Bloodless Coup

USA Today, CBS and Bush's Service in the Guard

Am I the only person who's incensed by the cover of today's USA Today? There, splashed across the top of the page is "CBS backs off Guard story". Given the tendency of many of the people who see newspapers to simply glance over the headline isn't it a problem when a headline could easily give viewers the wrong impression? Obviously CBS is backing off the Killian documents and that part of the story. But they are hardly backing off the as yet untold story of what the president was actually doing in 1972 and whether or not he deserved his honorable discharge. As I've mentioned before, the fact that these particular documents may have a questionable past doesn't affect the broad outline of what we know and don't know about the president's service in the Guard. So I certainly hope (and presume) CBS isn't backing off the real story here - the one dealing with the president of the United States (as opposed to the in-house issue of their own ethics and standards). The editors at USA Today are either really pro-Bush or lacking any appreciation whatsoever for the implications of their sloppy wording.