Meet you back here in half an hour.
What are you going to do?
What I always do - stay out of trouble... Badly.

Clippy Weighs In

Okay, my last post on this particular brouhaha, I promise, but this is hysterical!

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Two Thoughts On Yesterday's Kerfuffle

First, CBS News says:

60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.

To anyone who has the slightest idea of how documents were produced in the early 70's, the memos scream fake, and a clumsy and childish fake at that. So either CBS are lying and they did not bother do get the documents authenticated at all, or their handwriting analyst and document expert is a retarded hamster.

Second, as Dean Esmay noted yesterday and others have noted since, the Democratic National Committee was busy pumping this story at the very moment it was melting down:

Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 22:42:39 -0500

....

Back in February, President Bush sat down in the Oval Office for an interview with Tim Russert and spoke about his service in the National Guard. Bush told us, "I put in my time, proudly so." He said, "And I'm telling you, I did my duty."

But now we know that Bush dishonored the Oval Office by lying to the American people.

New investigations from multiple media sources have revealed the truth about President Bush's service. New military documents show that Bush disobeyed a direct order from his commander to take a flight physical and "failed to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas Air National Guard standards" — and was grounded as a result.

New evidence supports claims that Bush missed months of service and that he never showed up for service with the Alabama National Guard.

New evidence shows that Bush received special treatment. His supervisor wrote that he felt pressured from above to "sugar coat" Bush's records.

This stands in stark contrast to the Republican Party's distancing itself from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. Very very stark contrast. So stark that some people are wondering:

From the Kerry perspective a scandal involving forged documents is a disaster. Kerry had yesterday to get in front of the story and he missed that boat. Instead of being able to stay on message and trying to beat down the post convention pulse which has sent Bush several points ahead in various opinion polls, Kerry is likely to face questions about who was responsible for the forgeries. While it would be astonishing if anyone inside the Kerry organization had a hand in them, it is a question that will be asked. Moreover, the spectacle of Kerry announcing that his campaign organization and the Democratic Party had nothing to do with issuing those documents will occupy several critical news cycles and focus attention on character -- exactly where Kerry does not want to be.

At the bottom of the story, though, is this point: CBS have been extremely, extremely stupid in their handling of this. The Democratic Party have been nearly, if not equally, as stupid. Whether they involved themselves in this mess deliberately, or were unwitting dupes of the forgers because they wanted to believe, it is transparently clear that they are not particularly bright.

Tell Me Again Why I Need You, Karl.

Damned if I know.

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Set The Wayback Machine To 1972!

So, the TANG memos from '72 and '73 critical of the then Lt. Bush are forgeries. CBS got a little 'splainin to do.

As usual, Scott Ott and Jim Treacher are all over the story.

For those looking for more serious stuff, Stephen Macklin has more here and here, and Powerline is covering the story in detail: here, here, here. here, and here. INDC Journal does the work CBS should have done and follows up here.

Dr. Rusty notes:

Forget the swiftie thing, it took us weeks to get the mainstream press in on the story. This...this took a matter of hours. We are the press now.

Steve the Llamabutcher has something to offer CBS. Triticale speculates on the evil genius of Karl Rove... Though admittedly it's easy to look like an easy genius when your enemies are total morons. Nick Queen informs us that CBS is now doing what it should have done before running the story. Ace points out that even Associated Press - they of the missing "boo" - quote an expert dismissing the documents as forgeries. The quote is actually kind of funny:

Independent document examiner Sandra Ramsey Lines said the memos looked like they had been produced on a computer using Microsoft Word software, which wasn't available when the documents were supposedly written in 1972 and 1973.

Yeah. It's like someone trying to peddle photographs of King Henry VIII. Ace has more here, here, here, here... Heck, just go to his blog and read from the top.

Nathan of Brain Fertilizer has a question on the etymology of "CYA". And annika is angry. We still like her when she's angry, of course.

