Category: The Dubya Era

(Draft)-Dodged Another Bullet.

Well, even Dan Rather is backing away from the Killian memos at this point, which obviously does not bode well for their authenticity. And as for the larger questions about where Dubya spent all those post-drug-test AWOL months in 1972…well, I’m sure the mainstream press will get to those in due time, aren’t you?

That’s My President.

“He showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that.” Harvard Business School professor Yoshi Tsurumi remembers young Dubya, and, yes, even back then he was a profile in character and courage. “[H]e was such a bad student that I asked him once how he got in. He said, ‘My dad has good friends.'”

Isengard Unleashed.

“I expect the Bush administration will go down in history as the greatest disaster for public health and the environment in the history of the United States.” Senator James Jeffords (I-VT) — and the NY Times — review Dubya’s dismal environmental record. This piece bends over backwards to be charitable to the Dubya EPA, yet even here it’s hard not to notice that George W. Bush’s America increasingly has a sickly, charred smell to it.

The Republican Pastime (Redux).

He may not be able to stay awake during the Superbowl, but Dubya loves him some baseball…and, as it turns out, baseball owners love them some Dubya. “More than a dozen current and former owners and family members are among the president’s top re-election fundraisers…Seven are Bush ‘Rangers,’ each raising at least $200,000, and six are ‘Pioneers’ who have brought in $100,000 or more.
” In contrast, Kerry received a paltry $2000 each from Red Sox chairman Tom Werner and Padres owner John Moores. Hmmm…between this and the Tim Robbins Hall of Fame fiasco last year, I must say I’m feeling pretty proud to be an NBA fan right now. While baseball lines Dubya’s coffers, basketball puts up a Dem for president (albeit one who appears to have fallen off the radar at this critical political juncture.)

A Dubya-sized bender.

“A staple of Bush’s stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator’s campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.” As Dubya prattles on about the purported profligacy of the “Senator from Massachusetts,” the Post figures out the cost of four more years of Dubyanomics to be in excess of $3 trillion. I don’t know about you, but I for one don’t have that kind of money.

Letter Never Sent?

The dispute over the CBS memos rages on, with both sides digging in. I must say, the additional information offered by the Post does seem to suggest that the controversial Killian memos may in fact be bogus (although USA Today did independently obtain them “from a person with knowledge of Texas Air National Guard operations,” for what that’s worth.) Which, if so, leads one to wonder who out there could have been so base and stupid as to falsify these documents, when there’s already so much legitimate evidence of Dubya’s desertion. That’s the GOP’s racket, not ours. Still, I’m not yet 100% convinced.

It’s Funny Because It’s True.

Bad form, I know, but this week’s Onion is particularly amusing. Take, for example, Hundreds Of Republicans Injured In Rush To Discredit Kerry. “‘It’s bad down here,’ Savannah (GA) General Hospital director Lloyd Sautner said. ‘We were still treating hurricane victims when all these politicians were hurt in the whirlwind of manufactured controversy.’” I also liked Bush Campaign More Thought Out Than Iraq War and Terry Gilliam’s Barbeque Plagued by Production Delays.

Got Myself an Uzi and my Brother a 9.

The assault weapons ban expires tonight at midnight and, while it may not have been very effective anyway, somehow I get the sense that our homeland would be more secure with it in place. Shame on Dubya, and that goes double for the GOP Congress.

…and Splines.

“Now, would the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron have extravagantly purchased typewriters that contained the th superscript key? Would the military want or require typewriters with the ‘th’, ‘nd’, and ‘rd’ characters? Hmm. Ponder, Ponder. What would the 111th need with a th character… I’ll leave that to the enterprising among you to deduce.” So, as expected, the Bushies are pushing back hard on the 60 Minutes memos, and seem to have successfully managed shifting this news cycle from Dubya’s whereabouts to questions of possible forgery. Well, first off, The Daily Kos (quoted above) has written up a pretty good blow-by-blow explaining how all this new wrangling over font-technology adds up to less than its seems.

Regarding the documents’ authenticity, I think it’s entirely possible that somebody tried to “frame a guilty man” here, particularly given the depths to which we’ve already seen the Swift Boaters stoop. But, for now, I’m still thinking the docs are legitimate, as (a) CBS is strongly standing by them, and have a corroborative witness in Maj. Gen Bobby Hodges, Col. Killian’s (Republican) commanding officer, (b) unlike the Swift Boat allegations, they conform to what we already knew and to other information in the public record, and (c) Dubya’s White House, who knows the full story, certainly didn’t act like these could be fake documents when the story broke. At any rate, remove these Killian memos from the picture and the original question still stands: Where was Dubya, and why did he skip out on a required medical exam? Update: Experts in today’s Boston Globe back up the authenticity of the documents, including one examiner, Philip Bouffard, who had earlier suggested doubts to the NY Times.