There are 193 TrackBacks (not including links from InstaPundit and Drudge) and counting on this big story from The Big Trunk at Power Line. He’s updating constantly.
I noted the story early today via Glenn Reynolds and saw a lot of discussion of it elsewhere as I perused the blogosphere this afternoon but, frankly, find the whole thing so mindnumbingly boring that I decided not to post on it.
As I’ve noted several times previously, a candidate’s military service matters only to the extent that it sheds light on his likely performance in office. This is especially true for those seeking the presidency, since it carries with it the hat of Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces. But given that George W. Bush has been President for nearly four years, and leading a war effort for three of those, one would think that service as an 0-2 would be rather irrelevant at this stage. It would be rather like deciding whether to re-appoint Richard Myers to a second term as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff based on his performance as an ROTC cadet at Kansas State.
The story is interesting, however, as an indication of the scandal bias of the mainstream press and the power of the blogosphere to “fact check their ass.” McQ has some particularly good observations on the former count, while Dale Franks chimes in with an ironic CBS graphic that touches on both themes. Kevin Aylward dubs this “Rather’s Trent Lott Moment.”
Update (2105): Stephen Hayes has an interesting summary piece, “Is It a Hoax?” in the Weekly Standard.
Update (9/10 1022): Matt Yglesias points out that IBM invented typewriters with proportional fonts in 1941 and that, “More and more this forgeries theory is looking like just some more rightwing BS.”
Developing. . .
