Slashdot Mirror
Your Favorite Political Weblogs?
worm eater would like to know: "As the mainstream media is coming under closer scrutiny from the 'blogosphere,' and is having to actually respond to these journalists in pajamas, I thought I'd ask Slashdot: what are your favorite political blogs? Lately I've been reading Talking Points Memo, a liberal weblog by Joshua Micah Marshall, and a blog by Andrew Sullivan, a conservative writer. Where do you go when you want to see the mainstream media dissected and poked at?"
Don't know if it qualifies as a "blog" but I regularly check FactCheck: http://www.factcheck.org/
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
http://www.thismodernworld.com/ good bloggage and good cartoons too
> a) You assume some political connections were used? What
> were they? Who alleges this? Did Bush himself do anything? Do
> Bush's FATHER do anything? Who is to blame for this.
> Unsubstantiated FUD. Troll.
Ben Barnes, then Lt. Governor of Texas, admitted he got Bush into the National Guard:
> "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas
> National Guard when I was lieutenant governor, and I'm not
> necessarily proud of that. But I did it.
Bush was son of a then senator and former ambassador. He served in what many called the "champagne" unit in the Texas National Guard. Bush admitted he had no experience to get him into the guard, and he scored in the bottom 25% on the pilots' test. Bush's records admit this.
> Guess you haven't been watching the news recently when
> Staudt and others in the guard and of the guard went on TV.
> That's how fast the liberla media jumped on this story once
> they thought they had something they could run with
The questionable documents have done a lot to muddy the waters, but the fact remains that the crux of the question of Bush's service was not dependent on a single document. I agree that CBS News should have fact-checked better. However, it would be nice if the Bush supporters as charged up in determining the authenticity of a now-shown fraudulent document that lead us to war.
But that doesn't absolve Bush from not finishing his duty, which has been corroborated in ways apart from the documents. For example, in Bush's records, Bush flew only 22 months of the 53 he owed. Salon has more details on the documents that Bush should have filed but did not when he decided to stop flying:
--Quote--
> Bush flew for the last time on April 16, 1972. Upon entering
> the Guard, Bush agreed to fly for 60 months. After his training
> was complete, he owed 53 months of flying.
> But he flew for only 22 of those 53 months.
> Upon being accepted for pilot training, Bush promised to
> serve with his parent (Texas) Guard unit for five years once he > completed his pilot training.
> But Bush served as a pilot with his parent unit for just two
> years.
> In May 1972 Bush left the Houston Guard base for Alabama.
> According to Air Force regulations, Bush was supposed to
> obtain prior authorization before leaving Texas to join a new
> Guard unit in Alabama.
> But Bush failed to get the authorization.
> In requesting a permanent transfer to a nonflying unit in
> Alabama in 1972, Bush was supposed to sign an
> acknowledgment that he received relocation counseling.
> But no such document exists.
> He was supposed to receive a certification of satisfactory
> participation from his unit.
> But Bush did not.
> On May 26, 1972, Lt. Col. Reese Bricken, commander of the
> 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in
> Alabama, informed Bush that a transfer to his nonflying unit
> would be unsuitable for a fully trained pilot such as he was,
> and that Bush would not be able to fulfill any of his remaining
> two years of flight obligation.
> But Bush pressed on with his transfer request nonetheless.
> Bush's transfer request to the 9921st was eventually denied by
> the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, which meant he
> was still obligated to attend training sessions one weekend a
> month with his Texas unit in Houston.
> But Bush failed to attend weekend drills in May, June, July,
> August and September. He also failed to request permission
> to make up those days at the time.
> According to Air Force regulations,
Insert simplistic political, ideological, or personal proselytization here.