A Small Helping Of Crow... But There's STILL A Story Here

[filkertom]

The Washington Post has a detailed graphic analysis of the CBS memos. Sure look fake, or at least recreated badly.

Their content is still uncontested, i.e., Bush disobeyed a direct order and went AWOL.

Update: Eeyup, the memos are bogus.

Their content is still uncontested. Check out the link below in shsilver's comment.

Comments

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

You might also want to take a look at this article in Salon.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You're right -- I forgot to mention it. Superb article. (Requires Salon subscription or a Free Day Pass by clicking through an ad -- no biggie.)

[billroper]

I'm looking at the article in Salon and am fascinated by the paragraph below:

On May 26, 1972, Lt. Col. Reese Bricken, commander of the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, informed Bush that a transfer to his nonflying unit would be unsuitable for a fully trained pilot such as he was, and that Bush would not be able to fulfill any of his remaining two years of flight obligation.

Here's the document that they link to. I don't understand how the text of the memo, concluding with "we're glad to have you", supports the contention in the paragraph. In fact, other analysis I've seen indicates that Bricken said fine and HQ bounced it at a later date, leaving Bush scrambling for an alternative billet and having to make up service time.

For a superb article, they seem to be awfully sloppy.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Context is, as usual, everything. Context is, as usual, ignored.

Quoting from the memo, Lt. Col. Bricken's comments in their entirety:

Your application for assignment to the 9921 Air Reserve Sq is acceptable and approved herewith. You already understand that this is a Training Category G, Pay Group None, Reserve Section MM proposition. The continuation of this type unit is uncertain at this time and we may last 3 months, 6 months, a year or who knows! With this in mind, if you are willing to accept assignment under these circumstances, welcome! We're glad to have you.

Which translates to me as, "Well, I can't think of a reason to technically deny it. It's a training job, and you're already trained, and we have no idea how long we'll actually be here, but... sure, what the heck!" Which actually strikes me as pretty irresponsible on his part as well.

Am I very wrong, Bill?

What this is, young padawan, is another example of someone in the chain of command coddling a spoiled rich kid. Dubya could say, "Well, see, I was assigned"... to a frickin' training position. Pay Grade None? He had money.

He was trying to game the system. And the system, sensitive to power, went along with it.

[billroper]

I did not ignore the context. If I wanted to ignore the context, I wouldn't have posted the bloody link.

Read the paragraph in the Salon article that I quoted. Read the document that they link to. The two don't agree.

Now, it is true that Bush was later told by superiors in the National Guard that the 9921st wouldn't do. But there's no evidence from what's presented that Bricken did so. So Salon would appear to be pulling facts out of an orifice where the sun don't shine. Given that, I don't much feel like fact-checking the rest of the "superb" article; I start to suspect that it's yet another pile of partisan BS.

Here's the Paragraph to go with the Document

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

"On May 26, 1972, Lt. Col. Reese Bracken, commander of the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, informed Bush that a transfer to his nonflying unit would be unsuitable for a fully trained pilot such as he was, and that Bush would not be able to fulfill any of his remaining two years of flight obligation."

Now, yeah, Bricken told him this in a jovial, old-boys-club manner, saying sure, he was welcome -- but also that he couldn't use this assignment to meet his actual flying requirements. It would be logged as training time, not flying time.

I don't see the discrepancy.

Re: Here's the Paragraph to go with the Document

[billroper]

At this point, I become firmly convinced that you aren't actually reading what I post, because if you go back up this thread you will find in italics that I posted exactly that paragraph already.

I don't need it quoted to me again when I quoted it to you in the first place.

Re: Here's the Paragraph to go with the Document

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Y'know, I think this one has devolved into We're Not Hearing Each Other. At which point I apologize for not being clear, say that I don't think we can agree on this one, and offer my hand.

Re: Here's the Paragraph to go with the Document

[billroper]

Consider it shaken. :)

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

I just know that CBS is going to find some poor schlub of a production assistant to take the fall rather than Dan Rather or any other executive type. Sigh. That is still no excuse for not doing their own legwork.

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

Why anyone would bother to forge a document without making the least effort to make the forgery credible is beyond me...unless the perpetrator specifically wanted the forgery to be discovered in order to discredit a person or party.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Which has been discussed a lot on some of the blogs this past weekend. The question is... who, and who?

[mrlogic.livejournal.com]

It looks to me as if Burkett was duped and will take a heavy fall for this...but who is his "anonymous source"?

At this point, unless he's been threatened, it seems to me that he ought to reveal who that was. It's kind of important.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

I have a mental image of the scene after CBS ran these documents by the White House for comment:

Scenario 1:
"Where the hell did this come from?"
"Beats me. What do you want to do about it?"
"Return it without comment, stand back, and pass the popcorn."

Scenario 2:
"OK, you win. Rather fell for it."
[George Bush hands Karl Rove a $1 bill]

[kengr]

Just a note. *one* of the points the Washington Post article makes is meaningless. In 1974 I owned an IBM "Executive" typewriter. Which was far from new when I got it. It had proportional spacing (and was a bitch to learn to use because of it)

But the real killer is the "fi" kerning... no typewriter would do that.

I find it somewhere between annoying and amusing that while making poiints about what typewriters could and couldn't do they made misatakes as to what was an wasn't relevant.

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Especially, check out the New York Times account (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/politics/campaign/20bama.htm?pagewanted=print&position=) of W. Bush in Alabama. Especially the account of W's first political dirty tricks, in the campaign he abandoned his guard duty to work. (Reg. req'd.) And watch (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/15/60II/main643768.shtml) Marian Carr Knox, the secretary who typed the real memos, blow Dan Rather's mind by telling him that the contents are true.

If we stick to this, keep calling W. a deserter, it might sink his campaign.