For much of my life as a teen and an adult, I’ve been involved in risky things.
I walked steel while my father built highrises; I’ve sailed offshore, climbed rock and mountains, raced cars and bicycles (the most dangerous!) and motorcycles. I like doing those things and the people who do those things, in no small part because they have very little bullshit in them.
If you lie to yourself about where you are and what you’re doing while sailing a small boat from San Francisco to Los Angeles, you are in a world of trouble. If you lie to yourself while setting protection on a rock face a thousand feet above the ground, you’re going to die.
I don’t like a lot of what the Republican party has to offer; that’s OK, I think we need a national dialog to make good policies. It takes two.
But given that, it may be puzzling to some (hey, JC, how’ re you?) why it is that I bash the media for their blind partisanship toward establishment liberalism, instead of cheering them as an ally.It’s because I find myself in a risky place surrounded by people who have lost the ability to tell bullshit from reality. Our party is wounded, leaking ideologically and demographically, and we sit here drinking quack nostrums made from apricot pits and listening to fake spirit mediums tell us everything will be OK because our dead ancestors FDR, JFK, and LBJ are looking over us.
They’re not.
Instead we get incredible nonsense like this defiant screed from Mary Mapes, victim:
Much has been made about the fact that these documents are photocopies and therefore cannot be trusted, but decades of investigative reporting have relied on just such copies of memos, documents and notes. In vetting these documents, we did not have ink to analyze, original signatures to compare, or paper to date. We did have context and corroboration and believed, as many journalists have before and after our story, that authenticity is not limited to original documents. Photocopies are often a basis for verified stories.
Read the whole unbelievable thing. The go read Appendix 4 of the CBS report itself, which concludes:
Tytell concluded, for the reasons described below, that (i) the relevant portion of the Superscript Exemplar was produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, (ii) the Killian documents were not produced on an Olympia manual typewriter, and (iii) the Killian documents were produced on a computer in Times New Roman typestyle . Tytell acknowledged that deterioration in the Killian documents from the copying and downloading process made the comparison of typestyles “to some extent a subjective call.” However, he believed the differences were sufficiently significant to conclude that the Killian documents were not produced on a typewriter in the early 1970s and therefore were not authentic.
Now I will leave to others the question of why this conclusion which seems both pretty obvious and well-proven were glossed over in the report itself; there is no other typographic analysis of the documents, as far as I can tell.
Both mainstream Democratic liberalism and free American journalism have been incredibly valuable to our country and to the world.
But when their leadership gets cocooned in – bullshit, there’s no other word for it – what they do is disastrous on two fronts.
First, we can’t decide on good actions because we have no idea what reality looks like.
Second, we won’t get elected because the voters don’t believe we’re connected to any reality that they recognize or that we can prove.
Both are bad for the Democratic Party, bad for journalism, and bad for the country. Are only the Democrats like this? Of course not. But right now, we’re the party stuck in the mud and sinking.
So I’m happy to stand here and swing away at what I see at the absolutely catastrophic detachment from reality. I wouldn’t risk my life by climbing with people who were like that, and neither would you.
Since you suggested the topic I’m going to leave a url of a piece I did this earlier this afternoon before reading this on the loss of touch with reality:
“Over in Moonbat Land”:http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2005/01/over-in-moonbat-land.html
Let me quote the final paragraph:
Let me see here. The *investigation* turns up inconvenient facts and it is not investigative journalism. Geeze. I had never looked at it that way before. Probably because I was dropped on my head as a kid. Or the whole lot of them were. Hard to imagine so many clumsy parents. Hard to imagine so many brain damaged kids. Maybe it was the brown acid. Or perhaps there are contacts missing. Like with reality.
Amen!
Blessed be for the Net and the Blogos.
As I have said many times before:
Read More Here
The MSM is going down for the count.
Ron
Mapes’ defiant defense of CBS’ journalistic integrety reads even better in light of this small sidelight of the CBS report’s release:
This Volokh Conspiracy post provides a link to the pdf of the poor-quality copy of the May 4, 1972 forged memo that CBS made available in September. And another link to a pdf of a fair-to-good quality copy of the same memo, first made public yesterday in Appendix 2 of the CBS report. Check ’em out.
