How bad is this situation for the White House? Even CBS News has been forced to show an interest in the story!

The question asked by House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) was trimmed from the CBS News report: “When did you first know about the program officially, I believe, called Fast and Furious?” Simple question. No ambiguity. Same goes for Holder’s response: “I’m not sure of the exact date, but I probably heard about Fast and Furious for the first time over the last few weeks.”

The CBS News clip above lets Holder slide with an incredibly weak line about not understanding the question, but I doubt the average citizen will be so willing to drop the issue. With Republicans on the attack, Holder sent a letter to members of Congress on Friday:

“I have no recollection of knowing about the operation, called ‘Fast and Furious,’ or of hearing its name prior to the public controversy about it,” Holder said in a letter to key Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

He added that before early this year, “I certainly never knew about the tactics employed in the operation, and it is my understanding that the former United States Attorney for the district of Arizona and the former acting director and deputy director of ATF have told Congress that they, themselves, were unaware of the tactics employed.”

Because this is Barack Obama’s Attorney General we’re talking about, Holder’s letter was also required to meet a minimum threshold for Stuff Blamed On Dubya.

The attorney general noted the flawed tactics employed in Fast and Furious “were actually employed in an investigation conducted during the prior administration.”

In review, Obama’s Attorney General hadn’t heard about Fast and Furious until this spring… even though he received several memos mentioning the program dating back to early 2010. So maybe he heard about the operation, but it was probably a different one – which he made no attempt to clarify in his testimony because… ? Holder definitely doesn’t remember knowing anything, and what he did know but almost certainly forgot is really Bush’s fault anyway.

How many mulligan-years are we supposed to give the Obama administration, and at what point do Bush policies that Obama continues become “Obama policies?” Is it unfair to expect that the Attorney General read the briefings deemed important enough to cross his desk?

Cross-posted at Third Base Politics.

The hate-filled rhetoric [...] was cruel, lunatic, and illogical — and helped demonize President Bush as some sort of monster rather than the center-right moderate who had pressed for No Child Left Behind and the Medicare prescription-drug benefit, called for religious tolerance, warned against anti-Muslim violence after 9/11, won two bipartisan congressional authorizations for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and implemented the largest medical-relief plan for Africa in U.S. history.

The history of American politics is chock-full of incivility, and Dubya is a prime example of the double standard at play. Obviously leftists get a pass on President Bush, because Progressivism is the vibrant, passionate antithesis to all the terrible things George W. Bush represents. Never mind that he represented those things because of the left’s unwavering belief in its own rhetoric. Today’s pleas for civility are an effort to silence opposition, plain and simple.

VDH’s mention of Bush and the leftist bile he endured reminded me of the only time I sent a letter to the school paper while I was at Miami. It was a couple weeks before the 2004 election, President Bush’s daughters had just visited campus for a campaign event, and the College Republicans were bringing Ann Coulter to Oxford.

Witty Op-Ed	Mean Conservative Response
The Miami Student, 10-22-2004, page 13 (Click to zoom; drag image to scroll)	The Miami Student, 10-26-2004, page 10 (Click to zoom; drag image to scroll)

Who’s more “civil” – the hatemonger conservative, or the hipster journalism minor? A trivial example, sure. But even though Miami is a relatively conservative campus, The Miami Student‘s editors saw fit to print a sex fantasy attacking a conservative pundit and, for good measure, objectifying the president’s daughters. Imagine if we pulled a few autumn 2004 editorials from the student papers at Berkeley, Columbia, or NYU!

This is one of the great things about freedom of speech. Give a complete jackass ten minutes or a slot on the Opinion page, and he’ll say something closely resembling, “I am a complete jackass.”

“America and Islam are not exclusive,” he said, “and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.”

All the right people are taking notice of the pretty things President Obama says and the pretty ways he says them.

“There is a change between the language of President Obama and previous speeches made by George Bush,” said Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for Hamas.

This from a Hamas representative. Hamas, whose charter includes such gems as “Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.”

Golly, this Barack character must be a top-notch thinker, if he can warm the cockles of even a Hamas spokesman’s heart. Whereas famous quotes from President Bush include*, “There ain’t no Muslims in Am-uhr-ica,” and “We’s gonna bomb them thar Islamics,” President Obama is a beacon of enlightenment for his countrymen. Being a Muslim is not the same as being a terrorist! Not all Muslims participate in or condone violence as a means of enacting sharia law!

