The bullshit never stops

I haven't posted a "shootdown" for more than a week, but the stink's not over yet. There are a whole helluva lot more pan-blue lies that must be dealt with.

Break it down!
The section I covered in Part 14 of the "Shooting down 'Bulletgate'" series carries over to page 14 of the original document. I'm going to break this segment down just like I did with the last one, so pay close attention to what precedes each quoted section to see whose words they are.

Stand back, here comes more of the "Bulletgate" bullshit:

When Lu complained of pains, telling Chen that she might be wounded, instead of going to the nearby National Chengkung University Hospital, which was officially designated for such emergencies, the cavalcade sped to the private Chimei [sic] Hospital which was six kilometers away.

They think they're being sly, but the pan-blues are simply playing with words here.

Is "six kilometers" far? If you'd just been shot in the stomach, you might think so, but why aren't they specifying how far the National Chengkung University Hospital is? Is it because Chengkung is, in fact, even farther from the scene of the shooting than Chi Mei?

With just a tiny bit of research, we will have the answers to those questions in no time.

Despite the pan-blues' (feigned?) ignorance, the decision to go to Chi Mei Hospital has been explained. You might be surprised to know where the information can be found.

The anti-DPP, anti-Taiwan China Post (UGH!) published this interesting bit in an article on September 15, 2004 [All emphasis mine]:

The general [Chen Tsai-fu, who was in charge of the president's security on the day of the shooting] told the court he picked Chi Mei Hospital instead of National Chengkung University Hospital because the former was nearer.

Chengkung was only [sic] 5.3 km from the shooting scene, and the presidential motorcade would have had to make a U-turn and driven past large crowds of people through busy downtown traffic.

Chi Mei was 4.3 km away, and there was much less traffic on the road, the general said. [ALT. LINK]

So, what they're saying is: 1) Chi Mei is closer; 2) less traffic would make the trip even quicker; and 3) the route avoided further exposure to the shooter.

Does that just make pan-blue heads explode or what?! They sure love to defenestrate logic whenever it gets in their way. This information fucks up their argument all kinds of ways!

Dammit, why didn't he just die?! Boo hoo!
While the pan-blues say that the "nearby" NCKU Hospital "was officially designated for such emergencies," they don't say that it was the only one. According to the implied logic, if Chen had been shot in front of Chi Mei Hospital, his security detail still should have driven him to NCKU.

This does not compute -- unless the pan-blues wanted Chen Shui-bian to die -- and we know that they've made very open threats against him! [Click here and here for two documented examples.]

They're playing with the words. They're trying to fool you. And if that's all I said about this, I would be playing with words.

To put it bluntly, they're fucking lying is what they're doing. (But, if you've been reading this series for a while, I'm sure you knew that already.)

People in high places with friends in high places
"Bulletgate" goes on to tell us in the same paragraph which began at the beginning of this post:

That hospital [Chi Mei] is owned by Chen's close personal friend, Mr. Hsu Wen-lung, who, although an industrialist by profession, carries the title of Senior Policy Advisor to Chen. When they arrived at Chimei Hospital, Chen walked by himself into the emergency room, with no support or help from any medical personnel.

Who could imagine -- an industrialist and a senior policy advisor?! Well, anybody with a brain could imagine it, that's who! Chen Shui-bian is the president, and Tainan is his hometown, so it's not surprising that he would have such friends as Hsu and that he would appoint them to such positions.

You'd think he was "a dessert topping and a floor wax" the way the pan-blues tell it!

It's amusing that they mock Chen Shui-bian for having an industrialist as a policy advisor, but as I pointed out in Part 14, the pan-blues make their own important decisions based on things like feng shui and information obtained from "bookmakers."

UPDATE: (approximately 24 hours later)
Even though this horse should already be quite dead, my lovely wife -- after reading this post late last night -- has provided even more factual ammo with which to verily fuck up the arguments presented in this part of "Bulletgate."

