By now, 99% of people who visit blogs know all about the 60 Minutes story and how it was nothing more than a trumped up partisan attack based on forged documents that have ended up doing little more than dragging whatever shred of dignity, credibility, and reliability Dan Blather and his awfully biased 60 Minutes had through the mud.

The very best synopsis on why the documents are fakes can be found here.

Update: Correction, the best site for this is LGF. It was close, though, but LGF PROVED the documents were fakes.

I make it a point to NEVER watch 60 minutes; however, my elderly grandfather takes Dan Blather's poisoned diatribes as the word of God.


I happened to be in the room with my Grandfather when I heard Blather start into his attack on the President, so I picked up the story (weird how I have seen exactly 10 minutes of CBS news in the past month, and those 10 minutes happened be the most scandalous in recent memory.)

I wanted to blog about the story but I have been pretty busy lately. With what little time I could sign online I spent most of it reading the news... Besides, Rush pretty much destroyed the story on his radio show and website so I figured I wouldn't have any sort of chance at a scoop and would basically be talking about a story that had been covered better elsewhere.

I've had a few emails about the story, and people updating me with what is going on with the story, which I really do appreciate; however, I'd already read most of the stories over on Drudge.

What strikes me about this story is that it is entirely irrelevant, and I say this with the knowledge that libs will see me as saying this based entirely on my pro-Bush stance. First of all, Bush never made his service in the National Guard an issue. He didn't make this the centerpiece for his campaign. Most importantly, Bush has 4 years of service as the Commander in Chief of the entire Executive Branch of the US Government. These four years are as recent as they can come. If we are going to look at Bush's track record of service to his country, we ought to look at the most important factor for an incumbent President; how he ran the country in the past 4 years. Since The War on Terrorism and National Security seem to be the most important issues to voters, we should note that Bush's approval ratings on these issues is VERY high. Bush's doctrine of preemption has proven itself a valuable tool in preventing acts of terror AND has led to the liberation of millions of highly oppressed people. The easiest way to stamp out fundamentalism is to introduce liberty and freedom to the Middle East, and President Bush has done just that.

The timing of this release is interesting. Bush, the Chief Executive Officer of the US gave the order that ALL, no some, ALL of his records be released. He did this months ago. It is suspicious that any documents would later emerge as if out of thin air. It is awfully convenient that these documents would emerge within days after the Republican National Convention, during the so called "bounce" period.

It should be noted that Kerry STILL has refused to release all of his documents.
CBS's "Proof" that Bush Lied

Documents damning Bush suddenly appear that apparently weren't around when Bush called for all of his records to be released, right after he starts a climbing in the polls.... hmmm... The guy who supposedly wrote the documents is, conveniently for CBS, unable to refute the authenticity of the documents... hmmm... The guy who supposedly wrote the documents was retired at the time he supposedly wrote the document... hmmm... The alleged author's family says he genuinely liked Bush and his father... hmmm...

Even in spite of all the evidence that suggests the documents were fake, CBS chose to allow Dan Blather to call the president a liar in front of the entire world. CBS may as well be a 527... And their advertisers are nothing more than contributors to the Anti-Bush, Pro-Kerry 527 that is CBS.

Let's, for sake of argument, say that the documents were fake and that CBS either suspected this or knew for certain that the documents were no good. Would CBS go forward anyway? Lets look at the pros and cons.

PRO: There is evidence to suggest that the far left (AKA liberals; AKA moonbats) do not care for facts. The allegation is enough for them because they hate Bush and believe far worse things about him without need for any factual base for such beliefs.


So, maybe 30% of the country will buy the story even if it is proven to be false... Even if CBS retracts the story they will still believe it to be true. So liberal indifference to facts/the truth is a PRO for CBS news.

CON: A potential CON would be that CBS risks its credibility as a trustworthy news source; but, once again, millions of Americans don't care for the truth anyway as long as they hear what they agree with/want to hear, so CBS would only lose credibility among moderates and conservatives; BUT, conservatives have known that CBS is extremely biased and that Dan Blather serves little use beyond a DNC Talkingpoints Zombie. Besides, Conservatives have been tuning into Fox News instead of CBS, so what appears to be a CON might not actually have that much negative impact.

PRO: A definite pro is that you cannot un-ring a bell. Even if the story is eventually retracted or proven wrong, only people who keep a close tab on the news will know this. Most Americans can't even tell you who the Vice President is, but they might remember that there were questions about Bush's service record during Vietnam, which leads to another pro...

PRO: By renewing attacks on Bush's service record, particularly with a BS trumped up story, the entire attention of the blogosphere, talk radio, and other news sources is shifted away from, oh I don't know... The SWIFT VETS!!!

PRO: By making a knowingly false attack on your opponent, you cheapen their same attack on you. The casual observer, unable to sort out all the allegations, facts, and details, will just say, "so what! One side says one thing, the other side says the same thing about the other side, so it must just be partisan attacks without real substance."

Kerry's service record was under major attack, Kerry has been proven to have lied at LEAST about Cambodia and attention was beginning to be paid to his Anti-War activities after he returned from Vietnam, but suddenly there is a scandalous story, most likely based on fraudulent documents, making a similar claim about Bush having lied about his service record... This completely deflates the impact of the swiftvets because suddenly they are old news, there is a far juicier story out there, and the blatantly false attacks on Bush make the casual observer question the validity of similar attacks on Kerry. This is a HUGE pro. for the libs.

PRO: There have been claims that some of the polls showing Bush with a double digit bounce after the RNC were weighted polls, purposely giving Bush an edge so that when real, accurate polls show a smaller bounce, it appears as if Bush has started to drop (making good news for Bush seem like a negative because thought he is still ahead, his lead dropped in half). Throw in the barrage of attacks against Bush, from Kitty Kelley's new book to this CBS smear story, and suddenly we can attribute the "drop" in Bush's numbers to the "startling revelations" about the "truth" of Bush's National Guard Service. This works out to be another Pro for CBS... If they know the polls were weighted in order to make Bush's lead appear to get smaller, then even a false attack could give the perception that Bush is in a freefall; which would influence some voters into thinking Bush is a sinking ship.

So is CBS going to lose viewers over this? Probably not, the conservatives stopped watching CBS, opting instead for FOX, the casual observer is not likely to follow the story in any great detail, and the left will believe it even if they know it to be false... How else do you explain the success of Left Wing Nutjobs like Michael Moore and Al Franken.

Possible PRO: CBS and 60 Minutes might actually get higher ratings because of the scandal. People will be tuning in to watch what they have to say next about this story. Even if they are hurt in the long run in the credibility department, they might see additional revenues in the short term. Every mention of CBS and 60 minutes is free publicity, so even in a negative context, this could work out as a PRO... CBS just has to weather a storm, but they might even come out on top.

So, do I think that the documents are fake? Yes, thanks in large part to LGF pointing this out. Do I think CBS would report a false story to hurt Bush? Well, what do they have to lose? I see a whole lot of PROs and very little CONs... unless I am missing something or my analysis is off.

*Note* This post is a bit unpolished in terms of grammar, spelling, etc. I was pretty tired when I wrote it, but I wanted to finally have something to say about it, so it is up. I will periodically fix errs as I find them.