I copy-edit in my day job, so I thought I could help Mapes revise her essay (quoted by A.L. above in italics), in light of this neglected information.
bq. Much has been made about the fact that these documents are photocopies and therefore cannot be trusted. As attention to the flaws in these memos would detract from the higher-level truth of our charges, journalistic ethics required us to post only pdfs of versions that had been muddied by an extra round of faxing.
bq. In vetting copies of these documents, nobody would have ink to analyze, original signatures to compare, or paper to date. By our actions, we obstructed one of the only remaining areas of analysis–typography.
bq. In closing, here are two bromides that sound good, although they have little to do with our conduct in this case.
bq. * Decades of investigative reporting have relied on copies.
bq. * Many journalists believe that authenticity is not limited to original documents. Photocopies are often a basis for verified stories.
Two things –
1. Conflation of Mapes, who is media, with “our party”. There’s a heck of a lot of unwarranted assumptions in that. Mapes’ extremely inadequate defense, which I agree with you on, has very little to do with “our party”.
2. This leads into, as usual, whether the establishment media is liberal.
“I like atrios’ take”:http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_01_09_atrios_archive.html#110540872709344361 on whether the media is liberal or not.
“The best centrist liberal take on this is Kevin Drum’s”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_01/005432.php.
He details the mind-boggling stupidity of CBS crew, but the attribution of which has as much to do with media competition as a “liberal bias”. As well, pointing out the selective nature of the right wing media machine, ignoring various right-wing biases, while trumpeting to the skies any left-wing bias.
JC (#4), the Kevin Drum post that you link to is reasoned and logical–not that I agree with all of it.
“The Atrios piece you liked”:http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_01_09_atrios_archive.html#110540872709344361 is at another level entirely. It’s worth quoting, so that other readers can appreciate the flavor of this widely-read mainstream-left site.
bq. What Liberal Media
bq. The funny (and of course overlooked by the cranial-rectal inversion crowd) thing about the CBS/document story is that contrary to the screeching about it, the entire saga is proof that there is no goddamn liberal media.
bq. Jayson Blair was fired in noisy disgrace for making up mostly harmless stuff…
Judith Miller – Shitty reporting…
Jack Kelley was fired rather quietly…
Stephen Glass — made lots of shit up…
bq. Even more serious stuff:
Jeff Gerth: Original Whitewater story almost entirely wrong…
Lisa Myers — deliberately alters tapes to convey false story about Mrs. Clinton…
Chris Vlasto — Many sins, including pulling a “Lisa Myers” himself…
Jeff Greenfield — Nightline correspondent on Vlasto produced segment…
bq. I could go on and on. But, the worst Rather has been accused of by sensible people is letting partisanship cloud his judgment. Accepting that as true just for sake of argument, it’s still a far less egregious sin than most of the Whitewater-era horseshit which has never been acknowledged as horseshit by the liberal media… Without making any statement about what the appropriate consequences for “Rathergate” should be, it’s clear that the media attention by that liberal media and the actual consequences have been much greater than dozens of worse incidents involving clear deliberate deception by people in the media.
bq. Dan Rather – evil biased liberal whose partisanship led him to jump the gun on a story? Believe that if you want, I don’t really care. But, “Rathergate” proof of “liberal media?” Just the opposite.
Sorry JC, this is slimy stuff, even without the gratuitous insults and obscenities. Once he’s done playing with the facts, Atrios’ logic appears to be this: a catalog of other journalists’ misdeeds shows that the Killian memo story boils down to phony charges made against Rather by the cranial-rectal inversion crowd.
Links to such material may not do wonders for your own credibility.
AMAC,
I know, I know – atrios likes to curse far too often for my tastes – I was going to originally quote selectively, or “shadow-blog” it without atrribution – but I figured it was more honest to simply link.
Outside of the atrios’s ad hominem attacks of which I disapprove, you don’t actually deal with the information – so let’s look at that:
Jeff Gerth
Lisa Myers
Chris Vlasto
Jeff Greenfield
Again, the claim of a “liberal media” from one or two examples is a “generalization fallacy” – and this applies to both sides.
I mean, when you have the administration PAYING for their media stories to be pushed “independently” (Willimas anyone?), and then ownership of media being Clear Channel, Sinclair, Newscorp, to take Mapes story as a “verification” of the liberal media story is simply putting blinders on.
As far as atrios’s ad hominem attacks, they clearly don’t reflect well on him, but putting the attention on this for the dismissal is avoiding the content we are discussing.
