemented (or just gotten around to targeting us with) a new protected workaround of the Do Not Call Registry.

I was sitting at my desk when the phone rang. I picked it up and got a recording. The recording offered me work as a movie extra if I would just call a certain local number. The recording didn't mention the name of the company from which it was calling, of course, and we don't have caller ID on our land line. (All the mobile phones do, of course; it's hard to get a mobile without caller ID nowadays.) I wrote down the number and called it and got another completely anonymous recording directing me to a toll-free number; this number explained that registering for the service would cost $21.95.

So I went to the National Do Not Call Registry page and filed a complaint. I don't expect it to do any good, though, because to make a complaint, you need either the name of the company or the phone number the call came from. I entered the number I was referred to, but I'm sure that the company which owns that number will just point out that they never made an outgoing call to me and will evade punishment.

They should just die.