Someone please explain this to me. Usually GW Bush speeches are artfully concocted creations that sound like they say one thing (e.g. Saddam was in bed with Al Qaeda), but in fact when you parse them carefully don't actually lie as such. (Disclaimer: does not apply to uses of economic statistics, where the M.O. is to accurately quote transparently concocted statistics.)
But yesterday GW Bush said something quite plainly false. Look at this article in the Manchester Union Leader, referenced in Dan's latest column:
The President said, as he has in the past, that after flying more than 570 hours in the Guard, he asked permission to work on a political campaign. “I was granted permission by my superiors,” he said. “I did everything they asked me to do and met my requirements and was honorably discharged. I’m proud of my service in the Guard.
We all know that the claim that “I did everything they asked me to do” is false. “They” asked Lt. Bush to take a physical. In fact, if the Guard followed its routine, they almost certainly ordered him to. And he didn't.
This incident demonstrates the major reason why the issue of 30-year-ago National Guard service is relevant today. Not because someone pulled strings in order to put some poor person's kid at risk in Vietnam instead of Jr. Not because Bush gamed the system to get out of flying just when his unit was going to a genuine mission to patrol US airspace. Not because the ill-minded of the world speculate that substance abuse lead to his being grounded, and meant he would have flunked the physical. Not because someone falsified the official records to record credits that were never actually earned. Nor even because the records were later sanitized to remove the critical separation codes that would tell us something about what really happened.
No. The reason this incident matters most is because GWB still can't come clean about it. And that sort of stubborn denial of facts is digging us deeper into holes in Iraq and at home.
But you know all this. Everyone knows all this. So the question I want explained to me is this: Why is it that when Dan Rather unwittingly albeit negligently tells a lie, everyone gets excited. But when the GOP candidate for President tells a lie knowingly and with malice aforethought…no one calls him on it?
