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Busted!
The whole "CBS Hoax" story came and went across the blogosphere while I was gone, forcing me to miss out posting at least a "ha-ha" in response. Well, nobody's ever accused me of missing an opportunity to lay my own whip to a deceased donkey, so HA-HA!:
On Wednesday night, CBS News released four memos it claimed were written in 1972 and 1973 by George W. Bush's commander in the Texas Air National Guard. In one of the documents, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian writes that a Guard official was "pushing to sugar coat" Bush's training evaluation; in another, Killian suspects that Bush is "talking to someone upstairs" about getting transferred. Within a few hours of the CBS report, bloggers were questioning the authenticity of the documents. By today, the doubts were on the front page of the Washington Post.
A very nice summary all-around. I remember reading the original story in the Post on the way to Day 0 (set-up day) of our convention and thinking, "here we go again." That big media fell all over itself to report this new wrinkle in Bush's ANG career while they sat on the Kerry/Cambodia fiasco until their asses burned was disappointing but not particularly surprising. When it turned out they rushed so fast they didn't even bother to make sure the documents were written on a typewriter, let alone had even the slightest whiff of legitimacy, well, let's just say "tickled pink" doesn't even cover what I felt.
Of course, the $64 question now is who really wrote the damned things? Who gave them to CBS? Why did they run so fast with them?
Yeah, I know the answers too, but I want to hear you say them out loud. ;)
I am so sick of hearing about things that happened 35 year ago or more. Let's hear about the ban on assualt weapons that expires today or what is happening in Korea or how the hell can we get out of the mess in Iraq. I really don't want either of them to win but that would leave that Kook Nadar.
With the way the elections have been run since 1992 why would anyone put themselves through the torture of running for anything.
Posted by: Pat on September 13, 2004 10:00 AMPat - I hate to tell you this, but the ban on assault weapons doesn't expire today. The ban on weapons that resemble military assault rifles does, however, expire today. To the best of my knowledge, all of the weapons on this ban list are semi-automatic (just like many hunting rifles), have magazines (just like most hunting rifles), but resemble their military counterparts - and in some instances are actually the same rifle, modified so it doesn't have selective fire (the ability to fire single rounds, bursts, or full auto). Therefore, the entire just of this ban was to ban rifles that look dangerous.
Of course it should expire. It was a stupid law in the first place (all automatic weapons are already banned - and have been since the 70's - unless you are a specially-licensed collector) as it has had ZERO effect on firearms related crime. Until we get to the root of the problem, banning weapons will continue to be a pointless exercize in futility that infringes upon the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Posted by: ron on September 13, 2004 05:53 PMI'm most amused at watching Dan Rather & CBS collectively falling on their sword. Having read Bernard Goldberg's book "Bias," I guarantee that there's some interesting muttering going on behind the scenes at CBS right now.
This reminds me of when police videotaped DC mayor Marion Barry smoking crack, and then showed him the tape. His response: "Who you gonna' believe - me or the tape?"
Delusional.
Posted by: Rob on September 13, 2004 07:28 PMThe memos have not been debunked.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/09/11/MNGO68NEKR1.DTL
"Philip Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Boston Globe on Friday that after further study, he now believed the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time."
Ultimately, they may yet prove to be false. However, it is disingenuous to say, "...they didn't even bother to make sure the documents were written on a typewriter, let alone had even the slightest whiff of legitimacy..."
Hugo - you should check out this link provided to us by the happy boys at Instapundit. The arguments this guy makes are rather persuasive. Now - his proof could be bogus, but it does seem rather well researched and all...
Posted by: Ron on September 13, 2004 08:42 PMIIRC, the selectric composer theory has been resoundingly debunked... the thing cost ~$6k in 1970 (i.e., ~ $20k in today's dollars). And even though the formatting is *possible* with that machine, actually doing it is quite involved.
Thank you for playing, please try again...
Posted by: scott on September 13, 2004 08:47 PM