Posted on 09/16/2004 6:38:05 AM PDT by PastaBagel
I've run through the four possible scenarios in this document story here. Because it's unlikely that the documents are authentic, i.e. written in 1972/1973 by Killian, or his secretary, then CBS has at least breached journalistic ethics by running a true story based on bogus documents, or at the worst participated in libelling the president.
The full article addressed the subject in greater detail, but consider this: If Killian himself had written those document well after 1973 based on his memory of events from 1973, then there still should never have been a story, because Killian may have remembered things incorrectly, or may have forgotten other things.
Documents are objective recordations of facts that do not change over time, memories are subjective...
Read the full article and see the diagram here: CBS Alters Reality to Protect the Democrats
can we even rule out the possibility of alien interference? Not from outer space I mean, you know, Bin Laden, or saddam hussein. They'd stop at nothin to damage our great country, and if they can hijack planes from INSIDE the greatest country on earth, then they could sure as hell manage a little document or two.
What do you really know about George W. Bush’s time in the Air National Guard?
That he didn’t show up for duty in Alabama? That he missed a physical? That his daddy got him in?
News coverage of the president’s years in the Guard has tended to focus on one brief portion of that time — to the exclusion of virtually everything else. So just for the record, here, in full, is what Bush did:
The future president joined the Guard in May 1968. Almost immediately, he began an extended period of training. Six weeks of basic training. Fifty-three weeks of flight training. Twenty-one weeks of fighter-interceptor training.
That was 80 weeks to begin with, and there were other training periods thrown in as well. It was full-time work. By the time it was over, Bush had served nearly two years.
Not two years of weekends. Two years.
After training, Bush kept flying, racking up hundreds of hours in F-102 jets. As he did, he accumulated points toward his National Guard service requirements. At the time, guardsmen were required to accumulate a minimum of 50 points to meet their yearly obligation.
According to records released earlier this year, Bush earned 253 points in his first year, May 1968 to May 1969 (since he joined in May 1968, his service thereafter was measured on a May-to-May basis).
Bush earned 340 points in 1969-1970. He earned 137 points in 1970-1971. And he earned 112 points in 1971-1972. The numbers indicate that in his first four years, Bush not only showed up, he showed up a lot. Did you know that?
That brings the story to May 1972 — the time that has been the focus of so many news reports — when Bush “deserted” (according to anti-Bush filmmaker Michael Moore) or went “AWOL” (according to Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee).
Bush asked for permission to go to Alabama to work on a Senate campaign. His superior officers said OK. Requests like that weren’t unusual, says retired Col. William Campenni, who flew with Bush in 1970 and 1971.
“In 1972, there was an enormous glut of pilots,” Campenni says. “The Vietnam War was winding down, and the Air Force was putting pilots in desk jobs. In ’72 or ’73, if you were a pilot, active or Guard, and you had an obligation and wanted to get out, no problem. In fact, you were helping them solve their problem.”
So Bush stopped flying. From May 1972 to May 1973, he earned just 56 points — not much, but enough to meet his requirement.
Then, in 1973, as Bush made plans to leave the Guard and go to Harvard Business School, he again started showing up frequently.
In June and July of 1973, he accumulated 56 points, enough to meet the minimum requirement for the 1973-1974 year.
Then, at his request, he was given permission to go. Bush received an honorable discharge after serving five years, four months and five days of his original six-year commitment. By that time, however, he had accumulated enough points in each year to cover six years of service.
During his service, Bush received high marks as a pilot.
A 1970 evaluation said Bush “clearly stands out as a top notch fighter interceptor pilot” and was “a natural leader whom his contemporaries look to for leadership.”
A 1971 evaluation called Bush “an exceptionally fine young officer and pilot” who “continually flies intercept missions with the unit to increase his proficiency even further.” And a 1972 evaluation called Bush “an exceptional fighter interceptor pilot and officer.”
Now, it is only natural that news reports questioning Bush’s service — in The Boston Globe and The New York Times, on CBS and in other outlets — would come out now. Democrats are spitting mad over attacks on John Kerry’s record by the group Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
And, as it is with Kerry, it’s reasonable to look at a candidate’s entire record, including his military service — or lack of it. Voters are perfectly able to decide whether it’s important or not in November.
The Kerry camp blames Bush for the Swift boat veterans’ attack, but anyone who has spent much time talking to the Swifties gets the sense that they are doing it entirely for their own reasons.
And it should be noted in passing that Kerry has personally questioned Bush’s service, while Bush has not personally questioned Kerry’s.
In April — before the Swift boat veterans had said a word — Kerry said Bush “has yet to explain to America whether or not, and tell the truth, about whether he showed up for duty.” Earlier, Kerry said, “Just because you get an honorable discharge does not, in fact, answer that question.”
Now, after the Swift boat episode, the spotlight has returned to Bush.
That’s fine. We should know as much as we can.
And perhaps someday Kerry will release more of his military records as well.
