More hullabaloo about President Bush's National Guard service on the other side of the pond where CBS has a story about a memo that seems to show that the President dodged a medical and disobeyed orders. An interesting story only in the way it illustrates the power of the blogosphere with many, many sites (try this and this for starting points) tearing into the authenticity of this with some quite pointed comments.
It seems that the blogosphere's analysis (sharper and with access to a wider base of real experts than the traditional media) has led to the slowcoach trad media openly questioning the authenticity of these documents.
It's nice to see the old media looking to the new for inspiration, perhaps soon those readers who pay attention to both will start to realise that the value of newspapers, TV and radio backed by vested interests with decades of prejudice is fading compared to the truly diverse and local views you can access with a browser and a few blog starting points.
Personally I can't see what the fuss is about. Even if it was a genuine memo, a big part of President Bush's 'pitch' to American voters is that he's a bad boy who screwed up his life before the age of thirty at which time he found Jesus and reformed. You could allege that President Bush ate Babies whilst snorting Coke and flying an F-105 around Texas and it would still fit in with the Bush 'reformed character/saved by Jesus' canon. It seems to me that Senator Kerry (who has made his supposed dashing Vietnam service the cornerstone of his campaign - even though at the time he denounced his fellow soldiers as scum) has made a huge mistake in trying to compare his flaky and increasingly suspect Vietnam record with Bush's National Guard service.