JC
I’ve never heard of any of those people, to tell you the truth. I have, of course, heard of Dan Rather, which is one reason Memogate has gotten so much attention.
But moving on to your broader points:
1) I don’t see why ownership is sooooo important to the “WLM?” crowd (while the political leanings of editors and reporters are never mentioned). The owners aren’t involved, in a daily basis, in picking and shaping stories. The editors and reporters (who skew left) are. An owner certainly could try to skew the coverage, but need not. A bunch of editors and reporters who all agree (whether right or left) can’t help but skew it, for groupthink reasons. The political orientation of the people in the newsroom (which is overwhelmingly center-left) matters more than the people in the boardroom.
2) Most people don’t claim that the media is liberal based on “one or two” stories. We claim it on the basis of many stories over a period of time. For some systematic work (done, admittedly, by right-wingers), see the Media Research Center.
3) Nobody’s happy about the Williams thing. Scroll through The Corner to see a bunch of conservatives complaining about it.
4) I realize Evan Thomas is only one guy, but he ought to know.
This thread is careening out of control, but it does come back to AL’s point: the journalists of this country skew left, as does their coverage. That doesn’t mean that 1)the overall impact, with the advent of alternative media, isn’t conservative (maybe righty blogs are so loud they’re starting to overcome the skew of the MSM, or maybe people automatically apply a correction factor to what they hear which is stronger than it should be) or that 2) the MSM are never unfair to particular left-leaning candidates or causes, or that 3) the MSM isn’t gradually becoming more conservative in response to complaints.
But to return to AL’s point, it’s very, very bad for left-leaning politicians to be constantly exposed to the lefty media, since it doesn’t present them with an accurate view of reality, and they aren’t applying the right correction factor.
Rob Lyman,
No no no. Remember, “Media Research Center” has had a VERY creative use of ellipses (starting an ellipse on one page, picking it up 30 pages later.)
Again, read “What Liberal Media?” by Eric Alterman, to get a flavor.
Listen – I am harping about this because AL’s point is UNTRUE, to a large degree.
JC – this is a long (and usually ultimately pointless because subjective) debate – “is the media liberal or not.”
I’ll suggest that it is, and that in particular, it has largely supported Democratic national candidates in elections since JFK.
This trend is offset by the matching trend – since Nixon – of every reporter wanting to be Woodstein, and so setting themselves up in opposition to ‘the man.”
My core point is that the Democratic leadership is cocooned by a group of paid consultants and a tolerant media, who allow it to operate in an arena of unreality, with disastrous results.
JC, my own eyes have “told me”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/004156.php and “told me again”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/006098.php that the working media are anti-Republican.
Again, that’s fine, but when they start distorting reality to help tip elections, they do two things – one, they demolish their own credibility, and two, they lead our Democratic leadership off a cliff.
Let’s go to some basic facts – do you think the Democratic Party is doing well? Is it just because they are trying as hard as they can and are being outplayed? Or is it because they are being misled?
I’ll suggest it’s the latter. And wavng our arms in the air and saying “no, the media is telling us the truth” isn’t going to help us find our way.
A.L.
Not liberal media, but leftist media. Anti-american media. Yes, that’s it exactly.
I’ve flipped through Alterman, and I think he’s right: if you’re as far left as he is, the media is conservative. And I’m more than willing to acknowledge that he media is “conservative” in the sense of “pro-establishment.”
That’s not the same thing as saying the media was neutral between Kerry and Bush, or between pro-choice and pro-life, or between pro-gun and anti-gun, or pro-gay-marriage and anti-gay-marriage, or that their portrayal of the Patriot act, or the military, or sincere conservative Christians, or Fidel Castro, is balanced or complete (to name a few of my hobbyhorses). And I think you find, if you look at my list, that the skew tends toward the center-left, coastal viewpoint (tell me if you think I’m wrong, here, but be specific as to which issues/debates you think they frame in terms favoring the right).
And I know the MRC’s not perfect, I rarely read their stuff myself, but if CBS isn’t defined by Memogate, they they aren’t defined by your alleged ellipsis problem (link?).
JC (#6),
Here, again, is the topic sentence from the Atrios post you approvingly linked:
bq. The funny (and of course overlooked by the cranial-rectal inversion crowd) thing about the CBS/document story is that contrary to the screeching about it, the entire saga is proof that there is no goddamn liberal media.
