Memo update

So, CBS News' Dan Rather - one of the most respected journalists in the nation, anchor of the CBS Evening News for over a quarter century - does a story on Bush's Guard record based on memo's that were recovered from the private files of a General Killian who was Bush's commander at the Texas Air National Guard. Unless the story is proven wrong it means Bush has lied about his Guard record and therefore:

1) He got help in seeking access to the Guard at the height of the Vietnam War.
2) He sought to get out of his commitment to the National Guard for 6 months to go work on a Senate campaign in Alabama.
3) He refused a direct order to submit to a flight physical, and for that was suspended from duty.

This is aside from the story reported last week by the Boston Globethat claims Bush never fulfilled his commitments once he moved to Boston to attend Harvard Business School and that he was never punished by being put on a ready-alert unit as was required by Guard rules at the time.

This story could be H-U-G-E. But what does our mainstream media do?

They get mislead by a rabid bunch of right-wing bloggers who mistakenly believe the CBS memos are fakes because the typeface and spacing couldn't have been done by a typewriter at the time. This turns out not to be true. In fact, other documents, released earlier this year by the White House concerning Bush's Guard record appear very similar to the ones attained by CBS - as Dan Rather pointed out tonight.

Now that the record has been set straight by CBS our media is hot on the case of Bush's Guard service right? Nope. They are consumed with whether a rival news organization is as trustworthy as Killian's relatives (some who were toddlers at the time the memos would have been written and have Republican leanings) and whether ALL typeface experts can agree, independent of their party affiliation, that the memos are real.

The underlying message to Democrats, hopeful that yet more evidence that Bush is a liar might finally bring him down? Better luck next time.