Boehlert in Salon on Bush’s Guard Duty
This is actually kind of fascinating. Not that there still are stories appearing about Bush’s National Guard duty; that’s pretty much the opposite of fascinating, at least for me these days, and almost certainly for most of you. But this latest piece in Salon by Eric Boehlert manages to be both interesting and relevant, and that blows me away: Stung!
If you care at all about the truth of Bush’s time in the Guard, or the way he’s continued to misrepresent it to this day, you really should read this. Very much worth watching the commercial for the one-day pass.
September 9th, 2004 at 2:40 am
It’s good stuff. But if anyone thinks this will sway any Bush voters away from him, I think they’re being naive. His people made up their minds about him long ago, and they’ve already endured a superhuman amount of cognitive dissonance to get to this point. They’re not going to give up on him now – no way.
September 9th, 2004 at 7:08 am
I don’t think it’s going to sway his base. I think it might well move some of the people who were persuaded to waffle from Kerry to Bush by the Swift Boat liars to waffle back again. And it might help motivate some of the Kerry supporters who otherwise might not bother to come to the polls to do so. So I think it will have at least some impact on the election.
But that’s really not why I linked to it. I just honestly thought it was an interesting wrap up of how a number of independent sources are all zeroing in on the same truth: Bush lied about his Guard duty, and is continuing to do so, in a fairly brazen way that is increasingly transparent as such. That’s the real message here for me, and it’s one that complements the rest of the case against Bush: That he really has no business being president, and only maintains the fiction that he should be by smoke and mirrors.
September 9th, 2004 at 8:37 am
My favorite part about the latest guard stuff is how after the 60 Minutes story last night, the White House suddenly “found” the documents revealed in the TV piece. The question on everyone’s mind should be, what else are they hiding?
Here’s my best-case-scenario prediction: Bush is Nixon. He gets re-elected, maybe by a large margin. But early in his second term, everything starts unraveling. We can only hope.
September 9th, 2004 at 9:01 am
I don’t think the Nixon scenario is very likely. Nixon faced a Democratic congress and an aggressive media, while Bush almost certainly wouldn’t face either in a hypothetical second term.
“Best case scenario”? I know you’re depressed and cynical these days, but surely you can imagine an outcome better than that. I know I can.
Sigh. Two more months, and we’ll know. (Assuming we don’t get some kind of Electoral College stalemate, and state-by-state voting in Congress, or something equally wacky.)
September 9th, 2004 at 12:23 pm
I can *imagine* a better outcome, but yes, I do feel pretty beaten down these days, and not just by the election. Better days ahead.
September 9th, 2004 at 12:27 pm
The phrase “aggressive media” does bring a smile to my face, though. What happened to those guys? There’s a doctoral thesis if I ever heard one.
September 9th, 2004 at 2:51 pm
I don’t like the Nixon scenario because the VP is of the same party. If the job went next to Gore or Kerry, that would be more just. Alas, the only lesson Watergate really taught the Rethugs was ‘don’t get caught next time.’ They kept the White House (Ford) long enough for Nixon to get pardoned, and the post-Watergate housecleaning was utterly undone after only six years (Reagan).
Bottom line: Watergate didn’t hurt the Rethugs very much, although it sure seemed that way during the mid-to-late 70’s. They then analyzed the system and made sure to go after every part of it, which is why they’re a juggernaut now. Knowing what I do now, I think the Dems’ worst error was to think that their dominance would last forever. They should have overhauled the system ALL THE WAY while they had the clout.
What sort of overhaul?
Go to my new blog and scroll down to “What is a Random Mandarin?” We need something like that.
http://random_mandarin.blogspot.com/
September 11th, 2004 at 1:12 pm
I think your title says its an article from SLATE while your note correctly states its SALON.
September 11th, 2004 at 1:23 pm
Oops. Thanks. Fixed.
