Who is the more foolish, the fool or the fool that follows?

After Waco my parents and I never really got real big into news. We still kept an eye on current events but the sad fact of several events by all mainstream media has proved that they will lie, cheat, and steal their way through their stories to push their own view and to sensationalise. So everything is taken with low credibility and a grain of salt. (With a small exception, a few places have our loyalty, but they have their own agenda.)

Participating with my Ride-Alongs with the local law enforcement per my criminal justice degree requirement I learned one interesting fact. Even in cases with arrest records and scanner info making almost everything totally public, the media still screws stuff up almost consistantly.

CBS, ABC, and NBC just can't be trusted. Neither can the AP nor PBS nor NPR. Their bias is so overt, so clear, so left-leaning, that all of their assumptions drive their stories in the same directions. Bush is bad, Democrats are the only party that cares about "people" and Republicans are misguided idiots. Religion is awful and abortion is a birth control right. There's no real diversity in the MSM, just more of the same old.... stuff.

Power Line has a Cox and Forkum cartoon that sums it up quite nicely.

CBS screwed up big time, there's no doubt.

Nevertheless, one forged memo doesn't mean the story was actually false. Texans for Truth never had to pay the $50K they offered for proof that GWB completed his military "service" (such as it was).

CBS helped Bush out by making this story a non-issue.

Scotch,

Bush had enough credits each year to satisfy his commitment to the Texas Air National Guard. There is no disputing that fact.

Okay, so with body bags streaming in from Vietnam and the country ripping apart at the seams, the future leader of the free world boldy...satisfied his commitments? In Texas - with at least one long gap in his service that also can't be disputed?

Clinton at least opposed the war. Kerry actually chose to put himself in harm's way. GWB did neither. Sure, this was in his drunk-driving, coke-snorting youth that conservatives love to excuse. But his lack of actual combat experience and hawkish leanings are a bad mix, in my opinion.

There's no denying that rich, white, politcally connected men of his age were able to pull strings and avoid actual combat. Given the issues that were raised about Kerry's service, I think it was fair to look at GWB's own record.

We live in an age where hiring an undocumented nanny can disqualify you for political service. An unexplained gap in military service during wartime sounds like a story to me.

" Kerry actually chose to put himself in harm's way."
No, scotch, he did not. He, and his biographer, prior to the campaign, stated that he applied for and received deferments. Only when his deferments ran out and were not renewed, did Kerry 'volunteer' for Navy patrol boat duty. Kerry himself stated he did so because, at that time, swift boats were not operating in combat areas. They were not then being used for river duty. By the time Kerry, after training, had arrived in Vietnam that situation had changed, but fortunately for Kerry he rapidly put in for three purple hearts and was the only naval officer in Vietnam to get an early out for doing so.
Kerry and his biographer make it very plain that he was trying to avoid service in Vietnam first, and then combat duty second. Those admissions were made, of course, when his political career was still advancing on his accusations against his 'band of brothers' as war criminals and he was still proudly ashamed of his service in Vietnam. (As in, 'I tried to avoid serving in that dirty immoral war, but they forced me'.)
Once Kerry became a Presidential candidate, of course, his campaign advanced the image of Kerry as the proud Vietnam vet, who volunteered for dangerous duty after volunteering for Vietnam, and who would do to the terrorists what he did to the dirty VC.

I voted Democrat most of my life, until the last Maryland gubernatorial election. As a Vietnam ERA veteran (not IN Vietnam and not combat) I am determined to never support a Democratic candidate again because my party nominated the most hated anti-veteran candidate possible. It was yet another twist of the knife for the Vietnam veterans and I and many others will never forget.

PS: Mary Mapes (from the CBS report) stated in an email exchange with her CBS people that her investigation of Bush's NG service showed that Bush volunteered for Vietnam but was turned down in deference to other volunteers with more flight time. Of course, we, the public, didn't learn this from Mary Mapes in her report broadcast by CBS.

Scotch,

Not everyone in the military served in Vietnam. And not every President has actual combat experience. That only became a prerequisite when the Kerry campaign tried to paint him as the real JFK.

No mention of what (if any) punishment will be imposed on the forger of the GWB NG documents. For anyone to attempt to rig - with the aid of a willing media - a presidential election, is incomprehensible and should carry federal punishment of the highest order.

Bush declared that he did not want to serve overseas. Kerry declared that he was willing to serve overseas.

Vietnam? Overseas.

Okay, so I'm not the biggest Kerry fan in the world, but I don't understand how Bush's hyprocrisy can be ignored by intelligent conservatives.

If Bush had actually been opposed to the Vietnam war, then I could excuse his unwillingness to serve. But he apparently approved of that war so much that he's dragged us into another bloody, expensive war with no clear exit strategy.

Sure, the forger of this document should be found and brought to justice for attempting to "rig" this election (by telling what is substantially the truth via forged evidence). While we're at it, let's prosecute Kenneth Blackwell for violating campaign law by soliciting illegal corporate donations and Diebold for infractions far to number to list here. If you're interested, here's a site by a Bush-voting, gun-toting, democracy-loving computer programmer that's worth checking out:

http://www.equalccw.com/voteprar.html

The CBS forged memo, while a serious issue, pales in comparison to what else went wrong these last two elections.