The 'lynching' of Dan Rather

Good guy journalist in exile, Greg Palast, gives his two cents worth on the CBS document scandal:

Is Rather's report accurate? Is George W. Bush a war hero or a privileged little Shirker-in-Chief? Today I saw a goofy two page spread in the Washington Post about a typewriter used to write a memo with no significance to the draft-dodge story. What I haven't read about in my own country's media is about two crucial documents supporting the BBC/CBS story. The first is Barnes' signed and sworn affidavit to a Texas Court, from 1999, in which he testifies to the Air Guard fix -- which Texas Governor George W. Bush, given the opportunity, declined to challenge.

And there is a second document, from the files of US Justice Department, again confirming the story of the fix to keep George's white bottom out of Vietnam. That document, shown last year in the BBC television documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," correctly identifies Barnes as the bag man even before his 1999 confession.

At BBC, we also obtained a statement from the man who made the call to the Air Guard general on behalf of Bush at Barnes' request. Want to see the document? I've posted it at: www.gregpalast.com/ulf/documents/draftdodgeblanked.jpg.

This is not a story about Dan Rather. The white millionaire celebrity can defend himself without my help. This is really a story about fear, the fear that stops other reporters in the US from following the evidence about this Administration to where it leads.

Click here for the rest.

Palast makes an absolutely crucial point: the allegedly forged memos used in the now infamous 60 Minutes broadcast some days ago are simply a diversionary sideshow; when taken as a whole, the report is essentially accurate, and Bush isn't denying it--he's ignoring it, in fact, while the media goes on and on about a few memos out of a mountain of evidence. Forgery or not, Bush got into the Air National Guard in order to stay out of Vietnam, and this only happened because his influential family pulled some important strings. Then he deserted.

'Nuff said.

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