Now that we’ve worked those things out, it’s just a matter of getting the jerk-bag Israelis to quit whining about “Muslim extremists” suicide bombing their “women” and “children.” Why, just because the Palestinians have used every new piece of land as additional rocket launching ground, the Israelis think they have a right to stop giving Palestinians land!

But as he presses Netanyahu for concessions, Obama has to be looking over his shoulder toward the powerful Israeli lobby in the United States and the many deeply conservative Christian organizations that back Israeli policy without question.

Emphasis mine. Doggone Christians, supporting The Jews (cue scary music) without thought or hesitation. They could learn something from the populations of the world’s free, competitive, advanced Muslim countries!

* Oh wait, President Bush mostly said the same things President Obama is saying, minus the constant preening about how magnificently multicultural he was for saying them.

The United Auto Workers union would appear to be the big winner in the Chrysler bankruptcy saga, having exercised its considerable political muscle to win a 55 percent stake in the country’s third-largest automaker.

You win …a company that you’ve helped run into the ground. I so wish President Bush had been a less compassionate Conservative and let the UAW’s house tumble around them. Sure, the union bosses wouldn’t be the ones getting screwed, but a few more years’ union dues later and most of the hourly employees will be out of work anyway. The lifeline Bush threw was long enough that now President Obama gets to act tough about saving us money while arranging juicy deals for the UAW and framing poor fuel economy as the reason for all woes.

On the bright side, the German and Japanese carmakers can hire more American workers using all the advertising money they no longer need to spend. With 2/3 of domestic manufacturers run by the unions and the federal government, competition won’t exactly be at an all-time high.

The Heritage Foundation noted the UAW’s shortsightedness… in 2006:

The slow demise of General Motors (GM) is visibly intertwined with the inefficient labor contracts that the United Auto Workers (UAW) secured in decades past. Regular media stories showcasing problems at GM and Delphi send a potent signal to other U.S. workers that big labor’s ideal business model is a bust.

Then again, who knows. Maybe after the Democrats have tackled universal healthcare they can implement a program where the wealthiest 2% pay another tiny slice of their pie so every American gets a new Government Motors car every couple years. Sounds crazy, but the union’s earned it! The UAW has paid over $2,000,000 to Democratic candidates in each of the last ten election cycles.

From the original AP story:

The UAW started making concessions during 2007 contract negotiations and that helped in negotiating the stakes they stand to gain now. At the time, both GM and Chrysler had huge labor cost disadvantages compared with Japanese automakers, mainly because they have far more retirees and had agreed to pay their health care bills.

For GM, the health care tab is projected to total $46.7 billion over the lives of about 350,000 retirees and spouses. At Chrysler, it’s $10.9 billion for around 82,000 retirees.

The UAW pushed GM and Chrysler towards bankruptcy to score political points and maintain control of their constituents by “guaranteeing” unsustainable benefits. Hmm…. why does that sound so familiar?

But in prose that was spare and clear and compelling, the President proceeded…

And,

The combination of candor and vision and the patient explanation of complex issues was Obama at his best — and more than any other moment of his first 100 days in office, it summed up the purpose of his presidency: a radical change of course not just from his predecessor, not just from the 30-year Reagan era but also from the quick-fix, sugar-rush, attention-deficit society of the postmodern age.

Press coverage of President Obama – like coverage of Obama the candidate – is glowing and supportive because reporters agree with Obama. No conspiracy required. The premise we’re supposed to accept from Fox News and CNN alike is that reporters can talk about politics objectively day in and out. False.

Joe Klein doesn’t even have the excuse of talking for hours a day on some 24-hour cable news channel. But he can’t help using a first and a second and a third complimentary adjective when reporting on Obama’s speech. Even when he suggests the possiblity of Obama’s policies being wrong, it’s only to jab at President Bush:

Whether you agree with him or not — whether you think he is too ambitious or just plain wrong — his is as serious and challenging a presidency as we have had in quite some time.

Because nothing about 9/11, al Qaeda, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, etc prompted seriousness from President Bush. If Joe Klein wants to assert that President Bush was unserious about a number of domestic issues, I’d agree with him there. But not for the same reasons, if I were to make a wild guess.

The piece continues as expected – Obama’s first 100 days as wonderful as FDR’s, unlikeable Republicans, glorious post-Dubya diplomacy  – and nothing else seems worth mention until the end.

There are those who mistake his quiet, deliberative style for softness. There is the fear that he won’t have the strength to stand up to the Israelis (or the Iranians) or to the left wing of his party on health care or to the porkers on the defense budget.

