George W. Bush’s military lies: The real story about the undeniable service gaps he got away with

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein weren’t just journalistic heroes in the normal sense. Their work on Watergate redefined the journalistic world they inhabited, making them more like heroes in the classic mythical sense, as culture-founding figures, whose creation the rest of us merely live inside of. Everyone wanted to be the next Woodward and Bernstein.

That stature was underscored by the stars who brought them to the screen — Robert Redford as Woodward, Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. Four decades later, Redford has returned, in a sense to close out that era (a la his earlier role in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid“). Redford plays Dan Rather in a new film, “Truth,” about the September 8, 2004 “60 Minutes II” report on George W. Bush’s dodgy record in the Texas Air National Guard, which effectively ended Rather’s career at CBS, after he and producer Mary Mapes were unable to prove the authenticity of six memos which played a central role in their report. The connection was duly noted by author and activist Glenn W. Smith at Huffington Post:

By casting Redford as Rather, the filmmakers hinted at their intentions. Redford, of course, played Bob Woodward in “All the President’s Men,” the superb 1976 film about Watergate and the Golden Era of Independent Journalism. Now Redford appears as Rather in a film about the death of that Golden Era.

The juxtaposition is startling. On one side we have the courageous, muscular leadership of the Washington Post’s editor, Ben Bradlee, during Watergate. On the other there are the media moguls of Viacom and CBS during the Bush/National Guard affair.

http://www.salon.com/2015/10/17/george_w_bushs_military_lies_the_real_story_about_the_undeniable_service_gaps_he_got_away_with/