September 15, 2004

Did Bush Deserve His Honorable Discharge?

I'll start this by noting that personally whether or not he fulfilled his Guard obligations has nothing to do with how I'll vote on November 2nd. I'm much more interested in 21st century events than events that went on before I was born. But for those of you who feel the need to discuss this matter, here's a thread in which to do it.

Want some articles on get you started? Here are some from US News, the Boston Globe, and the Nation. Whether or not the CBS documents are forgeries has pretty much nothing to do with the facts at hand (thearticles I linked to are based on other documents). As Mark Kleiman says, being guilty of a frame isn't the same thing as being innocent.

I'll repeat that to me this isn't a vitally important story, and I hope the comments thread on this isn't terribly long - but since despite my best efforts our comments section tends to run along the lines of "Bush is bad! No, Bush is good!" I figured I'd give ya'll a place to post your thoughts and screeds on this matter.

UPDATE: Oh, and here's a run-down on what's known and not known from Kevin Drum.

Posted by armand at September 15, 2004 03:21 PM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics


Comments

To quote from ABC news,
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/Vote2004/bush_documents_040909-1.html
Her late husband was a fan of the young Bush, said Connell, who remarried after her husband died in 1984. "I know for a fact that this young man...was an excellent aviator, an excellent person to be in the Guard, and he was very happy to have him become a member of the 111th.

Posted by: Morris at September 15, 2004 09:38 PM | PERMALINK

well if mrs. connell says so, i retract everything i've said to the contrary.

Posted by: joshua at September 16, 2004 10:37 AM | PERMALINK

Joshua's sarcasm aside (or has he really switched teams!), like I wrote - that doesn't matter. The Killian memos don't really add anything to the basic story here. They might say something about CBS's behavior and standards, but that's it. These other stories are based on different documents.

Posted by: Armand at September 16, 2004 12:26 PM | PERMALINK

And if you're going to say yes they are central to this (though they aren't) it's worth noting that THE WHITE HOUSE thought they were accurate. I think that probably says something about them:

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2004-2_archives/000191.html

But again, they aren't central to the issue.

Posted by: Armand at September 16, 2004 01:31 PM | PERMALINK
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