Emphasis mine. This sentence sums up so much of what’s wrong with Progressive thinking. Who in their right mind lists a failure to stand up to Israel as a concern, and then lists Iran as an afterthought? As for “the left wing of his party” – Dear Joe: Obama is obviously the left wing of his party, if you pay a little less attention to his words and a little more attention to his actions. Oh, and the defense budget! Earmarks and special interest funding by the billions in the stimulus and domestic budget are no concern, but America’s doomed if we buy too many F-22As!

Mr. Obama also ordered the closing of the secret overseas detention program for Al Qaeda that the C.I.A. created after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Mr. Biden said the new president’s actions “reverse the policies that in my view and the view of many in this agency caused America to fall short of its founding principles and which gave Al Qaeda a powerful recruiting tool.”

How long can Obama and Biden fiddle this tune? The economy is bad because that Dubya, he deregulated things. Arabs hate us because, didn’t you know, President Bush had Marines knocking random doors throughout the Middle East and hauling off whoever answered! Why, before the United States started imprisoning foreign terror suspects, Al Qaeda had nothing but the Muslim Brotherhood, Saudi funding of Wahhabist extremism, wrecked economies, uneducated populations, jealousy of the West, and a generally hopeless Middle East to ease recruiting!

If things don’t turn around in Afghanistan, I’m sure it will be because President Bush cooked up those concerns about Saddam, who everybody knew was no big deal. If Iraq’s young democracy fails, it will be because President Bush was too stupid to let the Ba’athists have their playground. If Iran nukes Israel, look no further than President Bush and his childish snubbing of the annual March Madness with Mahmoud tournament pool and cocktail mixer.

So remember, any time you’re wondering, “Why is ____ such a mess?” the answer is, “Because George W. Bush ruined ____.” Lest you forget, President Obama will be providing reminders in every press conference and public address for the next 8 years. No need to dwell on the mistakes of Congressional Democrats or overgrown bureaucracy when the solution to every problem is to spend more money and speak more eloquently than your predecessor!

Obama poured scorn on Republican critics who said the stimulus bill lacked enough tax cutting measures and pointed his finger at the polices of his Republican predecessor George W. Bush for dragging the country into recession.

“We can’t expect relief from the tired old theories that, in eight short years, doubled the national debt, threw our economy into a tailspin, and led us into this mess in the first place,” Obama said.

“We can’t rely on a losing formula that offers only tax cuts as the answer to all our problems while ignoring our fundamental economic challenges.”

The MoveOn.org tone is unbecoming. How long will we have to listen to this fairytale where President Bush harmed the country by being insufficiently progressive? More spending! More regulation! More taxes! We have a lot of making up to do after 8 years under that deregulation-crazed, tax-cutting cowboy!

This whole situation has been a perfect opportunity for Obama the Centrist, if only he existed. Every bill Nancy Pelosi supports and every statement she makes provides new nonsense he could position himself to the right of. Why not encourage the idea of spending an assload of money on liberal pet projects while paying lip service to trimming the most ridiculous features and letting Americans keep more of their money? Because Obama is Pelosi with a better speaking voice.

Over the weekend, it seemed like Dubya and the State Department were content to sit back and let Israel defend herself. No more:

At a briefing for reporters in Crawford, Texas, where President Bush is spending the holidays, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said U.S. diplomacy is aimed not at a cease-fire in name only that could break down in days or weeks – but one that is lasting:

“We have got to get a commitment from Hamas that they would respect any cease-fire and make it lasting and durable,” said Johndroe. “And, so, until we can get that assurance – not the United states, but until Israel can get that assurance from Hamas -then we’re not going to have a cease-fire that is worth the paper it’s written on.”

When has any agreement with Hamas been worth the paper it’s written on? When has any Palestinian group respected a cease-fire for longer than it takes to replenish their rocket supply?

It’s no surprise that CNN downplays the random rocket fire endured by Israelis month after month, while lamenting the plight of ravaged Palestine. It’s no surprise that the UN and European Union rush to tut-tut Israel’s “disproportionate” response to ongoing terrorism. And sadly, it’s no surprise that the President and the State Department can at best be relied on for a few days of silence before pitching in another $85 million and pleas for useless diplomacy.

No matter the steps Mr. Obama takes, he is likely to seek a range of opinions. That is what happened in June 2006, when he invited a group of environmental leaders to meet with him to discuss legislation that would increase fuel economy.

