This is an EX-memo: Dan Rather gets Pythoned. Inevitable, really.
You know, I was thinking about it, and no one's really won anything on this deal, have they? Except, possibly, Bush. Complaints that forged documents distract from the "real" story about Bush's guard service are legitimate, sure--but only if you think Bush's guard service is the story in the first place.
It isn't for me, anymore than Kerry's Vietnam service was. Could we get back to issues, maybe?
I no longer give a shit about your Vietnam-era exploits. It doesn't matter to me if you were once a drunk-driving, cocaine-tooting mama's boy or if you were an effete BMOC. I worked my way through San Diego State, so your Ivy League, skull-and-crossbones homoerotic initiation service and secret handshake means little to me.I just know someone's itching to type at me that Kerry made Vietnam the issue in the first place, what with that "reporting for duty" line, etc., but you know, I don't care. It all starts to sound like children screaming "but he STARTED it!" after awhile.
Roxanne's issues don't have to tally exactly with my own for me to recognize that at least she has issues, that we all do, and that focusing on what either candidate did or didn't do thirty-odd years ago doesn't begin to answer the primary question for which each candidate should be, by now, easily able to articulate an answer:
What will you do with the presidency?
Posted by Ilyka at September 14, 2004 04:53 PM in hell is other peopleI totally agree that the real issues of this election cycle are getting buried beneath non-sensical minutiae over 30 years old. That stuff just doesn't matter when we're talking about the 2004 presidential election.
The problem I have with the forged document issue has more to do with the arrogance and stubborness of CBS and Dan Rather. They're supposed to represent one of the most powerful news dissemination arms of the mass media, and yet they're steadfastly sticking to their guns despite mounting evidence that they were peddling really pathetic forgeries that they didn't take an adequate amount of time to authenticate. When the likes of CBS gets caught with their pants down due to their laziness, and then they're too proud and arrogant to admit their error, that just kind of pisses me off. I hope CBS takes a bath on this and that other news organizations take notice. But, I'm sure they'll just continue to obfuscate and deny until no one really cares any more, and then they'll nervously wipe their brows and say "whew," and move on virtually unscathed.
Posted by: Ryan at September 14, 2004 05:10 PMI agree with you on what's likely to be the outcome here (a big fat nothing). And I agree that the issue is important--but I find many of the people who agree with me that it's important are missing the forest for the trees. I'll just rip off a comment I left at Tim Blair's:
This is not a parts story. This is a story about how freedom is the freedom to say 2 + 2 = 4; or, in this case, freedom is the freedom to say "The odds of a 30-year-old typewritten document aligning perfectly with a Word document created with default settngs 30 years later are effectively 0." And now a major news outlet has muzzled that message by emphasizing that maybe somewhere in an alternate universe, 2 + 2 could conceivably, with a little squinting and a lot of doublethink, equal 5.But I also share Roxanne's view: I flat-out do not care what either of these guys did 30 years ago.
Thus, "scarcely related." I wasn't kidding about that. It's what usually happens when I blog before coffee.
Posted by: ilyka at September 14, 2004 11:02 PMWell, as soon as Kerry says something substantive on actual issues, we'll tear him to shreds on that.
As long as he doesn't change his mind half-an-hour later.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 15, 2004 02:50 AM