For whatever reason (explicit arrangement? unspoken agreement? fig leaf for CBS?), the Thornburgh report’s executive summary doesn’t make two points:
* That the Killian memos are forgeries.
* That the story was incompetently and unethically pushed forward by CBS News employees because of their anti-Bush animus.
But they are made abundantly clear in many places in the text of the report itself. This is neither subtle nor complicated.
Many “web-log”:http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/2005/01/11/omissions_and_other_critiques_of_the_cbs_news_report.php “posts”:http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/122hkbzu.asp “have”:http://wizbangblog.com/archives/004760.php “already”:http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/001430.php “trodden”:http://powerlineblog.com/archives/009163.php “this”:http://wizbangblog.com/archives/004761.php “ground.”:http://sayanythingblog.com/2005/01/11/why-were-the-cbs-employees-fired/
You dissent that “the claim of a ‘liberal media’ from one or two examples is a ‘generalization fallacy’.” Certainly the claim of a “liberal media” on the sole basis of the Killian memo scandal could qualify, except that, per Rob Lyman (#7), that’s itself a straw-man argument. But in any case, that’s not the focus of the venomous and scatological Atrios. Re-read his topic sentence.
And compare any of the posts I linked here with Atrios’ offering. Who marshalls relevant facts in a concise and logical argument? Who makes an effort to be fair and complete? Who avoids vitriol?
The point is relevant to A.L.’s starting premise–that Leftists are contributing to an environment where Liberal politicians and policy makers can more easily “run off the tracks.”
BTW, thank you for disavowing Atrios’ ready descent into ad hominem territory.
Good points about the cocooning.
Kerry was such a bad candidate precisely because the Press had treated him (like Teddy) with kid gloves.
Clinton had some fairly partisan media attacks on him in Arkansas, so he knew what to expect and was as a result better at his job (being a politician).
The Media does the Democrats no favors when they constantly protect/tilt Democratic. It’s been going on since JFK (everyone knew about his affairs and illnesses), and also undermines the trust of the public.
A better solution is openly partisan Media; disclosing their biases so everyone can judge for themselves.
AL,
I would suggest you start with the fact of CORPORATE OWNERSHIP. With the unprecedented megaphone talking points wave that comes out regarding any new “outrage” – something published by Drudge is picked up first by sites such as these and others, then fed to Washington Times, NRO, then shows up later that day on Rush Limbaugh, then the next day shows up in passing on Fox News – then the supposed “scandal” or story, must be addressed by the SCLM, because the right-wing megaphones have kicked up such a cloud of dust, the SCLM has to say, “look at all that dust that’s kicked up.”
Washington Times has been losing money for who knows how many years – but this is expected and ok, because it is meant as a corporate shill/right wing paper. New York Post, same thing.
A perfect example is the pseudo-scandal of the Kerry intern – this WAS mentioned in passing on MANY news shows – and was totally bogus!
If you want to have a serious analysis of the media environment, this isn’t possible without including the economic factors that are in play. AL, until you include this, the analyses you undertake are paper mache.
Rob Lyman,
I’m scanning and posting quickly, so I might make a mistake.
“But how about this one?”:http://www.dailyhowler.com/h030402_1.shtml
“Or even better this one?”:http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh112003.shtml
Brent Bozell’s agenda is clear – I don’t see why you take them seriously.
JC – you’re implying that somehow corporations are not liberal? The reality is that – and I blogged this a long time ago – we have a kind of weird symbiosis on the left between the very wealthy individuals and corporations who fund it, and the dependent interest groups that benefot from it, with the middle left out in the cold.
Yes, there is a right-wing media machine. But it’s been successful exactly because the mainstream media has become so disconnected from the core audience. Why does Fox have such good ratings? Is Murdoch somehow buying them? Why does Rush do so well on the radio? There’s an audience out ther, and they feel like where they are not being ignored, they are being reviled.
A.L.
Come on – you really are too smart to believe that, aren’t you?
A couple of links –
“This is to the top Republican building in Houston, TX”:http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php?search=1&type=loc&addr=601+Jefferson&zip=77002&exact=1
There are four pages of contributions here – and C.E.O. is a title – there are at least 9 C.E.O.’s, all of which contributed to George Bush.
Now, you say, “But this is the top REPUBLICAN building in a Republican state”. Well, the city actually is pretty balanced (one of only two in the state of Texas, Austin being the other one), but here’s more:
“The top democratic building”:http://www.fundrace.org/neighbors.php?search=1&type=loc&addr=1801+Milford+St&zip=77098&exact=1. There are three CEO’s listed. How many are for a democrat, in this top democratic building?