At the time, none at the meeting knew that Mr. Obama planned a presidential bid, said Mr. Becker, who was then representing the Sierra Club.

He said that Mr. Obama told them: “If you guys think this is helpful, then I want to go ahead and push this. But if you don’t think it’s helpful, I’ll drop it. I don’t have to do this.”

Excellent. I’ve always said the Sierra Club and other “environmental leaders” should have more influence over our auto manufacturing companies. This is why my feelings on the car industry meltdown have been and remain to be let them burn. Insistence that we “bail out” GM, Chrysler, or anyone else with taxpayer funds is based on the inherently broken assumption that the companies as they are can be rescued, if only Washington had more control.

Even in the New York Times story there are a few blips of common sense:

Mr. Obama said he would provide up to $3 billion to Detroit auto companies and their suppliers to retool their factories in order to produce smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles. Still, with gasoline prices falling again, it is unclear whether consumer demand will shift so dramatically to small cars.

Emphasis mine. Luckily, not much time is wasted considering market influences in a story about the myriad ways government can fix the industry. More money for ethanol! Higher CAFE standards! And –shoot, that’s the extent of the Obama Plan for Hippy-Happy Cars. I will be surprised (and pleasantly so, to be sure) if the end result is anything but a slower “meltdown” with billions of taxpayer dollars thrown after what GM and Chrysler have already blown.

• President Bush is ruining the lives of John and Suzie Q. Iraqi!
• President Bush’s security is terrible because of how incompetent he is!
• President Bush is Saddam times ten!
• Other, even less coherent truths that are obvious to everyone except The Neocons!

When I saw the clip, it seemed like a perfect summary of Bush’s presidency. Something gets thrown at his face; he smiles, ducks, and returns to what he was doing. Byron York noted several wonderful quotes from an Air Force One press conference following the incident:

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, my opening statement: I didn’t know what the guy said, but I saw his sole….I’m pretty good at ducking, as most of you will know —

And:

THE PRESIDENT: I don’t think you can take one guy throwing shoes and say this represents a broad movement in Iraq. You can try to do that if you want to. I don’t think it would be accurate.

QUESTION: Well, then, separately from him —

THE PRESIDENT: That’s exactly what he wanted you to do. Like I answered on your question, what he wanted you to do was to pay attention to him. And sure enough, you did…

[There was a noise on board the plane.]

THE PRESIDENT: The other shoe just dropped. Look, I’m going to be thinking of shoe jokes for a long time. I haven’t heard any good ones yet.

Isn’t one of the President’s daughters still single? I’m holding out hope.

From The Washington Post (registration required):

Given Bush’s efforts to earn Maliki’s trust, the surveillance of the Iraqi prime minister caused some consternation among several senior U.S. officials, who questioned whether it was worth the risk, Woodward reports. One official knowledgeable about the surveillance “recognized the sensitivity of the issue and then asked, ‘Would it be better if we didn’t?’ “

Apparently Woodward had no such concerns when it came to publishing such a sensitive topic in his upcoming The War Within: A Secret White House History, 2006-2008. So what’s more important – the stability of an entire country, or Bob Woodward’s book sales? Everyone who’s anyone has been assuring themselves for years that Bush is a stubborn, clueless, grating leader, but where the surge is concerned I’m sure Bob Woodward figures His Obamaness could benefit from beating that dead horse. Truly the ego of the Western journalist knows no bounds.

The House overwhelmingly rejected George W. Bush’s veto Wednesday of a $290 billion farm bill, but what should have been a stinging defeat for the president became an embarrassing episode for Democrats.

See, when you’re a Congressman, sometimes it’s hard to keep nagging details like legislation straight amidst your tight schedule of grandstanding and blowhardery. So occasionally you’ll send a bill to the President with, oh, 30-some odd pages missing (I don’t know which is worse – that nobody noticed an entire section missing, or that a “Farm Bill” can even be 34 pages short). But don’t fret, they’ll just pass the billions of dollars of obnoxiously unnecessary legislation again. And with the same overwhelming majorities, to be sure.

“We will have to repass the whole thing, as will the Senate,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. “We can’t let the farm bill just die.”

Collective sigh of relief. Wait, maybe “collective” is the wrong word to use here.

So here we are, with a few of the things that stood out for me. To begin with, it was cool to see a familiar (if not exceedingly tan) face entering behind the President. Having grown up in Boehner’s district, I’ve volunteered for a handful of his events and have met the Minority Leader a time or two. Probably as close to fame as I’ll ever come. I never expected to be so happy to see John Kerry sitting in the audience. And, if I were a Barack Obama supporter (I’m with Derb on this one), the sight of him chumming it up with Ted Kennedy would have me concerned.

