Where's the Balance?
Reported by Ellen - August 25, 2004 -
As the Smear Boat story continues unabated on Fox News Live with Alan Colmes, as elsewhere on Fox News, I can't help but wonder why a network that keeps calling itself fair and balanced has no coverage of Bush's service record. In fact, an exclusive Fox News watcher might not even know there are more serious questions about his record than Kerry's. Even liberal Alan Colmes, who has demonstrated a remarkable grasp of the facts and issues behind the Smear Boat story, has mostly dismissed the Bush story as being irrelevant 35 years later.
So imagine my surprise last night when I found myself up to this passage in Alan Colmes' book, "Red, White & Liberal" (which I was asked to read by my fellow News Hounds).
"The Times of London reported on November 5, 2000, 'Bill Burkett, a former lieutenant-colonel, said Bush aides had been 'scrubbing the files' to bury disparities between his record while serving as a reserve pilot during the Vietnam War and an account of the period of his official biography.' This, of course, was reported by the foreign presss, and not by the American press, which is what the people voting in American elections generally read.' P. 122
"In a little-noted story on May 23, 2000, the Boston Globe pointed out the contradictions between Bush 43's official autobiography and his official military record: 'Bush himself, in his 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep, recounts the thrills of his pilot training, which he completed in June 1970... (His accounts) are contradicted by copies of Bush's military records obtained by the Globe. In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen.'" P 122
"So his Texas commanders thought he was in Alabama; his Alabama commander never saw him; and other than scant coverage in the Boston Globe this was barely an issue during the 2000 presidential campaign. And the "liberal media" didn't question whether a sitting commander in chief shirked his own military obligations as he sent other Americans off to war." P. 123
Exactly. And if Colmes won't bring it up, I will.
