Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

A gentleman named Bill sent me a link to this article. It seems to be a very balanced account of Dubya’s service in the ANG. It includes quite a few quotes, both good and not-so-good, about a brash young man who flew fighters.

According to several former officers, the openings in the unit were filled from a waiting list kept in the base safe of Rufus G. Martin, then an Air National Guard personnel officer.

In a recent interview, Mr. Martin of San Antonio said the list was kept on computer and in a bound volume, which was periodically inspected by outside agencies to make sure the list was kept properly.

Mr. Bush said he sought the Guard position on his own, before graduating from Yale University in 1968. He personally met with Col. Walter B. Staudt, commander of the 147th group.

In an interview, Mr. Bush said he walked into Col. Staudt’s Houston office and told him he wanted to be a fighter pilot.

“He told me they were looking for pilots,” Mr. Bush said. He said he was told that there were five or six flying slots available, and he got one of them.

While Guard slots generally were coveted, pilot positions required superior education, physical fitness and the willingness to spend more than a year in full-time training.

“If somebody like that came along, you’d snatch them up,” said the former commander, who retired as a general. “He took no advantage. It wouldn’t have made any difference whether his daddy was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Bobby Hodges, the group’s operations officer, and others familiar with Guard rules said Mr. Bush made it to the top of the short list of candidates who could pass both the written officer test and a rigorous flight physical to qualify for the three to four annual pilot training “quotas” allotted to the unit.

Mr. Hodges and Gen. Staudt are the two surviving members of the military panel that reviewed and approved Mr. Bush’s officer commission.

Most of those wanting to get into the Guard at that time, they said, didn’t want to put in the full year of active service that was required to become a pilot.

Since we know Mary Mapes has been researching this story for five years, I think it’s time for CBS to tell us who has been dedicated to scrutinizing John Kerry’s background.

I really don’t think it’s important to link to such blogosphere luminaries as PowerLine, but sometimes it just needs to be done. If you haven’t yet taken a look at the post today by Scott Johnson, you need to.

We have obtained a transcript of Rocket Man’s appearance last night on CNBC’s Capital Report with co-host Gloria Borger and guest Jonathan (“Bologna”) Klein. We thought you might enjoy it. Here follows the transcript:

What follows shows how out of touch MSM are regarding the checks and balances in the blogosphere. And they’re in denial. Another article in the same vein comes from Patrick O

Lowell Ponte asks, “Who Is Dan Rather?”

I say he is someone I’ve never paid any attention to. When Cronkite left CBS, I quit watching. I had no use for Rather. Now I wish he would simply go away.

I’ve already spent time on him here, here, and here. He has no integrity.

What makes me really mad, though, is his continued insistence that anything he says is true, whether he has any facts at hand or not. The “indisputable facts” that Dubya had someone get him in the TANG ahead of 150 others on a waiting list disappeared in about fifteen minutes of searching the internet. His fake documents carry no weight whatsoever, even though he claims the essence of their tale is true. If I could find some simple refutation so quickly, why is he so determined someone prove him wrong instead of him proving his own case?

And why are the Democrats so eager to take his side, knowing he peddles lies?

I don’t hate anyone. I never have. It is an emotion far more powerful than the word has come to mean through overuse. I am on the verge of hating Dan Rather, if that is possible without knowing someone personally. That scares me.

Wallace has posted a famous photograph, taken by Eddie Adams in 1968 of Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan as he killed a captured Viet Cong. Adams has just passed away, and Wallace offers his sense of loss.

Those of you who weren’t yet born, or who didn’t watch the news in 1968 probably don’t grasp the impact of that photograph. When I taught a lesson on Vietnam, I used some videotape of a humorous piece from the movie Full Metal Jacket to set it all up. As the cadets were laughing, the clip transitioned quickly to movie film taken at the same instant as Adams’ photo. The general quickly raised his pistol and shot, which is what Adams captured, then lowered his pistol and went about his business. The room went silent. And that was precisely the effect I wanted.

The cadets knew the story well, that this VC had just killed a family the general knew well. But that was irrelevant. The sense of shock was what Americans felt in 1968, buttressed with reports from the field by such journalistic icons as Dan Rather.

Some things never change, do they?

James Taranto points out just a single piece of selective journalism by Dan Rather last month published here.

In the end, what difference does it make what one candidate or the other did or didn’t do during the Vietnam War? In some ways, that war is as distant as the Napoleonic campaigns. What’s far more import is this: Do they have an exit strategy for Iraq? If so, what is it? How will they address the national deficit? And what are the chances their plans will work?

I have problems with that, but more in the last four lines than the first. Why is it that media types and opposition politicians are always asking for “the plan”? Countries the world over employ thousands of people who spend their waking hours trying to discern “the plan.” They are called Spies.

Why would any leader in any country explain his “plan” during wartime?

Even if you don’t speak Texan, most likely you can figger this out over at Mudville Gazette.

You need to remind yourself that a tree don

Back when I first started this blog, I wrote about journalists in a general way. I’ve not changed my mind, even reevaluating the state of affairs post-CBS.

I really don’t grasp why anyone would need a college degree to be a journalist. Journalism is really a craft, or trade. An aircraft mechanic needs more formal training. Good journalism requires more on-the-job training than classroom work.

I notice many errors in stories regarding the military, aviation, or engineering. I see the errors because I understand those things far better than the reporter covering them. I’m sure everyone sees the same thing in their particular area of expertise. Yet journalists seem to feel the need to present an air of authority, so they end up looking foolish to someone who really understands the topic.

Maybe that’s why I get the impression journalists all feel smarter than the general public. On the other hand, perhaps they sincerely believe they are.

Such is the danger someone like Dan Rather feels in his current situation. For years he has assumed he was smarter than the rest of us, and we were all counting on him to deliver the words from on high. We weren’t, but he didn’t really know that. As he achieved stature within his own craft, everyone around him deferred to his opinion. And he expected we all would, too.

Millions of people have the writing skills necessary to be a good journalist. Millions. What makes a journalist stand out is his ability to separate fact from fiction, and present a compelling report which leaves people understanding what they just heard or read. Putting in the legwork to track down the truth is what separates the good from the mundane. It matters not whether it is in the streets of Baghdad or the alleys of New York or the halls of Congress, the work is in the search.

That’s what brought Dan and his crew to where they are today. They were too lazy or blinded by the desire to validate their assumptions that they failed to do what good journalists do–work.