My favorite line was probably:

We have other work to do on taxes. Unless Congress acts, most of the tax relief we’ve delivered over the past seven years will be taken away.

Some in Washington argue that letting tax relief expire is not a tax increase.

Try explaining that to 116 million American taxpayers who will see their taxes rise by an average of $1,800. Others have said they would personally be happy to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm. I am pleased to report that the IRS accepts both checks and money orders.

I’m glad the President was strong on earmarks, strong on entitlement programs, and strong on tax increases. If his actions through the rest of the year match his words from tonight, this will be a very productive lame duck year. I think he did a good job of highlighting successes and challenges in the Middle East – he’s probably too optimistic, but I guess somebody needs to be. All in all, the speech was strong at the beginning and end, with a little too much “compassionate conservative” mush in the middle.

As far as college campuses go, Miami University is a very conservative place. Which means most of our liberals are either mainstream enough to make reasonable arguments, or outnumbered enough to sit quietly. No tirades about King Chimpy’s plans to fill the wallets of his fatcat friends, and surprisingly neutral references to the Iraq war. But that’s enough of an introduction…

The debate team speakers used stage names in addition to their own names, so I’ll use the stage names. “Tennille” argued in favor of Social Security reform, and “Captain” (charming, I know… one of several cheesy jokes lost on us this evening) argued against. Neither gave an overwhelming presentation or crushing counter-arguments, but the underlying themes were basically what you would expect from each side. Tennille provided facts and predictions indicating that Social Security would run out of money by midway through the century and should be overhauled; Captain countered with assertions that Social Security’s predicted lifespan was increasing all the time and should be left alone.

The problem with both sides of this argument – for me, at least – is that economists are one of few groups I trust less than politicians. Both politicians and economists are motivated by agendas which are at least partially hidden from the general public; economists deal in “facts” where a quarter-percentage error can amount to forecasts being off by hundreds of millions of dollars over the period in question. Assuming some of the economists on both sides have erred in one direction or the other, what could we hear behind and in addition to the numbers?

Tennille spoke first, adding some depth to the notes the President played in his most recent State of the Union address. Mainly he attempted to prove that the current Social Security system will eventually go bankrupt unless reformed. On this front he used the aforementioned approach of providing numbers and economist forecasts. The fact that individuals would have more control over a greater percentage of their income was a statement that he mentioned but did not trumpet as loudly as he could have – this would have gone a long way towards covering his lack of explanation as to how a reformed system would not go the way of the dinosaurs, too.

On pure delivery, Captain (a senior member of the debate team) was a bit more impressive. In terms of content, however, Captain warned us of outcomes including: 1) domestic stock market crash which would create disaster internationally, creating an environment similar to that which the Great Depression caused in Germany, leading to the rise of Hitler 2) weaking of the dollar which would lead to increased foreign investment in the Euro and other alternatives 3) decrease in benefits paid by Social Security.

This could be too much simplicity, but don’t (1) and (2) at least partly cancel each other out? If they invest in other countries based on the prediction that Social Security reform will put America dangerously deeper in debt, how could their markets be crushed by America’s predicted tumble? One argument or the other might be supported, but using both left Captain with a pair of hobbled warnings. Not to metion I was pretty sure Germany fell under the Nazi spell mostly due to getting her tail end handed to her in World War I. As to (3), a temporary decrease would probably be necessary during the transition period. Nothing this big is handed off without a little jostling.

The issue, as I see it, boils down to just that: how much jostling should we accept, and how long might we expect the transition to last? I have an understanding of government and economics that is limited at best, but I can see how giving Social Security-paying workers a variety of index funds to choose from would provide greater returns, thus limiting the amount of money we would expect from the traditional Social Security vault. Not to mention I’d like the government to have as little of my money as possible. Assuming the logic behind the impending funding crisis is sound, this is a switch that should be put into motion now and not later.

Tonight’s debate – and the one currently taking place across the country – makes it clear that many people do not share this assumption. However, none of the anti-reform arguments posed by Captain or audience members convinced me to change my mind. The vocalized anti-reform consensus was that Social Security would not go bankrupt for “a long time,” maintenance fees would eat up the benefits from the proposed reforms, and that the federal government needs all the 12% that it currently takes in order to stay afloat. Basically, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. And if it’s in the process of breaking, leave it alone until it actually busts.

