Television has priorities, after all. Television can be a wonderful tool in a democracy, making news accessible to large numbers of people. But it runs the danger of trivializing democracy, too. George W. was not acting a part in a fictional drama. Television is hazardous for our political health because it has the extraordinary power to blur the ability to make important moral distinctions.
Television gives equal weight to unequal facts.
Reporters and correspondents fell all over David Boies when he arrived as Al Gore's lead lawyer with the fanfare of a Hollywood star and he acted his part well. He persuaded the Florida Supreme Court that dimpled ballots had been counted in an Illinois election, and this should make them kosher in Florida. But the affidavit he submitted to substantiate that precedent was a fraud and a hoax. Illinois had actually done the opposite. Illinois had nixed dimples.