What to do when you have inconvenient info (media edition)

We all remember Rathergate… about 2 months before the 2004 Bush/Kerry election, Dan Rather on 60 Minutes ran a hit piece about Bush’s military record, a piece that included documents that turned out to be obvious forgeries. These documents (“fake but accurate”) supposedly showed that Bush was a slacker who didn’t bother to do his job for the Texas Air National Guard, and implied that he was a draft dodger. Even though a relatively quick check of the documents by Just Some Guy online showed that they were fake, CBS (in particular, producer Mary Mapes, long an opponant of Bush) ran ’em anyway.
Well, there were other facts that CBS had that they didn’t run. Read the story here:

Mapes had information prior to the airing of the September 8 [2004] Segment that President Bush, while in the TexANG [Texas Air National Guard] did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots.  For example, a flight instructor who served in the TexANG with Lieutenant Bush advised Mapes in 1999 that Lieutenant Bush “did want to go to Vietnam but others went first.”  Similarly, several others advised Mapes in 1999, and again in 2004 before September 8, that Lieutenant Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but did not have enough flight hours to qualify.

Of course, Bush volunteering for service in Nam doesn’t fit the prescribed anti-Bush narrative, so it was left out.  But one of the bigger questions is… why didn’t Bush ever mention this? Well, there is a sad but obvious answer: one of Bush’s many flaws was that he just didn’t fight back against Leftist smears. While governor of Texas, he was able to get along well with the Democrats in the Texas legislature, and they were able to get along with him, because even though they were Dems, they were Texans. But on the national stage, party affiliation (either party) seems to mean far more than mere national best interest. And Bush…well, Bush was just too damned nice. Cheney, fortunately, is not.