Not to be forgotten or buried...
With what more than a few of us, I'm sure, consider to be a sham re-installment process coming up in two days, it's important to remember that matters are not as settled as the opposition wants us to believe they are.
One was something I'd caught yesterday, as a spin-off of the MLK Day events, when John Kerry made a point of the disenfranchisement of thousands of voters. (Tammy sent me the specific link.) Being delivered in an almost passive-aggressive way (deciding not to challenge the election results but saying that there was something wrong) is hardly as forceful an approach as I'd wish, but it does still keep the issue in the periphery of the public eye. The election board system in Ohio is far too incestuous and potentially corrupt for the "official" certification there - and so any official certification by Congress using that information - to be considered a final word. You could do worse than to pay a visit to blackboxvoting.org -- as much for a look back as a look ahead -- and look down the "headlines" column on the right to get a taste of how corrupt the process has been.
Also, I'm still irritated how planted misinformation allowed G.W. Bush's dereliction of duty concerning his Texas Air National Guard committment to be turned into a CBS/Dan Rather bonfire. As Russ Baker reminds us, the underlying case is still there. (You may have to sign up with the Atlanta Journal Constitution in order to see that, but it's a quick process, is free, and quick. Baker additionally undersores the issue:
Unfortunately, neither of these is something likely to roar back to life soon in the jaded public eye, but at the very least don't let anyone tell you they were debunked, discredited or truly settled.Like CBS's staffers and
journalists from many media outlets, I explored Bush's National Guard
service extensively during the election campaign. What I found were gaps
upon puzzles upon misstatements upon nondisclosures.
Certain facts are clear: As a young man at Yale, George Bush vocally
supported the Vietnam War and criticized others who failed to serve,
then got himself into a safe unit for the sons of the privileged, in the
Texas Air National Guard. We also know that, for reasons yet unclear, he
failed to complete the final two years of a six-year military obligation
to fly jets, for which taxpayers had spent a good part of a million
dollars training him.
- Bush claims that he left his unit prematurely in order to accept a
high-level opportunity in campaign management in Alabama. But campaign
colleagues described his work as grunt-level make-work, marked by a
predilection to show up in the afternoon hours and to brag about
carousing the night before. In addition, the widow of the Alabama
campaign manager, who was a close friend of Bush's father, told me that
Bush was only in Alabama because the senior Bush had begged her husband
to hire his son in order to get him out of some kind of trouble back in
Texas.
-According to the widow of the flyer brought in to replace Bush in the
Texas Air Guard, his commanding officer, Jerry Killian(who died in 1984)
had explained to her and her husband that Bush had left the unit
abruptly because of problems flying his plane -- and Killian had
suspected that alcohol abuse had something to do with it. (Bush has
admitted to past alcohol problems but not offered specifics relating to
his military service.) More than one of his flying comrades indicated
that Bush's behavior became suddenly erratic several years into his time
with the Guard.
(The questioned CBS documents were memos purportedly generated by
Killian; his own reputation is unblemished.}
-Bush has said on repeated occasions that he continued to fulfill his
military obligation while in Alabama, but high-profile efforts to
substantiate that, including the offer of reward monies, have turned up
no corroboration. And Bush's former ghostwriter told me that Bush
admitted to him in 1999 that he had done no service at all in Alabama,
claiming to be "excused."
One thing is certain about the CBS documents: If they are not real, then
they were prepared by someone who had enough inside information to make
them look almost real, but who also knew enough to include a few small
telltale signs that might point to their inauthenticity - clues that
might be overlooked by a news organization racing to put out an
important, timely story under competitive pressures.
It's striking that the critique of the documents appeared on the
Internet just hours after CBS aired them, and that the person claiming
to be a document expert turned out to be an attorney with strong GOP
connections who had no such credentials. How was this man able so
quickly to produce his critique, and how did the story grow so quickly
to overtake the basic questions about the president's own murky past
performance? Did Rove's well-documented history of aggressive
last-minute campaign ploys have anything to do with this episode? And
why, despite all the questions, has Bush never offered a detailed
accounting of his doings in those missing years? That's a news story no
one yet has tackled.
Without excusing serious errors on CBS's part, an even more important
question remains: Why have we decided that the transgressions of a news
organization -- that, at worst, overshot on a legitimate story - are
more important than a thorough examination of the personal character of
our Commander in Chief, presiding over a highly controversial war in
Iraq and having no hesitation to expose others - including large numbers
of Texas Guardsmen -- to mortal risk when he himself may have even
failed to complete a safe military obligation of his own? - Russ Baker
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