Dan Rather, Apologist

[john doe]

Yes, but my misimpression of his misspelling was closer than his misspelling of the real guy. All I did was lose a letter, not miscomprehend how the real guy's name is spelled. He probably couldn't find his guy's name on a ballot, if he is even old enough to vote. :P

[Snow]

Originally posted by Cal@Sep 19 2004, 08:44 AM


Why make a deal about why Karey went to Vietnam? The issue is not why he went as much as what he did when he was there. On that point, there is no doubt that he performed admirably.

Unless one is completely asleep these days, there is quite a bit of doubt about what Kerry did while he was there.

Are you deliberately ignoring all the doubt that has been thrown around lately or are you truly unaware of what's been going on?

Either way this is a losing issue for Kerry. Mr "reporting for duty" thinks this campaign is about what he did during 4 months - 30 plus years ago. Enough questions have been raised about what he really did then and his behavior about it afterwards disgusts enough people that everytime he opens his mouth, the non-Kerry die-hards tune him out and roll their eyes. Since those types are in the majority, he ought to take Clinton's advice and shut up. For Kerry that is not so easy to do. He is so egotistical that he thinks that everything he utters is a matter to utmost importance and relevance rather the blather and pomp.

Originally posted by Snow@Sep 19 2004, 07:10 PM
Are you deliberately ignoring all the doubt that has been thrown around lately or are you truly unaware of what's been going on?

Quite right!! My faith tells me he served to the best of his abilities in Viet Nam, so I guess there is room for doubt. But, my knowledge tells me Bush was definitely NOT there; no room for an iota of doubt.

[curvette]

I agree with Duck on Dan Rather. What he did was completely irresponsible and inexcusable--especially for a seasoned reporter such as himself. About Vietnam though, I'm not sure we can even hold Vietnam vets or nonvets up to the same standards as the soldiers from WWII or even Korea. The social climate at home was completely different and unsupportive. The enemy was undefined and hard to identify. There simply were no clearcut rules. (Kind of like politics.) I wish they'd leave the whole thing out of their campaigns.

[Faerie]

I agree curvette...I'm highly disappointed that Kerry refuses to acknowledge his crappy Senate career and instead focused on FOUR MONTHS of service that happened over 25 years ago! He was in the Senate for over 20 years!!! I don't care about who served in Vietnam and who didn't...Clinton was the best draft dodger of them all!! Instead of the personal attacks and the "WE WILL FIND OSAMA BIN LADIN!!"...I want to see "I will do THIS and I can prove it based on my voting record and actions in the Senate"

[Setheus]

Who here has served in the armed forces...(any branch) and actually seen combat? If you have not, then shut up about it. If so, please continue since you have a clue about what these men may or maynot have been trying to dodge.


Setheus-Gulf War toPresent.

[TheProudDuck]

Seth -- Sorry, pal, that's not the way things are done in a democracy. We talk about anything we bloody well please, and while you have a unique perspective by reason of your service, and deserve our thanks, you don't get the field to yourself in debating any question, whether it involves war or peace.

We don't restrict discussion of the law to lawyers, or of literature to published authors. Since you've (apparently) seen combat for yourself, you can give us your perspective, which we probably ought to give extra weight -- but that's as far as it goes.

Leaving discussion of war to the warriors is something out of a Heinlein novel, not a republic. Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt presided, respectively, over the two bloodiest wars in American history. Neither of them ever saw combat.

Originally posted by TheProudDuck@Sep 21 2004, 12:40 PM
Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt presided, respectively, over the two bloodiest wars in American history.* Neither of them ever saw combat.

<span style=\'font-family:Courier\'>Perhaps those conflicts might have been less bloody if they had had a more personal sense of killing other human beings.

[TheProudDuck]

Originally posted by Traci+Sep 21 2004, 05:24 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Traci @ Sep 21 2004, 05:24 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--TheProudDuck@Sep 21 2004, 12:40 PM
Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt presided, respectively, over the two bloodiest wars in American history.* Neither of them ever saw combat.

<span style=\'font-family:Courier\'>Perhaps those conflicts might have been less bloody if they had had a more personal sense of killing other human beings. [/b][/quote]
Umm . . . right.

I doubt Hitler and Tojo would have seen the error of their ways and lain down with lambs if only FDR had had some combat experience to teach him sensitivity.

And I sort of doubt that those two guys' military experience, even if it did give them a more personal sense of killing human beings, made them any less bloody.

[TheProudDuck]

Cal -- Meant to get back to you earlier, but my system crashed mid-post both times I tried to respond.

Hey PD,

I wonder if you would be slamming CBS if what it were claiming were complimentary to Bush?

I wonder, too, in the sense that none of us knows for certain how we would reveal our character in a hypothetical situation. If, say, I responded to growing evidence that the documents were forged by denouncing as partisans the people who pointed this out, that would reveal a character defect, and I'd like to think I was above that kind of thing. As you may have noticed, I did point out that I think the Swift Boat guys overreached with a couple of their criticisms (although they've been dead-on with others, which is why the Kerry camp can't get away with their attempt at a blanket denunciation of their whole argument).

Given CBS's liberal slant, I think the odds of its behaving equally pathetically with a story that favored Bush is pretty much nil. I mean, can you imagine CBS accepting purportedly incriminating documents about John Kerry offered to them by Rush Limbaugh, giving them only a cursory review and disregarding great yawning gaps in the documents' chain of custody? Bill Burkett, from whom CBS got the documents, is at least as partisan as Rush, not to mention mentally unstable. (Not just whistling Dixie; he's had two nervous breakdowns.)

The point, though, is not whether I'd respond as pathetically as Rather and the Democrats who defended him if my ox were getting fed instead of gored. The point is that Rather & Co. did behave pathetically. If a man is accused of betraying his wife, it does him no good to protest that his accuser might also have done so in a hypothetical circumstance -- like, say, his being set upon while half-drunk by the oiled-and-ready Swedish Bikini Team.

CBS wanted the memos to be true, so it accepted them with virtually no scrutiny. You can do that kind of thing in religion (see William James' idea of the "Will to Believe") but when a question is susceptible of being answered with the application of rational scrutiny of the evidence, the decision has to be based on the evidence, not on the hope.