Byron York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week. E-mail: byork@thehill.com
(By Brilliant) Not only are the documents forged, but the important points made im them are clear fabrications. Specifically, the two important points, harped on endlessly by CBS and the other liberal media, are:
1. Bush disobeyed a direct order of his commanding officer. The memo states that Bush is ordered to appear for a physical on May 15. Bush did not do so, and the media concludes that Bush disobeyed the order, and so was insubordinate. There is only one problem: It did not happen. Other pilots point out that pilots were not ordered to appear for a physical. The deadline for the physical was established by Air Force rules, and was the pilot's birthday. The pilot was required by rule to appear for a physical every year on or before his birthday. Bush's birthday was July 6, so it would not have been appropriate to order him to appear for a physical on May 15. Of course, Bush never appeared for a July 6 physical either, but that's because he had already transferred out of the Texas Air National Guard by that time.
2. Bush's commanding officer was asked to sugar coat Bush's record and give him a rating even though Bush was absent. In the memos, Killian expresses consternation that he is being asked to rate Bush even though Bush was absent. The implication which is drawn by the media is that Bush's performance was substandard. The implication drawn by the Democrats is that Bush was AWOL. However, that aspect of the memos is also a clear fabrication. The reaons is that Killian had no reason to be consternated by Bush's absence because Killian himself had already signed an order (which is clearly authentic, and looks completely different from the forged orders), which authorized Bush to transfer out of the Texas Air National Guard to the Alabama National Guard. So why would he now be upset that Bush was not there? It makes no sense, and was obviously a fabrication by the forger.
Dan Rather's insistence that the orders may be fake but the information is trues is itself obviously a lie. This whole episode really is worse than Watergate. It's like Watergate with a complicit media. In Watergate, most of the people went to jail because they lied to investigators or to Congress. As in Watergate, I think we need an investigation by the DOJ and by Congress, though I would suggest that we wait until after the election to get it going in earnest. No sense in risking a liberal backlash at this point in time.
Looks like the truth is snowballing. It's about time these liars are shown.
Hearsay may be acceptable in reporting, but without the documents there is no story. It's just a couple partisans making accusations about a guy of the other party. Faking the documents makes the story more visually appealing, but it adds nothing to the substance of the report.
That scenario doesn't seem to make any sense. After 1973, Bush was out of the guard. Even if he was a problem, he was somebody else's problem.
I understand you're just covering the bases here. Anyone objective can look at the memo superimposed over the exact same memo written in Microsoft Word and realize it's a fake.
ping. And thanks!
Contact your sources on Alpha Centauri and see if they can come up with something. Wait, it's time for me to regenerate.
You have a sense of proportion that is at odds with mine. The least of the issues is the defamation of GWB.
I haven't read your article, and don't plan to. But the more interesting facets of this story to me are that the DNC and CBS may have worked this tory together (likely informally, via stragically palced people in both operation that are literally friends), while KNOWING it was based on forged documents. Not that they were fooled, they were not fooled. This was deliberate, and all kinds of eveidence supports that conclusion. CBS's experts say "inauthentic," but CBS cherry-picks expert testimony to justify running. Yeah, honesty my @ss.
The even larger point? That CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, AP, Reuters and others are similarly afflicted. The media is deceptive to the public. It doesn't always "lie" the same way CBS did with Killian-gate, but it always deceives. And that, in its own, is not news. What is noews is that more and more, one by one, people are realizing that the media has deceived them. And old-media will fade. ANd that is a great thing for freedom.
I think you missed this possibility. It is not "unlikely" that the documents are authentic, it is a certainty that they are phony. Why people are still using qualifiers when discussing these forged/fraudulent documents is beyond me. How much proof do you need?
You're right, but Killian himself may have written the new memo.
For example, maybe when Bush ran for governor in tx (and I don't know when killian died, so forgive me if this is impossible) killian wanted a "cover-your-ass" memo in his files, so he simply wrote it, dated it 1973, and didn't think there was a problem because to his recollection the facts in his memo are true.
This is the best possible outcome for CBS. because it isn't a forgery anymore (killian can't forge his own signature), but it is still a fake, because it's not a real memo from 1973
But it's still bogus.
I agree, and what you described is in fact libel, becasue they knowingly used the false documents to spread a story they knew was false.
Even if one takes it as a factual conclusion that GWB was defamed by CBS (slander, libel, take your pick), that is a minor point in context with the media bias and deception.
In April — before the Swift boat veterans had said a word — Kerry said Bush “has yet to explain to America whether or not, and tell the truth, about whether he showed up for duty.” Earlier, Kerry said, “Just because you get an honorable discharge does not, in fact, answer that question.”
Interesting comment by Kerry, in light of the fact that the timing of his own honorable discharge is so unusual. Is this another example of projecction? It is looking more and more as though the key to understanding Hanoi John is to look at what he accuses others of.
"Is there a possibility I missed?"
I don' think so, I like the technique of laying out all the possible conclusions in advance, it is something I have often done in conversations, it stops people from wandering all over the universe with their replies.
I have used the method in discussions with people about the O.J. Simpson case, as I see it there are only two possibilities, either he was guilty as charged or there was a massive police conspiracy, involving blood and other physical evidence, to frame a man who was at the time one of the most admired people on the planet and it was reported that most of the investigators did not know each other beforehand and the punishment for framing someone for murder in California was death. Which would you believe?
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