The only concession offered (by a guy who also said the problem was too far away for him to care about… a scary truth in a room full of college kids) was that we could fix the current system with very small adjustments – specifically, a slight increase in taxes. Forgive me for being less than excited when fellow students say that we should not worry about problems several decades away, and for being even LESS excited at the mention of tax increases to blow air into an old, stretched out system.

Imagine some of the ingenious things Al might say. A shining example:

“…notwithstanding the president’s political skills, his performance in office amounts to a catastrophic failure.”

Thanks, Al. We all know that you would be doing so much better.

Then there’s this:

“A clear majority of Americans believe that we are heading in the wrong direction. The reasons are obvious. The situation in Iraq is getting worse. Osama bin Laden is alive and plotting against us.”

The usual mainstream media bleakness, stretched to an entertaining degree. And don’t forget the obligatory mention of “Mr. Bush’s colossal tax break for the wealthy,” as well as some less-than-good-natured ribbing about Bush’s problem with alcohol 30 years ago.

The entire column is completely factual, well-cited, and not the least touch hatefully bitter, might I add. Read the gloriously insightful Gore op-ed piece on the New York Times website.

First, I’m a Republican. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it on the site before, but if not… it was bound to get out eventually. So yes, I am biased, and yes, I like George W. Bush. I don’t think he’s perfect, but I also don’t think he’s an incompetent conspiratorial dictator with world domination in his twisted heart. And the sad thing is, there seem to be a lot of Americans who feel there is no room for in-between: either you are an adoring lapdog, or a valiant opposer of Dubya’s fiendish schemes. I understand that people hate the President – part of being a leader is being unable to please everyone – yet I continue to be baffled by the degree to which this hatred overshadows any hint of reason.

But, there’s the ultra-concise version of our current political environment, in case you’ve been in Canada for the last 3 years. Bush “stole” the election in 2000, and there are plenty of people who still insist Al Gore is our rightful leader. Thank the Lord that Dubya is such a wily “thief,” because have you been paying attention to Al for the last few years? He’s gone from odd and creepy to clinically, violently out of control (just look for any recent Al quote at Yahoo! News or anywhere else). His supporters either share in his out-of-check anger, or choose to overlook it.

This, ultimately, is the point: no leader is perfect, but how do we as individuals decide which aspects to focus on and which to overlook? President Bush’s Texas National Guard service comes to mind, and although I am not confident about his service (probably as a result of hearing about it from every major network since 1999) I am confident in his recent decisions and current abilities. More importantly, the Bush campaign has not made this an issue… the Guard story had its run, and petered out once before, and simply is not relevant. CBS had to bring out their newest “Bush Is A Liar” story nonetheless, and while they should be hiding at this point they are instead using the publicity to push their accusations ever onward.

The foundation for CBS’s story? Memos allegedly from the files of Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Killian, deceased, support the media’s pre-2000 election assertions that George W. Bush shirked his Guard responsibilities and received preferential treatment. Within a day, a handful of online journals posted evidence indicating that the memos were not written in 1972, but with Microsoft Word. Faced with mounting evidence that either 1) they had been fooled by a novice fraudster or 2) they had knowingly used fraudulent documents, CBS lashed out at the online community while refusing to apologize for an obvious mistake.

Finally, after most of their supporting cast of “experts” had distanced themselves from the mess, CBS admitted that the documents might have been forged. They have not given their source. They insist that the content was still accurate, now shoring up their story with the feelings of an anti-Bush elderly woman. If this is the best the liberal media can do at painting a negative picture of President Bush, Nov. 2 should not even be close: It is an election year, and a major news network rushed out a story that would make the President look bad, and although the story’s basis has been proven false they use its momentum to continue bumbling along. Too many people will still see only the 60 Minutes side and take it at face value, assuming Bush is in fact a man who cannot be trusted (funny how the Swift Boat Vets stories didn’t get as much consideration), and this is unfortunate.

Nonetheless, I am cautiously optimistic about the sitation. I don’t think anyone important will be fired over at CBS, but the floodgates have been opened. So long as there are competing networks and online experts utilizing their free speech, dishonestly motivated stories like this will be similarly shot down in the future. Stupid people will continue trusting Dan Rather and Co., and crazy people will continue believing that every little thing is a Republican conspiracy. It is my hope… if maybe too wishful of a hope… that the spread of truth will ever marginalize the lunatics who refuse to see it, however loud said lunatics might be.

Update: Terry McAuliffe is an ass.