January 12, 2005

• No dogs or monkeys necessary to herd these sheep....
• I guess the fact that the story is big ol' honkin' lie is, you know, purely incidental.
• Which story do you mean, Jeff Harrell? (Seriously. I can't tell if you mean Palast's story about the CBS investigation or the story of Bush dodging the draft.)
• The documents from Bill Burkett were b.s. As for Bush: the man only did four of the six years of his National Guard requirement. 'Nough said.
• Regardless of the truth of the story, this is a great example of the potential negative effects of media consolidation- journalists losing their jobs for reporting something their bosses don't agree with, and then having very few or no alternative means of getting their opinion out because all the news media have been consolidated under a few big companies which means also that there is also only a limited range of 'officially allowed' opinions.
• While Palast's info on the background of the 'investigative committee' does cast a serious pall over their appropriateness, his rant does seem to be shaped by his own bias'. It seems to me that no matter what the total content of the 60 Min story, the focus of interest was clearly on the new Killian memos, which was the smoking gun that supposedly confirmed that Bush essentially went AWOL at the end of his National Guard tenure. All the other hard info about Bush's service record was very old news to anyone who'd been paying attention. Palast seems at best mistaken to declare the Killian memos were a minor detail to the 60 Min story.
• As someone who have read him on numerous occaisons before, let me say that Palast is an unreliable, severly biased and borderline deranged journalist. Regardless of the questions that are raised about Bush's TANG service, CBS badly bungled the story by any professional standard. Period.
• let me say that heminator is an unreliable, severly biased and borderline deranged comment poster. Regardless of the questions that are raised about heminator's monkeyfilter service, heminator badly bungled the interpretation of the story by any professional standard. Period.
• It doesn't really matter anymore: 1) Bush got re-elected anyway. 2) The documents are tainted now. Whether or not the documents are true is immaterial, since they will now and forever carry the taint of corruption. 3) No one cares. The vast majority of the public has moved on to other matters. It doesn't matter if there's been a crime committed because nobody cares. Well, nobody with any influence or the real power to do anything about it. Sure as hell, the Republicans don't care about doing the "right thing" anymore just for the sake of doing the right thing. I won't say the Democrats are much better on that count, either.
• wow that's some cynical paste you're eating there driving. And the worst part is I agree.
• So, then, whatever the truth is, it doesn't matter -- what matters is what the masses "care" about? Um, I'm not prepared to accept that way of looking at the world. It justifies intellectual and moral laziness.
• Hawthorne, the glib answer would be to say of course that I was referring to the CBS News story. But on second thought, the thought that Palast might be saying things he knows not to be true just to get publicity seems to make a lot of sense. But no, I was really talking about the CBS News story. One big, fat lie from the first frame to the last. If Mary Mapes told me where to find the men's room, I'd ask her for a second source.
• Okay, I'll bite: You're saying there was nothing untoward about Bush's military service, how he got his assignment, and how he left his assignment?
• Because, like, if you do, you should check out this.
• Heaven forbid you should ever besmirch Our Great Leader's reputation, Hawthorne. Everything he's ever done is above and beyond reproach! He's saving us from all the bad things in the world and anyone that thinks otherwise is either a traitor or a liar. Gee, this Kool-Aid is good...
• FAIR chips in its two cents on the issue.
• Here's what I don't get. Here's the thing that just completely baffles me. Why do people do dislike the President feel the need to take the "and another thing" approach? Want to have a conversation about the President? By all means, let's have a conversation about the President. (Well, I mean, I'm not going to be participating, because that ship has sailed. But in principle, go right ahead.) But no, that's not what happens. Instead, we get the "and another thing" phenomenon. "And another thing … he used to do drugs!" (This one is funniest when hauled out by the legalize-drugs people.) "And another thing … he talks with an accent!" "And another thing … he was discharged from the Guard early!" It's like people who dislike the President went a-reachin' for anything they could possibly find that could in any way reflect badly on him. He chews with his mouth open! He fell off a Segway! He once used an illegal hold in a college rugby game! It's disingenuous and disappointing. CBS' story was that the President exercised influence to get into the Guard. This is false, a concoction made up out of whole cloth. Then they said that his CO wrote disparaging letters about him. The letters were forged. Then they said he failed to report for duty. Again, a falsehood. But the biggest lie of all was that any of that stuff — even if it had been true — would have been relevant to anybody, anywhere.
• I agree with Jeff. Shocking, isn't it. There's plenty of things in just the last five years to look back on to discredit him.
• Yet, when the swiftboat vets came out, was there no outrage for poor John Kerry? Or was it ok when they did the "And another thing" bit to him? Life must be wonderful when you can ignore things that inconvenience your world view...
• News alert! The Pot (the Right, represented in this case by Jeff Harrell) is calling the Kettle (the Left) black!
• But the biggest lie... You keep saying that word, but I don't think it means what you think it means. Just because you don't believe something doesn't make it a lie.