Assumptions that are largely urban myths

These include several things that have managed to get into print numerous times, and sometimes into other forms of media on occasion. Above all, the quality that comes through in these particular cases, is that persons in academia and professional areas of work, have also largely accepted these as being valid "explanations" for certain events.

One: that Ray Santilli, the infamous "alien autopsy" film maker, had no actual film of any kind from the 1947, and certainly none that showed anything funny at all.

The truth is not so easy. There are at least three strips of film from 1947 that Santilli had in his possession and presented to the media-- early on. When it was revealed the biggest part of the alleged autopsy "film" was  actually on videotape that didn't exist in 1947, Santilli said that he had been forced to duplicate the remainder of the film because it had deteriorated or been stolen and/or destroyed by unknown parties apparently trying to cover something up.

This would be a laughable thing, were it not for the fact that the strips of film in question show rather interesting things. They show a disk-shaped object in some lighted doorway or other. These are on regular photographic film of the 1947 era. These appear to show not only the disk-shaped object in a doorway, but some kind of weird-looking staircase or ladder. The way this stairway is lit, is very bizarre, and not easily explained by anything I can come up with.

So, we have these little bits and pieces of film that show these weird images, and we have this "confessor" who says he participated in a hoax, and he's a former RAF member at the same time. IF there is an effort by RAF to cover up UFOs and so forth, his "confession" is highly suspect. He asserts he is in the video, and appears to be so.

But, once again, what people are missing here, is that Santilli didn't deny he had made a video: he said the video he made, was attempting to duplicate what he had originally had on film--the same film  of which the three strips appear to include these bizarre-looking and, really, somewhat inexplicable images.

If the RAF confessor participated in the making of the video, it doesn't automatically follow that Santilli deliberately made the video for fraudulent purposes, and, therefore, does not necessarily follow that the confessor's role was as an accessory to fraud. If there were a deliberate effort to discredit Santilli by stealing or destroying most of his original film, an RAF member being on the staff shooting an attempt to duplicate the filmed scenes would be the ideal way to discredit it.

Doesn't mean that's what happened, but still isn't something that can be answered by just repeating the urban myth. One must also explain what is in those strips of actual film.

Two: that the reason GHW Bush's carrier's log remained classified longer than virtually any other United States Navy ship of WW2, was because crewmen from that carrier were captured by the Japanese and beheaded and/or eaten by the Japanese on Chi Chi Jima island in 1944.

The truth is, there were men in Bush's squadron who were shot down over or near Chi Chi Jima, However, none of these men were from Bush's carrier. There were no men from Bush's carrier who were shot down and captured by the Japanese.

This may seem like a technical difference. But the men who were shot down and eaten by the Japanese on the island, were from other carriers. And those carriers' logs were not kept classified as Bush's carrier's log was.

There is some other explanation for why the San Jacinto's log was kept classified until the Reagan administration in the 1980s, when all others were declassified by the end of the Kennedy Administration in 1963.

Three: several people are assuming that George W. Bush was elected President in some manner or other, in both 2000 and 2004.

The fact is, there is powerful evidence to the contrary in both instances. This evidence is so powerful, in fact, as to be almost overwhelming.  Yet some persons, in various shades of political ideology perceive the Bush family to be political super people, who are very powerful and popular.

Four: Simultaneously, the same groups of people are making the assumption that people with the last name of Clinton are in some manner political super people. They point out that Bill Clinton was elected President twice, and that his wife got elected Senator from New York.

The truth is somewhat different: Bill Clinton got elected by narrow pluralities in both of his races  He won in a circumstance that is very unusual in US Presidential elections: a three-way race. The other Presidents in recent memory to whom this happened, were Abraham Lincoln, who was assassinated shortly after his re-election; Woodrow Wilson, who suffered a near-fatal, disabling stroke during his second term, after falling from popularity with the thousands of women who had, for the first time in history, become active in politics and gotten him re-elected because he "kept us out of war" (and then promptly declared war on Germany weeks after being re-elected); and Richard Nixon, who had been impeached over the Watergate scandal after having been re-elected in 1972.

Other Presidents have, admittedly, benefited from three-way races, though: none of them fared well historically.

Hillary Clinton ran against Obama for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2008, and, though she was much better known than Obama, was defeated. Was she defeated because she was an ineffective campaigner, or did she lose because she was a relatively unpopular politician? One powerful argument in favor of the latter, is the actual numbers from the 1992 and 1996 Presidential election. They show her husband won by default in a three way race.

Similarly, the Bush name is bandied about in some quarters because it is a "winner's" name. Reality begins to sink in a little differently. GHW Bush sought the Republican nomination against Reagan in 1980, and was defeated. In 1988 Bush defeated Michael Dukakis for President by outspending him on tv advertising almost 20 to 1 in some key states.

My research shows Dukakis would have had a total of about 179 Electoral votes, almost without question, upon a recount. And there were other states recountable, including Lloyd Bentsen's  home state of Texas, in which he was running for Senator and Vice-President simultaneously, with thousands of those ballots being somewhat confused and confusing to the vote-counting process.

Also recountable was Jesse Jackson's Illinois, where lines a mile long were in place as the polls closed, due to lack of polling places.

This latter was repeated in New Jersey, Connecticut and Ohio. The media reported a "flu out" as voters with influenza were forced to get out of line to vote. Media types noted this dropping out of line by voters, by saying "flu was epidemic among voters".

Shades of his son W's race of 2004, when researchers discovered polling booths had been locked away in black precincts, and for which federal investigators found enough solid evidence to jail several Republican political operatives for violations of the Voting Rights Act in Ohio.

In New Jersey, a top '88 Bush adviser admitted to the use of "walking around money" to bribe African-American ministers to not provide rides to the polling places for their congregants. "That's quite common," he said.

In Missouri, in 1988, blacks reported being harassed by off-duty police officers, who intimidated some blacks away from voting booths and blocked streets leading into voting booth parking lots in St. Louis. Voting rights groups attempted legal actions asking judges to extend the voting booth deadline to allow the long lines of voters to participate, an effort doomed to failure by GOP-appointed judges in the area.

A similar phenomenon was reported outside of Memphis, TN and Jacksonville, FL in the 2000 election.

I guess these things run in families, but the point is that these two family names are not political super people. They are names with which mindless pretty boy and pretty girl media types are familiar, so that means they are "popular."

Urban myths, repeated frequently or in mass media, are urban myths, nonetheless.  Both the major parties may default to these two odious names. There may be another low turnout US Presidential election, and more third-party activity that has a history of costing both parties the White House just about equally. It makes for an election just as unpredictable as any other combination of names among the two (or three) parties.