Oct.13-19 - More Returns and Changes

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:

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

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.