DestroyYouAlot said:

Quite a lot of this can be boiled down to, "I can cite many credible references that this did happen, and you can cite many credible references stating that it didn't." Unfortunately, by the nature of media coverage in the US, sources stating things that agree with the administration's party line are going to be lent credibility, while sources disagreeing are going to be - by default - presented as easily dismissable. What's more, the same thing is happening in this thread - if one person copypastes a lengthy diatribe from one place, stating that some shady shit happened, another is going to label them a kooky Kool-Aid drinker, and copypaste an equally credible (and opposing) diatribe to prove their point.

None of you knows whether it did or didn't happen, no matter how much you'd like to have one up on your opposite number - the fact still remains that just about any well-constructed conspiracy theory regarding this issue could have happened, and - whether the Fox viewers around here like it or not - most of them are at least as plausible as anything we've heard from Washington. The government's story is not, by the nature of the source alone, any more believable than any other viewpoint; past experience has shown that, if anything, it's actually less so.

You've just stated that both viewpoints are equally credible, and then went ahead and said the official story is less credible. Where the hell are you?

And to reiterate...

Unfortunately, by the nature of media coverage in the US, sources stating things that agree with the administration's party line are going to be lent credibility, while sources disagreeing are going to be - by default - presented as easily dismissable.

Yeah, that's exactly how the media addresses viewpoints against Bush... except for tax policy, abortion, energy, global warming, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Palestine, Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame, Gonzales Firing attorney's, Bush v. Gore, Keith Olbermann... am I done? ... oh wait... Supreme Court nominees, Terri Schaivo, abstinence only education, embryonic stem cell research, Darfur, John Bolton, the UN corruption in general, government spending...