In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
The White House says the National Guard story is over. The White House lies again
Bush's flight from the Guard
The president and his staff are doing a very good job of convincing the public he has released all of his National Guard records and that they prove he was responsible during his time in Alabama and Texas. But the critical documents have still not been seen. The mandatory written report about Bush's grounding is mysteriously not in the released file, nor is any other disciplinary evidence. A document showing a "roll-up," or the accumulation of his total retirement points, is also absent, and so are his actual pay stubs.
...
In April of 1972, the young lieutenant made a unilateral decision that he was no longer going to fly. Although he had taken an oath to serve for six years in his privileged position in the Texas Air Guard, George W. Bush left for Alabama two years before his hitch was up. Taxpayers had spent close to a million dollars training him to fly a fighter jet, but he was intent on working in a U.S. senate campaign. Bush's Guard file shows that he did not request a transfer until a few months later, and it was turned down. Bush, who was due to report to his Houston air base for a physical on or before his July 6 birthday, failed to return from Alabama. He was subsequently grounded on orders from Maj. Gen. Francis Greenlief. And this is where the mystery begins.
Taking away a pilot's wings was not a minor decision. During the course of investigating this matter over the past decade, I was told by numerous Guard sources that pilots simply did not skip their physicals for any reason. Bush may have thought this was a good strategy for getting out of his obligation to the Guard. However, there had to be an investigation into his grounding. Normally, a formal board of inquiry would have been convened to examine the pilot's failure to keep his physical status current. At a minimum, a commanding officer would have been expected to write a narrative report on why one of his pilots had been taken off the flight duty roster. Either that report, or the findings of the board of inquiry, would then be sent to the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver and to the Texas Guard headquarters in Austin. A pilot simply did not walk away from all of that training with two years remaining on his tour of duty without a formal explanation as to what happened and why. This narrative report is the document the public has never seen and the Bush White House is unlikely to ever release. Disciplinary action taken against Bush ought to be a part of his personnel record. No such files have ever been disclosed.
...
The documents given to Washington reporters were printed from one of those two microfiches. According to two separate sources within the Guard who saw the printout and spoke with me, the microfiche was shipped to the office of Maj. Gen. Danny James, commander of the Air National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va. James' staff printed out all of the documents on the film and then, according to those same sources, James vetted the material. Subsequent to being scrutinized by James (who commanded the Texas Guard and was promoted to Washington by Bush,) the records were then sent to the White House for further scrutiny prior to release to the news media.
This is a considerably different process from what was practiced by Sen. John McCain during the 2000 presidential campaign. McCain, who spent several years in solitary confinement during the Vietnam War, was the target of a whispering campaign during the South Carolina primary. Political reporters, who suspected the story originated with Bush political strategist Karl Rove, were being told by third parties that McCain had mental problems that made him a presidential risk. McCain signed a release form, and his entire record, a stack of papers more than a foot tall, was made available to reporters without being vetted by the campaign. The allegations about his mental health died shortly after McCain authorized full disclosure.
The Bush administration is playing semantic games with the public regarding the president's Guard files. While Bartlett insists they have been released, there is no proof that Bush has even signed a release-authorization form. The limited release of those 400 pages may have been over his signature. However, the White House is clearly deciding what papers to share and what to keep private. No one has ever seen proof that the president did sign the necessary release forms, and officials at the Denver and St. Louis records centers are no longer commenting. If the president did write his name on the necessary forms, why not share that with the public? It would be a positive indication that he was in favor of the flow of information about his Guard years, and it could be expected to have a positive political effect.
Oh, if the Guard story breaks again, it could be bad for Bush, but don't worry the NY Times again played their lackey role for Bush and tried to kill the story again. A blogger named Corrente has that story: New York Times sends in the clowns: Jodi Will-Whore-'Em buries the Bush AWOL story yet again
- rob 2:04 PM - [PermaLink] -
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