Canadian Musings

Dan Rather has apparently chosen to carry some water for John Kerry's election campaign. Too bad. He's dragging down 60 Minutes, CBS News, and much of the mainstream media by his obstinance.

Much has already been written about the forgeries which Mr. Rather presented in support of his claims. That they are indeed forgeries is established well enough, but we'll focus on the evidence that, for example, typographic examination demonstrates that it could not have been produced in the early 1970's in an Air National Guard office. More is given at INDC Journal or PowerLine Blog

But if we set the forgeries aside, what is Mr. Rather's story? It is simply that Mr. Bush lost his flight status by failing to take a medical exam. So what. That's been known for ages: in Mr. Bush's personnel file there is a memo by Hodges, dated September 1972, saying exactly that and giving the effective date of the status change as of August 1.

Yet the forgeries allege that Killian (who reported to Hodges) ordered the status change in a memo dated August 1: an extremely odd coincidence.

So Mr. Rather's story is not bolstered by the forgeries except in one detail: the allegation that Mr. Bush failed to follow a direct order to attend his physical exam. Why then, did Mr. Rather publish suspect evidence except to make that specific charge?

But if Mr. Bush failed to follow that direct order, why is there no mention in the Hodges memo? Why is there no other record of such an order?

The basic content of the forgeries may be true or false; I don't know. I don't care. What all of the documentation proves is that Mr. Bush fulfilled his duties and was honorably discharged.

On the other hand, I have concluded that these documents are indeed forgeries. And I will never again be able to watch Dan Rather, 60 Minutes, CBS News, or other mainstream media with an open trust accorded to competent and professional journalists.

PowerLineBlog led the investigation, and has extensive coverage of what's gone on.

And in case you've been hiding for the last couple days, here's a quick recap: Dan Rather put out a story Wednesday evening on 60 Minutes that included documents purporting that President Bush missed a physical exam he was ordered to attend, and various other bad things. But the documents would appear to be forgeries. Some have suggested that the Democratic National Committee and the Kerry campaign had their hands on these documents earlier this year, and may have been CBS's source for them.

Now Dan Rather is hanging in the wind, with the experts who CBS cited all clarifying what they did - and did not - say. None of their own experts is fully backing the CBS claims. But, being the bastions of journalism which they are, CBS is now basically saying that they wanted to raise questions about the President's service regardless of any factual evidence.

And they wonder that people are losing respect for traditional mainstream media?

Love it.

On June 20, 1971, John Kerry and John O'Neill debated on the Dick Cavett show. The following is an excerpt from the transcript, available here through the SwiftVets website.

The fact of the matter remains that after I received my third wound, I was told that I could return to the United States. I deliberated for about two weeks because there was a very difficult decision in whether or not you leave your friends because you have an opportunity to go, but I finally made the decision to go back and did leave of my own volition because I felt that I could do more against he war back here. And when I got back here, I was serving as an aide to an admiral in New York City, and I wrote a letter through him requesting that I be released from the Navy early because of my opposition, and I was granted that release, and I have been working against the war ever since then.

The question remains for Kerry to answer how it was that he came to be released from his service in the Reserves some six years later than some might have expected.