None. All Republican.
Look, ALL ACROSS THE BOARD, campaign contributions by corporations went more to republicans.
Start nosing around at “Choose the Blue”:http://www.choosetheblue.com/main.php.
Look at gasoline. Look at automakers. Look at Auto Insurance.
I’m sure there are greater sources of information – but AL, if you continue with this spiel of “implying that corporations are not liberal”, as if they are liberal, you are going from being ignorant to outright lying.
And JC, you’re too smart to fall for the “corporations” vs. “labor” model from the 60’s, aren’t you?
How about this one: “Viacom has contributed a total of $3.2 million to political campaigns in the 2000 and 2002 election cycles, with 81 percent of the money going to Democrats.”:http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0227-01.htm – click through to the source, and be surprised. The Democrats are firmly in bed with their own class of corporate donors, and much of what we see as policy struggle between the parties is really a battle between corporate interests. Democrats – Hollywood & publishing, so they support DMCA. Republicans get a little more from the tech industry, so they oppose it. (and yes, that’s a lazy and overbroad example – but there’s something to it)
A.L.
Armed Liberal, I know you’ve said similar things before, but this is the one that connected for me, and I feel I understand you better because of it. Bravo!
Now, is it just me, or does the Republican Party, and especially the White House, seem to be drifting a little bit away from reality too?
Torture is example number one. The White House seems to be playing with the legal definition of torture, possibly reacting in advance to MSM gotcha games. Many people have said that this is immoral, and I agree. (And I have proposed an alternative – few prisoners.) But also, I see a game where people are not focusing on reality, making a plan or a policy that deals realistically with it, and then trying to sell it; instead, they’re keeping up whatever the first thing people tried was, and shuffling rhetoric to cover the ugly and evil truth.
The whole “religion of peace” (or Tony Blair’s “true religion of Islam”) thing is a bad joke. George had to say that for good, practical, diplomatic reasons. But he doesn’t have me convinced he knows that’s a lie – and if he’s not lying he’s in the grip of a vast delusion, as vast as Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s belief that Stalin was a man he could do business with.
Planning for post-war Iraq failed, because as far as I can tell it was not attempted. The “plan” was: remove the tyrant, and the impulses of freedom that you liberate will do a better job of organising the Iraqi people than culturally alien invaders with guns would. So whatever you do, even if there’s looting or other things you disapprove of, step back and give the Iraqis the chance to solve it themselves. As George W. Bush said, speaking as “a senior White House official”: this can’t be American democracy, made in America. As it turns out, this is not a culture that is suitable for democracy, which is why it produced creatures like Saddam Hussein in the first place, and why people like Colonel Ghadafi and Saddam Hussein get to be pan-Arab heroes and sensible people don’t. We may still be able to create democracy, but in spite of and against Muslim and Arab culture. Again, there were good practical reasons never to admit this – but do the people in the White House know they are lying, and do they have a real, practical idea of what they are doing hidden under their lies? Maybe. But maybe not.
Glen Reynolds has said the administration is constantly tempted to ignore MSM critics, because so much criticism is disingenuous, delusional or malign. There’s no point in taking advice from people who want you to go wrong and to lose. I agree there’s a huge amount of truth in that. This is going on, and as Glen Reynolds warns, it can produce a creeping disconnection from reality.
Hugh Hewitt stresses the importance of a broad range of opinion in the Republican Party. If you start purging people, even really unpleasant people like Arlen Specter, a lot of bad consequences follow, and one of the worst outcomes is you clear the way for all the nuts to rush in to a party of true believers that seems made for them. We seem a way away from that so far.
I think people are making compromises for the sake of exercising power effectively. Some of the compromises are about political correctness (“you can’t say that!”) and some are things people just stumbled into. But what’s building up is a thick coating of lying rhetoric. And I’m concerned that underneath that layer of lies and evasion, the basics of appreciation for reality, practical planning, and fundamental re-planning in the light of contrary experience may be slowly rotting away.
Of course, I hope I’m wrong. If the Americans come to have two great parties, both on drugs (in effect), this will not be good.
Actually, the information about Viacom is accurate – but it’s more the exception that proves the rule, I think.
