Posted 10:42 AM by Scoobie Davis

Go Figure
Why is it that the right wing blogsphere is devoting so much time on arcane subjects as kerning and typewriter fonts in order to try to discredit letters written by George W. Bush's former Texas Air National Guard commander? Power Line Blog, one of the blogs behind the effort to discredit the Killian memos, came out with the following incredible assertions:

Two scenarios, two answers

Scenario 1 -- The Swiftvets put out an ad that questions whether John Kerry told the truth about his service during the Vietnam war. The charges go unaddressed for days. When they are finally addressed, the main argument is that the Bush campaign is behind the ads. Thus the charges remain largely unanswered.

Scenario 2 -- CBS airs a story that questions whether George W. Bush told the truth about his service during the Vietnam war. In less than 24 hours, the main elements of the story (the things that made it different from past tellings) are pretty much discredited.

Question -- How do we explain the difference betweeen [sic] these scenarios?

Answer 1 -- The Swiftvet story is based on reliable evidence; the CBS story isn't.

Answer 2 -- The Democrats rely on an increasingly incompetent MSM; the Republicans don't, and are the beneficiaries of the efforts of conservative bloggers and their readers.

What planet is this Powerline author living on? What the Powerline author argues is the opposite of the facts. When John O'Neil and the Swift Boat Vets came out with attacks against John Kerry, thoughtful observers pointed out how just about everything claimed by the Swiftvets contradicted the official Navy record as well as what the very same Swiftvets had claimed previously (a good example of the latter is the claim by Swiftvet Larry Thurlow who claimed that John Kerry didn't deserve a Bronze Star for an incident because there was no enemy fire; yet Thurlow's own Bronze Star citation listed enmey fire during the incident--that's just one example). The evidence is overwhelming that John O'Neil and the Swiftvets are habitual and pathological liars.

On the other hand, let's suppose one or more of the Killian's letters are shown to be forgeries. So what? Enough recent evidence is out there to overwhelmingly show that George W. Bush did not fulfill his Air National Guard obligations. And it also shows Bush to be a complete hypocrite for recently telling the National Guard Review, "The responsibility to show up and do your job" when Bush himself did not fulfill his obligations--such as the recently disclosed fact that Bush agreed to do drills in Massachusetts when he went to business school but did not do them.

It is up to bloggers to tell the truth and expose lies, not to be hacks.