Yesterday, CNN Presents did a hack report on John Kerry–hardly more than a one-hour political attack ad. There was some positive content on Kerry, but most was negative, and each portion of the show was commented on by Republicans, who further attacked Kerry. Every aspect of Kerry’s life was represented in a shady, selfish or just plain negative manner.

I do not recall any program about Bush being anywhere near as negative; they are usually love tomes, and I greatly suspect that if CNN Presents does a show on Bush on the eve of the Republican convention, it will not be nearly so critical, nor would it have Al Gore, Joe Conason and other liberal voices getting to dig in to Bush on every point. We’ll see, but I’d be willing to bet quite a bit on the prediction.

A report on CNN News earlier today just outright lied: it said that Kerry was enacting “a shift away from” negative attack ads on Bush, and towards more positive, optimistic advertising. First of all, since Kerry started his national campaign, his advertising has been 73% positive, while Bush’s has been 75% negative. That makes the reporter’s claim an outright lie.

But more damaging is the insinuation: that Kerry has been negative, that it hasn’t worked against Bush, that Kerry is changing strategies, a sign of weakness–and the story completely left out how negative Bush has been, and that he is not getting any more positive.

It is bitterly ironic that most popular press coverage is like this–slapping down Kerry and aggrandizing Bush–and then the press wonders aloud, “why is Bush staying so high in the polls, and Kerry can’t seem to get ahead?”

Update: CNN finally provided a transcript of the report. The line in question is: “The upbeat tone, part of the ongoing shift away from criticizing Bush administration policies and toward a more optimistic message on the stump, leading up to the Democratic National Convention.”

No evidence whatsoever is given to support this statement; as far as anyone can tell, this reporter simply pulled it out of his hiney.

At the time of this update, CNN Presents still has no transcript of their slime job on Kerry.