September 12th, 2004 at 2:33 pm
Adam believes: “My favorite part about the latest guard stuff is how after the 60 Minutes story last night, the White House suddenly “found” the documents revealed in the TV piece. The question on everyone’s mind should be, what else are they hiding?”
Adam, what else indeed. I assume you are aware of the issues being discussed in both the MSM and blogs regarding whether the documents are real or forged, and that the docs in question were provided to the white house by CBS. I will assume that you can see that you erred based upon flawed information. I don’t know if the documents are forged or not, but taking a step back, CBS’s response to the matter raises suspicions to say the least. They appear to be stonewalling, and a cynic (or your average far-righter) would say that they are using the time to create a paper trail to cover their behinds. Obviously, they are not completely forthcoming with the pertinent details of the matter. Why? Maybe its arrogance – they feel they don’t have to. Maybe its because they realize that there is a very good chance that they were hoodwinked and are working on a way to save as much face as possible when they inevitably have to fess up. Maybe its because there is more to the matter than is being considered at this point. In my mind, the latter is the worst case scenario: The DNC, Kerry’s campaign, or someone that can be shown to have been affiliate with them provided the documents in question. If so, say goodbye to Kerry’s hopes. I don’t believe Kerry would have anything at all to do with such tactics, but frankly, I don’t put it past others in the DNC and his campaign. The timing is suspect given the Bush bounce from the RNC – certainly Kerry’s campaign is struggling to rebound, so the prospect of ‘dirty dealings’ is not – in my mind – out of the picture. I hope not, but given the tenor of this election, I can not rule it out. I hope no one out there is foolish enough to believe that only the Republicans are capable of dirty politics. At the end of the day, we are all human, there is an insane amount of pressure on both sides to win at any cost, and given the positives for Bush and lack of positives for Kerry right now, I fear that someone may have stepped too far over the line. Again, I hope not, but I can’t rule out the possibility. If CBS does the right thing, and either *proves* the critics wrong, or confesses and begs forgiveness, it can be salvaged. The problem would then begin to go away and be replaced by the next thing – something possibly more positive for Kerry. But if CBS continues to stonewall, questions will be asked about who would would have benefitted most if the bloggers had not raised the issue of the documents as possible forgeries and the CBS report was taken at face value – as obviously CBS and others in the DNC/campaign had hoped. Once those questions begin, Kerry’s chances of becoming president end.
September 12th, 2004 at 2:50 pm
Well, if you’re going to posit that these documents were forgeries planted at CBS by a political campaign, I’d think that the Bush campaign is a much more likely suspect than Kerry’s campaign. According to the information I’ve seen so far, the forgeries, if that’s what they are, were fairly easy to spot as such. The overall effect, in terms of the larger campaign, is to innoculate Bush against further questioning of his National Guard history, and to discredit the large body of apparently quite solid evidence indicating that Bush received special treatment and failed to perform adequately (or even, in several cases, at all).
This benefits Kerry exactly how?
And whose campaign is it that is headed by someone famous as a master of dirty tricks like this? Hint: his initials are K.R.
Overall, though, this is an awfully silly thing to be spending our energy on. The real issue is Bush’s record in office. You want four more years of his kind of ineptitude, well, then, he’s your man. Good luck with that.
September 12th, 2004 at 5:38 pm
First, I agree: awfully silly thing… However, it is the current “big thing” in the election and will have an effect – large or small – on the election. I appreciate your perspective and hope you are right, but try as I might I can’t see the bush campaign being the source of the documents, it just doesn’t pass the smell test. First, just how would they provide them to CBS? Certainly, if CBS knew or had reason to suspect that the documents were from the bush camp, they would be screaming so at the top of their journalistic lungs. Doing so would take the quite considerable heat off their integrity and organization, and more importantly to the smell test, doing so would certainly doom the bush campaign. And that is too sweet an opportunity to pass up. Giving the devil is due, KR is no dummy, the risk to the bushies of CBS ostensibly discovering that the docs came from the bush camp carries far too much weight – especially when you are basking in the glow of an apparent ‘bounce’.