After having read more articles and blog posts on the topic than I ever would've thought possible, I am now fairly certain that the CBS memos are fakes. Given that they are fake, I now wonder what the person who made them is thinking. Did he create them to make President Bush look bad? If so, is he kicking himself that he used MS Word and two superiors who were already out of the military by 1973? Is he banging his head against the wall that the discussion centers around superscript th and kerning instead of Bush's attendance? Or did he create them to make the mainstream media look bad? If so, is he like the guy who hid the box cutters in the airplane bathrooms just to prove the point that security isn't tight enough? Did the memo forger assume the media would run with them and want to make them look foolish? I'm insanely curious as to who would make these memos and why. I hope we find out someday.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:03 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 176 words, total size 1 kb.

See, here's what ticks me off. I haven't seen anyone but Dan Rather and his unnamed experts defend these memos (and no one has claimed the $10,500 reward). And now the AP is asking retired servicemembers what they think about the memos, without any hint that they might be fakes.

Majied, a Democrat from Albany who served 30 years in the Navy, including five years as a SEAL in Vietnam, said the memos support his belief that Bush was a "playboy" during his service years.

"He had enough money to get what he wanted," Majied said. "I think his main concern was not to go to Southeast Asia. I bet he never dreamed it would come back to haunt him."

This man obviously hasn't read this story:

Finally, Killian said his father told him a story in 1980 or 1981, when the two sat in an officers' club in San Antonio, Texas, about Lt. Bush having twice volunteered for duty in the Air National Guard "Palace Alert" program, under which fighter pilots in the Guard could serve a year on active duty in Vietnam.

On both occasions, the younger Killian said, Lt. Bush was turned down because he did not have more than 500 hours of flight time. Killian cited Maurice Udell, later a commander of the 147th Fighter Group, in which Lt. Bush served, and Col. Buck Staudt, later a brigadier general, as the individuals who turned Lt. Bush down.

"We have pilots with thousands of hours in the F-102," Bush was told, according to Killian. "Why would I send you?"

Majied seems to already have his mind made up (and could potentially be another Micah Wright), but it's shoddy reporting that allows people to base their vote on utter nonsense. If the MSM weren't so gung-ho Kerry, they would report things like that the F-102 was actually dangerous and that President Bush wasn't roasting marshmallows around the campfire in the Guard. They would report that President Bush seems to have tried to get sent to Vietnam but was turned down, in contrast to Kerry, who tried to get out of going to Vietnam but was turned down.

The media's job is to provide us with facts so we can make our own decisions. It seems these days that they're making the decisions ahead of time and then providing us with the facts they like.

In times like these, it can't hurt to go back and read Nelson Ascher's post Ignorance and Journalism.

Posted by: Sarah at 04:34 AM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
Post contains 420 words, total size 3 kb.

According to LGF, "By 8:30 pm Pacific, an investigation is underway at CBS" about the forged memos. It's now 1130 in Germany, a full six hours later. So why is the MSN homepage still running this link up top? And where's Seb's post about how, sadly no, they're not real?

MORE:

And why is freaking CBS still running the story? I can't even find anything on their news site that says they're investigating the matter.

MORE:

There's something up there now (it's 2023; I don't know at what time the story was added.)

And here's a memo someone dug up on Kerry (via Bunker).

MORE:

Ha, I had forgotten I said this back in February:

The whole point of his post is just to let you know that Sarah's dumb. Nice. I think my brother said the same thing when he was seven, but that wouldn't make for a very interesting blog.

I can't honestly believe that Seb has been reading my blog for an entire year, looking for things to nitpick. I get bored of his after five minutes. But you keep up the good fight, huh Seb? From now on, your comments are deleted here.

Posted by: Sarah at 06:36 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
Post contains 199 words, total size 1 kb.

1 Why? Because every minute counts. The meme must be spread. Even if it's false, it's for a good cause. Just imagine: MS Word might save America for four more years of Bush! Maybe capitalism isn't so bad after all.

Posted by: Amritas at September 10, 2004 07:47 AM (NLPaJ)

2 Yeah, but that's your bit, right? Running around the internet pointing out falsehoods and mistakes and fucktards? Why bother with me when there's an enormous "sadly no" event going on in the world? Because it doesn't support your worldview? Because you get bigger kicks out of pointing at the little guy? This is right up your alley, but you've said nothing. If you're going to be a heartless bastard, then be one all the time.

Posted by: Sarah at September 10, 2004 03:27 PM (pLh/m)

3 I'm pretty sure those memos are forged. I am not sure who did it. They are so clumsy my cynical self says they were intended to be debunked and to thus discredit media if/when 'real' documents show up that are damaging to Bush. But then I see Rather so adamently defending them, and I hear McAuliffe saying basically 'it doesn't matter if the memos are forged, what they say is true'. I guess the mainstream Democrats (I'm a Zell Miller Dem, myself) have gone so far off into the deep end of 'moral relativism' that they just might have forged the things, stupid or not. Glenmore, Louisiana, hating to wish Florida ill, but sure praying Ivan the Terrible doesn't come here.

Posted by: Glenmore at September 10, 2004 05:41 PM (E7FQ/)

4 I can't even find anything on their news site that says they're investigating the matter. That's because they aren't. Once again you've been led astray by LGF. By the way, how is it that you have counter measures in place to block my posts when I've never been here before today?

Posted by: Robert at September 10, 2004 10:56 PM (SknxS)

5 Robert, I don't have any counter-measures. If you're being blocked, it must be part of the blocks that are inherent to mu.nu.

Posted by: Sarah at September 11, 2004 03:11 AM (JB/sZ)

6 Glenmore needs to look up moral relativism and find out what it actually means.

Posted by: delagar at September 11, 2004 11:04 AM (yor4I)

7 When I try to post it won't allow my last name to be registered and gives me a message saying, your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content my last name)."

Posted by: Robert at September 11, 2004 12:51 PM (sfsG2)

8 Robert, do you use the word "home" in your comments? For some reason, I get that "questionable content" message when I type that word.

Posted by: Amritas at September 11, 2004 07:16 PM (UBFrT)

9 Then again, the last comment did get through, though I've been blocked twice for using the word "home." It's not my idea of an offensive four-letter word.

Posted by: Amritas at September 11, 2004 07:17 PM (UBFrT)

10 I'm pretty sure that Bush hasn't denied them yet. discharged honorably, discharged honorably, discharged honorably He was pretty clearly a C+ pilot, a C+ student, and strangely he is a C+ leader. You may think Kerry is unfit to serve, but I personaally vote for him and have been for ten years. An I think He would be a B+ president.

Posted by: mdhatter at September 13, 2004 11:15 PM (zlFGE)

Hide Comments | Add Comment