“Here’s the breakdown on Choose the Blue for television companies”:http://www.choosetheblue.com/mainFrame.php?backlevel=003..001Choose%20The%20Blue.002Entertainment%20and%20News.003Television%20Networks&prodcat=Television+Networks&order=brands.parent.
If you look at the Parent company, you are correct. (And actually look at the Fox News donations – nearly 60/40 split towards democratic candidates – didn’t expect that. And all of NBC contributions tilt the other way – 2/3 towards Republicans, 1/3 towards democrats – I guess I’ll need to remember that next time I’m watching Hardball.)
“Television Content Providers” is similar.
Books publishers totally lean democratic.
Cable providers are a bit of a split, maybe tilt slightly democratic. Another surprise…
Retail stores skew way, way WAY republican.
Hmm…the more I look at media spending, I’m not too sure of my original thesis.
Say, if I put together a percentage based on the numbers at Choose the Blue, and their categories, would you publish it?
There are 68 or so categories – I’m thinking of percentages rather than numbers…
JC –
Sure! Email me the HTML…
A.L.
The media is left-biased and opposes the american values of freedom of speech. The universities are also left-biased and oppose freedom of speech. That makes a nice cozy little inbred haven for mental mutants.
The common argument that the MSM isn’t liberally biased is often supported with references to FOX or the Washington Times. The fallacy of this argument is it fails to take into account viewership or circulation. From CNN in a story titled “The future of the nightly network news”. (Google “Television network news viewers” and view the cashed version as it no longer exists on CNN’s site).
bq. Most evenings, nearly 30 million people watch one of the three programs (ABC, CBS and NBC).
Which compares with:
bq. For all the attention they get, the three cable news networks — Fox News Channel, CNN and MSNBC — don’t even get 4 million viewers combined in an average prime time.
And for the print media the circulation numbers can be found “here”:http://www.accessabc.com/reader/top100.htm . Note that the Washington Times is 113th with a circulation of a little over 100,000.
Okay – my company is doing an application upgrade this weekend, so busy as heck – hopefully should be able to have this done by end of next week.
JC,
I still don’t see why you are obsessed with corporate ownership. I’ll stipulate that most CEOs are Republican (don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll accept it). I’ll even stipulate that most news CEOs are Republican.
So what? That is to say, so frickin’ what??? They aren’t writing and airing the stories, their worrying about structuring the financing for their next deal.
Go back to my list: Abortion, gay marriage, gun control, Patriot act, military issues, conservative Christians. Does the MSM skew right or left, in your view, on these issues?
Daniel Okrent: “[When reporting on] gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation…if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper with your eyes closed.” Pardon my ellipses, but click through for the full context.
The worst thing about the mainstream media is that it isn’t interested in truth, but in itself. The whole Rathergate debacle effectively concealed the real story that the media was afraid to touch: Bush was AWOL.
This AWOL status is an issue for a war President, particularly since he lied about it. Despite the single unverifiable document, there is plenty of evidence that went carefully unreported. It seems to me that if it were really a “liberal” media that they would have crucified Bush. They didn’t. They reported whatever the little liar said without verification.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/12/132214/106:
# Upon being accepted for pilot training, Bush promised to serve with his parent (Texas) Guard unit for five years once he completed his pilot training.
But Bush served as a pilot with his parent unit for just two years.
# In May 1972 Bush left the Houston Guard base for Alabama. According to Air Force regulations, Bush was supposed to obtain prior authorization before leaving Texas to join a new Guard unit in Alabama.
But Bush failed to get the authorization.
# In requesting a permanent transfer to a nonflying unit in Alabama in 1972, Bush was supposed to sign an acknowledgment that he received relocation counseling.
But no such document exists.
# He was supposed to receive a certification of satisfactory participation from his unit.
But Bush did not.
# He was supposed to sign and give a letter of resignation to his Texas unit commander.
But Bush did not.
# He was supposed to receive discharge orders from the Texas Air National Guard adjutant general.
But Bush did not.
# He was supposed to receive new assignment orders for the Air Force Reserves.
But Bush did not.
# On his transfer request Bush was asked to list his “permanent address.”
But he wrote down a post office box number for the campaign he was working for on a temporary basis.
# On his transfer request Bush was asked to list his Air Force specialty code.
But Bush, an F-102 pilot, erroneously wrote the code for an F-89 or F-94 pilot. Both planes had been retired from service at the time. Bush, an officer, made this mistake more than once on the same form.
