OK, Guy - my point here is that it was an obvious fraud and the best-case scenario for the disaster that was the news situation at the time is that Dan Rather had too little knowledge of Microsoft Word and word processing (and Ms. Mapes as well) to make this call and not ID their source as a fraudulent source. I saw the Mary Mapes movie, by the way. It was embarrassing. I am not a journalist but a nonfiction writer and the fact checking on it was ludicrous, and for them to double-down after the obvious fraud was uncovered is on them.
As I noted in this article there were many, many documentable negative things about Bush's decisions that could have been covered. But they were not. Instead, this fraudulent and flat out stupid story was.
These people were taking on the son of a former VP, U.S. President, and head of the CIA. He was a sitting President. Listen to yourself. Do you honestly think that there is something extraordinarily out of line for George HW Bush's son, the grandson of Prescott Bush, to have done Air National Guard to avoid Vietnam? Oh, no one else did that, right? I mean no other rich, highly influential, political dynasties had any scions who avoided any type of military service? :Let's see--McCain the "war hero" served, right? Well, I've read that "Maverick" article from Rolling Stone, and this is the same guy who was offering "lethal defensive weapons" to Ukraine via Russian radio hosts, and writing paeans to nuclear war shortly before his death.
They're all oligarchs. None of them give a rat's a$$ about any of us. Mary Mapes got a movie and you just cite a book - she's had ample opportunity to "defend" herself but ... the CIA chief's son and cannot fix this situation. Hello. Dan Rather is a toady and servant. Nothing more, nothing less.
I've been thinking about writing about The Blacklist because as insanely ludicrous as it is? It's a form of docudrama. Would Dan Rather have been *intelligent* to take on Raymond Reddington with this type of info? Or any of the "Cabal" members on that show, with such poor information and such an unreliable situation? This would be the choice? Nearly guaranteed failure. The Bushes aren't weak, they are strong.