Steve Chan, the superintendent of Chi Mei Hospital, says in a Chinese-language article published in the Liberty Times just one day after the shooting that Chi Mei was, in fact, a "designated" hospital and that "only those who don't understand Tainan County" would try to make the sort of arguments that were being made against taking President Chen to that hospital.

Chan, according to an extensive interview with TVBS' Chen Ya-lin, is a KMT member. In response to a question about this membership, he answers that "politics is politics, and professionalism is professionalism." An English-language article in the Taipei Times further reveals that Chan headed Taiwan's Department of Health during KMT rule.

The Liberty Times article linked above also quotes Chi Mei's deputy superintendent Lee Hao-hsien [a former student of PFP vice-chairman Chang Chao-hsiung] as saying that "he cherishes his teacher, but he cherishes the truth even more."

This demonstrates that despite ownership by a senior policy advisor to President Chen, Chi Mei Hospital is not some kind of DPP stronghold, having connections with the KMT and PFP at its highest levels. It also shows Steve Chan and Lee Hao-hshien to be two rare birds among those associated with the pan-blues.

The information in this update alone should be quite enough to knock any "conspiracy theories" about Chi Mei Hospital right down.

[All translations from Chinese-language articles quoted above mine.] [/END UPDATE]

Pan-blues a-milking...
And, if Chen walked into the hospital, what kind of person would come to the conclusion that he "milked the shooting to maximum effect"? Only a crazy person, an idiot, or a liar -- perhaps someone who meets all three criteria -- could say so!

But, wait! There's still more "Bulletgate" bullshit (which seems to have been tacked on at random):

An American team of forensic experts visited Taiwan in two groups for a total of four workdays to collect evidence for laboratory tests. Dr. Henry Lee, leader of the group, told the media before his departure that they could not find answers to many questions, because the scene of the crime had not been secured properly. He confirmed that Mr. Chen's grazing wound was not "self-inflicted," because "it is impossible for himself to fire that shot. " But whether it was "staged or not staged," Lee said, "it is a separate issue", to which he gave no answer. Judging from the available evidence however, Lee did rule out the possibility of "political assassination. "

Without hard evidence to provide an answer one way or the other, a good forensic scientist would tend not to draw conclusions about whether or not the shooting was staged. However, that doesn't stop Lien Chan's Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) from doing such things multiple times on their own web site.

As for Lee ruling out "political assassination," I've knocked this argument on its ass previously -- multiple times, in fact -- but it's worth repeating the "redux" yet again:

Previous post, redux
When I wrote in the last post about Henry Lee's dismissal of the possibility of a "political assassination," I had forgotten about this doozie from the National Policy Foundation web site:

Lien Chan and his running mate James Soong have asked Henry Lee, director emeritus of the Connecticut state police laboratory, to come to Taiwan to assist in the forensic identification of all the evidence collected so far.

[...]

One thing must be made very clear. Dr. Lee will only do criminal identification. He is not investigating the case. He may find out the shot that grazed Chen's abdomen was fired from within a dozen meters of an open jeep carrying the campaigning president and vice president. He may even prove the shot was fired a day before. But he cannot tell us why the sniper shot at the president and the vice president or who was, if there was, behind the sniping. [Emphasis mine]

For yet greater emphasis, I'll repeat part of that:

[Henry Lee] cannot tell us why the sniper shot at the president and the vice president or who was, if there was, behind the sniping.

Juxtapose that with this quote from earlier in the "Bulletgate" pamphlet:

[E]ven the noted forensics expert Dr. Henry Lee [...] has written off the possibility that it could have been a political assassination attempt.

Can you say "contradiction"? I knew that you could.

And that wraps up this segment. The next one will arrive just as soon as it's ready. Stay tuned!

NEXT UP: Qui s'excuse, s'accuse (or, when said of odors in elevators, "He who smelt it, dealt it")