# 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.
But Bush pressed on with his transfer request nonetheless.
# Bush’s transfer request to the 9921st was eventually denied by the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, which meant he was still obligated to attend training sessions one weekend a month with his Texas unit in Houston.
But Bush failed to attend weekend drills in May, June, July, August and September. He also failed to request permission to make up those days at the time.
# According to Air Force regulations, “[a] member whose attendance record is poor must be closely monitored. When the unexcused absences reach one less than the maximum permitted [sic] he must be counseled and a record made of the counseling. If the member is unavailable he must be advised by personal letter.”
But there is no record that Bush ever received such counseling, despite the fact that he missed drills for months on end.
# Bush’s unit was obligated to report in writing to the Personnel Center at Randolph Air Force Base whenever a monthly review of records showed unsatisfactory participation for an officer.
But his unit never reported Bush’s absenteeism to Randolph Air Force Base.
# In July 1972 Bush failed to take a mandatory Guard physical exam, which is a serious offense for a Guard pilot. The move should have prompted the formation of a Flying Evaluation Board to investigation the circumstances surrounding Bush’s failure.
But no such FEB was convened.
# Once Bush was grounded for failing to take a physical, his commanders could have filed a report on why the suspension should be lifted.
But Bush’s commanders made no such request.
# On Sept. 15, 1972, Bush was ordered to report to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, the deputy commander of the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery, Ala., to participate in training on the weekends of Oct. 7-8 and Nov. 4-5, 1972.
But there’s no evidence Bush ever showed up on those dates. In 2000, Turnipseed told the Boston Globe that Bush did not report for duty. (A self-professed Bush supporter, Turnipseed has since backed off from his categorical claim.)
# However, according to the White House-released pay records, which are unsigned, Bush was credited for serving in Montgomery on Oct. 28-29 and Nov. 11-14, 1972. Those makeup dates should have produced a paper trail, including Bush’s formal request as well as authorization and supervision documents.
But no such documents exist, and the dates he was credited for do not match the dates when the Montgomery unit assembled for drills.
# When Guardsmen miss monthly drills, or “unit training assemblies” (UTAs), they are allowed to make them up through substitute service and earn crucial points toward their service record. Drills are worth one point on a weekday and two points on each weekend day. For Bush’s substitute service on Nov. 13-14, 1972, he was awarded four points, two for each day.
But Nov. 13 and 14 were both weekdays. He should have been awarded two points.
# Bush earned six points for service on Jan. 4-6, 1973 — a Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
But he should have earned four points, one each for Thursday and Friday, two for Saturday.
# Weekday training was the exception in the Guard. For example, from May 1968 to May 1972, when Bush was in good standing, he was not credited with attending a single weekday UTA.
But after 1972, when Bush’s absenteeism accelerated, nearly half of his credited UTAs were for weekdays.
# To maintain unit cohesiveness, the parameters for substitute service are tightly controlled; drills must be made up within 15 days immediately before, or 30 days immediately after, the originally scheduled drill, according to Guard regulations at the time.
But more than half of the substitute service credits Bush received fell outside that clear time frame. In one case, he made up a drill nine weeks in advance.
# On Sept. 29, 1972, Bush was formally grounded for failing to take a flight physical. The letter, written by Maj. Gen. Francis Greenlief, chief of the National Guard Bureau, ordered Bush to acknowledge in writing that he had received word of his grounding.
But no such written acknowledgment exists. In 2000, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Boston Globe that Bush couldn’t remember if he’d ever been grounded.
# Bartlett also told the Boston Globe that Bush didn’t undergo a physical while in Alabama because his family doctor was in Houston.
But only Air Force flight surgeons can give flight physicals to pilots.
# Guard members are required to take a physical exam every 12 months.
But Bush’s last Guard physical was in May 1971. Bush was formally discharged from the service in November 1974, which means he went without a required physical for 42 months.
# Bush’s unsatisfactory participation in the fall of 1972 should have prompted the Texas Air National Guard to write to his local draft board and inform the board that Bush had become eligible for the draft. Guard units across the country contacted draft boards every Sept. 15 to update them on the status of local Guard members. Bush’s absenteeism should have prompted what’s known as a DD Form 44, “Record of Military Status of Registrant.”
But there is no record of any such document having been sent to Bush’s draft board in Houston.
