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| | Email this article • Print this article | Rob Crowe
One of the joys of life is being a dad.
It seems the kids, regardless of age, are always doing or saying something of note.
I came into our combination living room-office one day last week and my 3-year-old daughter, Valeri, showed me a small, brightly colored lunch pail.
I picked it up and it was surprisingly heavy.
I opened it up and it was about half full of quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies.
As my daughter flashed her pixie smile, my wife commented, “We’ve got a little ‘Material Girl"’ here.” Evidently, Valeri has picked up on the fact that these things are valuable and has started collecting them from her brother’s dresser and other places.
She hasn't started the spending part of the equation yet, but no doubt it is coming soon.
Valeri thinks she is rich.
She doesn’t know that her colorful bike with training wheels cost only $5 at a garage sale.
To her, it is as valuable as the newest SUV to a suburbanite.
There is instant conflict if the older sisters decide they want to try it out.
For a 3-year-old, she rides well.
Besides making a pretty picture as she cruises down the bike path, she smiles in sheer pleasure as she keeps up to dad and her two older sisters uphill and down.
Two privileged sons
George Walker Bush and John Forbes Kerry were youngsters once too.
It would be interesting to take a walk back in time to see what their parents noticed about them, what hopes they had for them.
Whatever the case, they had surprisingly similar upbringing in that each attended exclusive schools and each attended Yale, belonging to the same society (which shall remain unnamed).
I’m sure both sets of parents were thankful to be able to provide this educational background for their sons.
I believe it is the height of hypocrisy to, as I’ve seen many do, accuse George Bush of a having a privileged upbringing without noting that John Kerry had a privileged upbringing.
Each also was in the military: Kerry in the Navy and Bush in the Air National Guard.
There has been much in the news lately about Kerry’s Swift Boat experiences and many attempts by some in the press to find fault with Bush's Air National Guard experience.
John Kerry served in Vietnam.
You possibly might have heard that before.
Really, I don’t care much about what he did in Vietnam.
Any way you cut it, it likely wasn’t a good experience for anyone.
Some people put in for awards, some don’t.
I think John Kerry knows how to work the system, whether on the waterways of Vietnam or in the hallways of Washington.
I think he worked the system to his benefit and got out of Vietnam at the earliest possible time.
So what.
I do have a big problem with what he did after he came back.
He did every American and every American Soldier a huge disservice by lying and saying he and others routinely committed atrocities.
Some have called his post-Vietnam activities treason and I think they probably have it right.
Which brings us to the Swift Boat vets.
This group of Vietnam vets has been causing Kerry tremendous problems lately.
They probably would be on his side in this election or at worst neutral if Kerry had honored his service to his country.
What Kerry did as spokesperson for Vietnam Veterans Against the War really upset these people.
It is kinda like being in a family – everyone knows you very well and can probably dig out a skeleton if slighted or maligned.
Intelligent people know this and act accordingly.
Evidently Kerry had a few skeletons compounded by the fact that he has told at least two versions of every war story over the years.
He probably should have thought of this a little sooner but in the past he has always had an obliging ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN to help him out.
Unfortunately for Kerry, there are other sources available and reasonable people are using this new media.
This brings me to the story that has taken my attention over the past couple of weeks.
Dan Rather, in typical fashion, attempted to do a hatchet job on President Bush in regard to his service in the National Guard in an airing of 60 Minutes II on Sept.
8.
Using documents from an unidentified source, Rather stated that Geroge Bush had disobeyed direct orders by not getting a physical.
He also produced a memo that implied Bush’s superior officer, Lt.
Colonel Jerry Killian, had been pressured to “sugar coat” Bush’s performance evaluations.
CBS posted the documents on its Web site and sent them to the White House which also dutifully posted the documents.
Within hours, sharp eyed people began to notice that the memos were identical to Microsoft Word Documents and suddenly CBS and Dan Rather had a bit of a problem.
Some sources noted that one of the officers referenced in the memos had retired 18 months previous to the memo date.
Predictably, Rather and CBS defended their story, trotting out an expert with a checkered past, Marcel Matley, to say that one signature of Jerry Killian’s was real.
He now says he didn’t vouch for the authenticity of the rest of the memo.
They also used an 86-year-old secretary who said the documents were fake but the thinking was correct.
Isn’t this great journalism? Edward R.
Murrow should be turning over in his grave about now ...
Oh – I guess he did that 16 years ago when Dan Rather and CBS aired The Wall Within, a so-called documentary about Vietnam veterans that was so ridiculously untrue that it defied reason.
Anne Morse of the National Review has an excellent article on the first Rathergate.
I’m sure there will be many forthcoming on this one.
At this point, it appears that Dan Rather and CBS are going to be telling us that they were deceived.
I think that they wanted to be deceived.
Some of the experts CBS had talked to have come forward to say that CBS had been warned that the documents were suspect.
Also, the apparent source of the forged memos is Bill Burkett, a disgruntled Texas National Guardsman.
Here is a clip from CNSNews.com – “The man believed to be the source of the documents used in a CBS News report critical of President Bush, wrote a commentary in August for a left wing online journal in which he bragged that he had ‘reassembled’ President Bush's National Guard files.”
Burkett should have been suspect, but his attorney, David Van Os, is head of the Travis County Democrats.
This may not be familiar to you, but Dan Rather was the featured speaker for one of their fund-raisers a few years ago.
And yes, Dan’s daughter, another member of the Travis County Democrats, was the one who scheduled Dan to address the function.
I hope no one believes Dan’s explanation that he didn’t know it was a Democratic fundraiser.
Perhaps Dan Rather will do almost anything to please his daughter.
I know the feeling.
I’d think more of Dan if he would admit he is a partisan.
Rob Crowe chairs the Aitkin County Republicans and raises kids and cows on a farm near Hill City.
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