He was right-on about ACORN and Van Jones, wasn’t he? But his errors don’t even come close to the level of, say, Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass or “Operation: Tailwind,” do they? (Look it up if you don’t happen to remember that particular CNN debacle). Judging from the hysteria of the moonbats on this board, you’d swear Beck was claiming that up is down and black is white each night on his show.
Unlike Beck, though, Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair no longer work for news organizations. And I presume many heads also rolled after Operation: Tailwind.
Given that a just few posts ago, you announced that you were going to support the sponsors of someone you ‘can’t bear to watch’ yourself, simply because apparently some anonymous mooks on a message board happen to bug you, I’d be careful about throwing the term ‘moonbat’ around.
But do tell: what was Beck right about concerning ACORN and Van Jones, exactly?
So, not a deserter, as very extreme enemies of Bush put it; but the AWOL tag fits Bush, in any case, not as serious an offense as it is now but his ass should had been hauled to Vietnam back in those days.
The Straight Dope article was from 2003. In 2004, more of Bush’s records were released. The Boston Globe was following the story (and was the one to first report on it back in 2000).
Feb. 10th, 2004 - “President Bush received credit for attending Air National Guard drills in the fall of 1972 and spring of 1973 – a period when his commanders have said he did not appear for duty at bases in Montgomery, Ala., and Houston – according to two new documents obtained by the Globe.”
Feb. 12th, 2004 - “President Bush’s August 1972 suspension from flight status in the Texas Air National Guard – triggered by his failure to take a required annual flight physical – should have prompted an investigation by his commander, a written acknowledgement by Bush, and perhaps a written report to senior Air Force officials, according to Air Force regulations in effect at the time.”
Sept. 8th, 2004 - “Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service – first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School – Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.”
As far as I understand things, the last article there, which seems to have run the same day as CBS’s piece, relies on Bush’s official records, and is independent of the forged memos in the CBS report. I think there were some additional, juicier bits whose sole support was the forged memos (involving Bush being given preferential treatment, IIRC) but the basics of the AWOL claims are there and haven’t been debunked, as far as I know.
We (that is, the board’s lefties) need to stop engaging the Dan Rather tu quoques. There’s no point.
CBS committed some shitty journalism when they pushed that story. Even if the facts presented were mostly true, that’s no excuse. Heads rolled at CBS over it, as they should have. And right-wingers have been giving each other reacharounds over it ever since, using it to justify their side’s shitty journalism.
Just don’t let it derail threads like this one. If Stephe96 and his ilk want to defend Glenn Beck, they should be able to do it without whipping out their five-year-old scalp and waving it around.
Let’s not forget the “the president has a deep-seated hatred of white people” to “I’m not saying that he dislikes white people” flip flop within the space of thirty seconds.