Dean Esmay notes that the DNC doesn't read blogs. Ilyka needs to quit being such a pessimist. And Tim Blair notes that the documents were checked by phone. That is, the "experts" that CBS relied on never actually looked at the documents.

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John Kerry's Bad Day Out

Pentagon to check Kerry war record:

In a fresh blow to John Kerry's flagging presidential campaign, the Pentagon has ordered an official investigation into the awards of the Democratic senator's five Vietnam War decorations.

News of the inquiry came as President George W Bush opened an 11-point lead over his rival - the widest margin since serious campaigning began - according to the first poll released since last week's Republican convention.

A question mark has been raised over one of John Kerry's awards

The highly unusual inquiry is to be carried out by the inspector-general's office of the United States navy, for which Sen Kerry served as a Swift Boat captain for four months in 1968, making two tours of duty.

He was wounded in action and subsequently awarded three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Bronze Star. But for the past month, the exact details of Mr Kerry's military service in Vietnam have become shrouded in a controversy that the navy has now decided warrants a full-blown search for the truth.

Can we gloat just a little bit?

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Bounce?

Right now, the AOL Straw Poll has John Kerry comfortably winning... DC. George Bush takes every state for 535 out of 538 in the Electoral College.

Somehow I suspect the real thing will be closer than that.

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A Little Piece Of History

With the Republican Convention upon us, and with it the CounterConvention, it is worth revisiting this little piece of history, which I had the foresight to save shortly before their hired monkeys returned from lunch and deleted the whole thing.

Enjoy.

P.S. The wretched formatting is as per the original site.

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Go Australia!

Yay! More gold for us, and we've equalled our 16 golds at the Sydney Olympics and pulled into third place by the traditional ranking. Russia had a good day too, so we'll have to stay on our toes.

Not that I've actually, like, watched any of the events...

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Taking Out The Trash

The usual suspects are trashing Unfit to Command in a series of factually-challenged and often revealing reviews at Amazon, giving the book an average - indeed, unanimous - rating of one star. And in return:

4 of 41 people found the following review helpful.
3 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
2 of 35 people found the following review helpful.
3 of 35 people found the following review helpful.

Who will review the reviewers? We will.

Oh, and the revealing part?

The accounts are vague at critical junctures, and each and every claim has already been refuted by Democrat operatives.

Democrat operatives? VLWC, anyone? From the inside?

Of course, the only point directly addressed so far by the Kerry campaign is the famous "Christmas in Cambodia" story, which has now morphed first into a "Christmas near Cambodia" story and then into a "Late January/Early February in Cambodia" story. I think all that searing might have affected someone's brain.

(Pixy Misa is messing about with the MuNu forums and the new MuNu portal, and will return soon. This gratuitous sniping at the Campaign To Elect Someone Who Isn't George Bush was brought to you by a bottle of Cherry Coke*.)

* Bottle of Cherry Coke does not represent the opinions of the Coca-Cola corporation or its employees or shareholders. I am Pixy Misa and I approve this message.

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Them!

Giant Mutant Ant Colony Found In Australia!

Melbourne, to be precise. Bwahahaha!

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Sydney Morning Herald Delenda Est

The Squeeze Is On

Today we see the new and energetic Opposition Leader, Mark Latham, struggling in the fist of Prime Minister, John Howard, the Machiavellian monster threatening to crush the neophyte leader much as he dispatched the past three Labor leaders - Paul Keating, Kim Beazley and Simon Crean. But unlike those three, Latham has flared briefly into the public view and, if crushed now, could well be remembered, like John Hewson, only as the man who promised greatness but lost in his moment of testing.

Today, front page, above the fold.

Why don't you just rename yourselves the Sydney Morning Leftist Rag and have done with it?

Paul Keating was never in the public view? What the hell? He was only the bleeding Prime Minister of Australia for five years. Could someone find out what the people at the Herald - sorry, the Leftist Rag - are smoking, and take it away from them?

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