Probably Too True To Be True, But...

When Dan Rather "broke" the story of George W. Bush's alleged malingering when he served as a Texas Air National Guard fighter pilot, the only thing Rather ultimately broke was his own career. His reputation for honesty and integrity had been broken long before. The story was, of course, false and the documents that were the sole basis for and proof of the story were proved by bloggers to be neophyte forgeries within hours. Within a few days, the entire story collapsed and CBS was forced to backtrack. However, Rather did do a public service (no, not by resigning, but that was surely a public service) by introducing an entirely new reporting standard: The documents were "fake but accurate." Relying on that well-established and much-revered Lamestream Media standard, we introduce the tale of the Cattle Guards.

This is a story making the rounds of the Net that is likely false, but humorous nonetheless. The story goes that a little while back, President Obama was reviewing a report regarding Colorado ranchers protesting his proposed changes in grazing policies. The report mentioned the "100,000 cattle guards" (as in the metal grates ubiquitous in the West that cattle will not cross) in Colorado. President Obama immediately ordered his Secretary of the Interior (apparently this took place in a cabinet meeting) to fire the offending people who were guarding the cattle! Vice President Biden is reported to have intervened, suggesting that before being fired, they should receive six months of retraining so that they could serve as Arizona border guards!

While those who live in the midwest and west and actually work for a living would have little trouble believing this, it very well may be false. President Obama would almost certainly have tried to unionize and federalize the "Cattle Guards," rather than fire them, and no one in the Obama Administration would have ever thought of doing anything that would actually increase border enforcement or in any way aid Arizona, the political entity considered most dangerous in the world by the Obama Administration. Still, the story does illustrate the very real disconnect between those who live on the coasts and those who live in flyover country. Fake but accurate indeed.