# Records released by the White House note that Bush received a military dental exam in Alabama on Jan. 6, 1973.
But Bush’s request to serve in Alabama covered only September, October and November 1972. Why he would still be serving in Alabama months after that remains unclear.
# Each of Bush’s numerous substitute service requests should have formed a lengthy paper trail consisting of AF Form 40a’s, with the name of the officer who authorized the training in advance, the signature of the officer who supervised the training and Bush’s own signature.
But no such documents exist.
# During his last year with the Texas Air National Guard, Bush missed nearly two-thirds of his mandatory UTAs and made up some of them with substitute service. Guard regulations allowed substitute service only in circumstances that are “beyond the control” of the Guard member.
But neither Bush nor the Texas Air National Guard has ever explained what the uncontrollable circumstances were that forced him to miss the majority of his assigned drills in his last year.
# Bush supposedly returned to his Houston unit in April 1973 and served two days.
But at the end of April, when Bush’s Texas commanders had to rate him for their annual report, they wrote that they could not do so: “Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report.”
# On June 29, 1973, the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver instructed Bush’s commanders to get additional information from his Alabama unit, where he had supposedly been training, in order to better evaluate Bush’s duty. The ARPC gave Texas a deadline of Aug. 6 to get the information.
But Bush’s commanders ignored the request.
# Bush was credited for attending four days of UTAs with his Texas unit July 16-19, 1973. That was good for eight crucial points.
But that’s not possible. Guard units hold only two UTAs each month — one on a Saturday and one on a Sunday. Although Bush may well have made up four days, they should not all have been counted as UTAs, since they occur just twice a month. The other days are known as “Appropriate Duty,” or APDY.
# On July 30, 1973, Bush, preparing to attend Harvard Business School, signed a statement acknowledging it was his responsibility to find another unit in which to serve out the remaining nine months of his commitment.
But Bush never contacted another unit in Massachusetts in which to fulfill his obligation.
“But… but… Bush Lied! Bush Lied!” Not quite over the Post Election Traumatic Stress Disorder yet, I see.
We could dispose of these allegations, as it’s been done elsewhere many times – and very capably too. But it represents a waste of time. Just as going over John Kerry’s record in Vietnam, and the subsequent question re: whether his actions represented sedition or treason, is a waste of time. Hell, they were a waste of time then – “as A.L. pointed out,”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/005430.php you end up spending months of important campaign attention time discussing an attack that most people really don’t give a damn about, whether or not the Democratic Party faithful do.
When reputable news organizations spend 5 years investigating, find nothing they can work with, then go on air sounding like blogesota here (and of course, the kool-aid flows both ways), they create a problem that reaches beyond just themselves.
And of course, it invites similar scrutiny of Kerry… enter the Swift Boat Vets (whom CBS, in contrast, couldn’t be bothered with). When the media clearly have a double standard in terms of who they will investigate and how, they also create a problem that reaches beyond just themselves.
When doing so and acting as a partisan mouthpiece “gets in the way of examining some of the real issues about our leaders”:http://www.windsofchange.net/archives/004620.php and the prevalence of “gaming the system” in a meritocracy…. well, we ALL lose then.
but Bush did lie…
about his service records
about WMD’s (see the papers today?)
“about the oil-for-food program”:http://americablog.blogspot.com/archives/2005_01_01_americablog_archive.html#110563665117894123
I only care about this because he’s the one in office.
LOL is someone questioning the “liberal media meme” again? They self-report as 5:1 liberal. That inevitably colors their outlook.
In fact, they’ve created a serious problem for Democrats. Did Kerry ever think anyone would look seriously at his Christmas in Cambodia fable, his exaggerated claims about U.S. atrocities, or the circumstances of hs Vietnam service that he campaigned on? Obviously not, and the decision to make Vietnam the focus cost him the election.
So one naturally asks “Why? Why did Kerry & Co not realize how vulnerable to criticism their exaggerations made them on this issue?” And the most reasonable answer is that before talk radio and Fox News, no one would have raised those criticisms to public attention, because the gatekeepers in the media would not have allowed it; remember, the Swift Vets held a press conference, and no one showed up (does anyone think that would be the case if 250 NG vets had come out with a campaign against Bush demonstrating he had lied?). The same dynamic was at work in RatherGate.
I found the MyDD racist theme particularly amusing, as it assumes only whites can be racist (or does he think black racists vote Republican?). And affirmative action is institutionalized racism by definition.