My apologies for omitting the OT at the beginning of this thread.

Here is an interesting article found at National Review.

Apparently the Chirac Broadcasting System hasn't learned the first rule
of politics: when you're in a hole, stop digging. Marian Carr Knox --
the 86-year old former secretary to Dubya's squadron commander, Jerry
Killian -- was flown to New York to talk to 60 Minutes last night, and
began the conversation by saying the famous CBS memos weren't authentic.
But, like any lawyer who doesn't have opposing counsel to object to
improper questions, Dan Rather led her through statements about which
she apparently knew nothing. And Mrs. Knox speculated her heart out.

Mrs. Knox said that though the CBS documents weren't real, what is
stated in the forgeries is. She talked and talked about how Killian was
upset with Mr. Bush, how the rest of the pilots resented him for being a
child of privilege, and said that Killian's son -- who disputes the
validity of the CBS case against Mr. Bush -- "...has no way of knowing
whether it's true or not." And she does? Not according to the members of
the squadron I spoke to this morning.

Col. Bill Campenni (USAF, Ret.) wondered just how Mrs. Knox would have
more knowledge than Killian's son. He told me that not only was young
Killian the son of the squadron commander, he was a member of the
squadron on duty with the rest of the guys. Mrs. Knox -- the squadron
secretary -- only knew paper. Not people. Killian's son was in a very
good position to know, and she wasn't.

Mrs. Knox said she remembered that Killian was upset because Mr. Bush
didn't take his flight physical. And she transforms Killian's supposed
frustration into a statement that the other pilots were resentful of Mr.
Bush be cause of his attitude. That's flatly false according to both
Campenni and Joe Glavin, another pilot who flew with Dubya. I asked
Glavin if there was any such resentment of Bush. He said, "Absolutely
not," and added that you'd have a really hard time finding anyone who
would agree with that.

(Bill Campenni reminds me that though Mr. Bush missed the physical, it
made no sense for him to have taken one. He wasn't going to continue
flying. His skill with the F-102 was obsolete, and he wasn't going to
retrain for another aircraft. He was about to leave the Guard to go to
Harvard. Which makes it pretty unlikely that Killian actually ordered
Mr. Bush to take the physical.)

So why is Mrs. Knox saying all this? Glavin says nobody should care what
she said. "She had nothing to do with the unit. She didn't fly, she
didn't hang out with us." According to Glavin, she was out of the
mainstream of the squadron, in an office that the pilots only visited
occasionally. According to Bill Campenni, Knox is a "yellow dog"
democrat, and her biases were noticeable even in 1972. Leave it to CBS
to find the one yellow dog Dem in the 1972 Texas Air National Guard. Her
statement is as valid as the CBS memos.

Denys

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