Over on the right, today is "We Hate Dan Rather Day."
Of course, "Exhibit A" in Rightwingers v. Rather is the 60 Minutes II segment that Rather presented on 9/8/04, entitled "New Questions On Bush Guard Duty."
Rather's report asked two questions:
The military records of the two men running for president have become part of the political arsenal in this campaign – a tool for building up, or blowing up, each candidate’s credibility as America's next commander-in-chief.
While Sen. Kerry has been targeted for what he did in Vietnam, President Bush has been criticized for avoiding Vietnam by landing a spot in the Texas Air National Guard - and then failing to meet some of his obligations.
Did then-Lt. Bush fulfill all of his military obligations? And just how did he land that spot in the National Guard in the first place? Correspondent Dan Rather has new information on the president’s military service – and the first-ever interview with the man who says he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.
The segment began with the interview with Ben Barnes, the former Speaker of the Texas House.
"I was a young, ambitious politician doing what I thought was acceptable," says Barnes. "It was important to make friends. And I recommended a lot of people for the National Guard during the Vietnam era - as speaker of the house and as lt. governor."
George W. Bush was among those he recommended for the National Guard. Was this a case of preferential treatment?
"I would describe it as preferential treatment. There were hundreds of names on the list of people wanting to get into the Air National Guard or the Army National Guard," says Barnes. "I think that would have been a preference to anybody that didn't want to go to Vietnam or didn’t want to leave. We had a lot of young men that left and went to Canada in the '60s and fled this country. But those that could get in the Reserves, or those that could get in the National Guard - chances are they would not have to go to Vietnam."
In other words, George W. Bush was a draft dodger who used his powerful family connections to get out of Vietnam.
