I watched Dan Rather’s 60 Minutes II piece on the renewed questionability of George W. Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard this evening with great interest. Two quick things occurred to me: first, that it’s highly unlikely that the network would have allowed Dan Rather — who is synonymous with the credibility of their news organization, for better or worse — to lend his imprimatur to this report without being pretty confident that they were right on the facts. This is an important point, because CBS is notoriously weak-willed, having caved into Republican pressure on everything from a harmless Reagan made-for-TV movie to commercials from MoveOn.org. It means something when a lapdog like the Eye bites back.
The second thing I considered was that, hey, maybe the reason George W. Bush didn’t show up for duty is that he came across one of these discs in his mailbox back in 1969. Could be.