In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
More of the watergate lesson that wasn't learned.
The cover up is worse then the crime.
USATODAY.com - Ex-officer: Bush file's details caused concern
WASHINGTON ? As Texas Gov. George W. Bush prepared to run for president in the late 1990s, top-ranking Texas National Guard officers and Bush advisers discussed ways to limit the release of potentially embarrassing details from Bush's military records, a former senior officer of the Texas Guard said Wednesday.
A second former Texas Guard official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, was told by a participant that commanders and Bush advisers were particularly worried about mentions in the records of arrests of Bush before he joined the National Guard in 1968, the second official said. .
Arrests? 1968 was before the 1976 DUI, but after the college arrests (stealing a christmas wreath and fighting at a school game), so why the concern? Surely they weren't worried about that, were they? Is that why the Bush team is handling this so poorly?
Or is it that the question of why he was grounded as a piolt come up? Too late:
Bush's loss of flying status should have spurred probe
President Bush's August 1972 suspension from flight status in the Texas Air National Guard -- triggered by his failure to take a required annual flight physical -- should have prompted an investigation by his commander, a written acknowledgement by Bush, and perhaps a written report to senior Air Force officials, according to Air Force regulations in effect at the time.
It's a big deal to be grounded, because Uncle Sam has spend a pretty penny training you. They don't like wasting money training soldiers. Wasting money on defense contractors is okay though.
Brigadier General David L. McGinnis, a former top aide to the assistant secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, said in an interview that Bush's failure to remain on flying status amounts to a violation of the signed pledge by Bush that he would fly for at least five years after he completed flight school in November 1969.
"Failure to take your flight physical is like a failure to show up for duty. It is an obligation you can't blow off," McGinnis said.
...
A Sept. 29, 1972, order sent to Bush by the National Guard Bureau, the defense department agency which oversees the Guard, noted that Bush had been verbally suspended from flying on Aug. 1. The written order made it official: "Reason for suspension: Failure to accomplish annual medical examination."
The order required Bush to acknowledge the suspension in writing and also said: "The local commander who has authority to convene a Flying Evaluation Board will direct an investigation as to why the individual failed to accomplish the medical examination." After that, the commander had two options -- to convene the Evaluation Board to review Bush's suspension or forward a detailed report on his case up the chain of command.
Either way, officials said yesterday, there should have been a record of the investigation.
Or maybe the Bush team is frightened that this story might blow up into a wider story of George's wasted youth:
In an April 1998 interview with Houston Public News reporter Toby Rogers, former President George Bush's Chief of Staff Michael C. Dannenhauer admitted that Bush "was out of control since college. There was cocaine use, lots of women, but the drinking was the worst". According to Dannenhauer, Bush's use of cocaine started "sometime before 1977". He also claimed former President Bush had told him that his son had experienced a few "lost weekends in Mexico". Bush Junior, no stranger to the taste of his own feet, seems to have corroborated these claims, blurting out at a press conference that he hadn't taken drugs "since 1974".
- rob 3:35 PM - [PermaLink] -
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