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02/05/2004 Archived Entry: "Hear that low hum?"
Hear that low hum?
Won't be long before it's up to a full roar.... people are paying attention now, and they're starting to get the idea that Bush deserted.
Meanwhile, recent questions have surfaced not only about Bush's military service, but his official records. "I think some documents were taken out" of his military file, the Boston Globe's Robinson tells Salon. "And there's at least one document that appears to have been inserted into his record in early 2000." That document -- the aforementioned torn page that did not have Bush's full name on it -- plays a central role in the story."His records have clearly been cleaned up," says author James Moore, whose upcoming book, "Bush's War for Re-election," will examine the issue of Bush's military service in great detail. Moore says as far back as 1994, when Bush first ran for governor of Texas, his political aides "began contacting commanders and roommates and people who would spin and cover up his Guard record. And when my book comes out, people will be on the record testifying to that fact: witnesses who helped clean up Bush's military file."
....
While co-moderating the Democratic debate, ABC News' Jennings was sure he knew the facts about Bush's military record. But as the Daily Howler noted, a search of the LexisNexis electronic database indicates that ABC's "World News Tonight," hosted by Jennings, never once during the 2000 campaign ran a report about the questions surrounding Bush's military record. Asked if ignoring the story was a mistake, and whether ABC News planned to pursue it in 2004, a network spokeswoman told Salon, "We continue to examine the records of all the candidates running for president, including President Bush. If and when we have a story about one of the candidates, we'll report it to our audience."
ABC was not alone in turning away from the story in 2000. CBS News did the same thing, and so did NBC News. But it was the New York Times, and the way the paper of record avoided the issue of Bush's no-show military service, that stands out as the most unusual. To this day, the Times has never reported that in 1972 the Texas Air National Guard grounded Bush for failing to take a required physical exam. Nor has the paper ever reported that neither Bush nor his aides can point to a single person who saw Bush, the hard-to-miss son of a congressman and U.S. ambassador, perform any active duty requirements during the final 18 months of his service. Instead, the Times served up stories that failed to delve deep into the issue.
Replies: 3 people speak up
The Boston Globe, to its everlasting credit, DID run the story, in a 5/23/00 piece by staff reporter Walter V. Robinson entitled "1-YEAR GAP IN BUSH'S GUARD DUTY\ NO RECORD OF AIRMAN AT DRILLS IN 1972-73." From the piece:
"In his final 18 months of military service in 1972 and 1973, Bush did not fly at all. And for much of that time, Bush was all but unaccounted for: For a full year, there is no record that he showed up for the periodic drills required of part-time guardsmen.
Bush, who declined to be interviewed on the issue, said through a spokesman that he has 'some recollection' of attending drills that year, but maybe not consistently."
"SOME" RECOLLECTION? "MAYBE" NOT CONSISTENTLY?
Apparently Bush was confident that the matter would be 'taken care of' in the inimitable Bush family style, and the matter would die. As Kevin Phillips, in his recent book "American Dynasty," says, "This penchant for secrecy and apparent elimination of records and documents has a multigenerational history in the Walker-Bush family... Secrecy, obviously, has been a guardian angel of calculated deception. (page 328)" Of the facts surrounding Shrub's absence from his duty, he says "The substance of these events is not in doubt." (page 89)
Posted by Sharoney @ 02/05/2004 01:22 PM NY
i dont know, bush is one slippery little shit ball. its going to be hard to make anything stick to him. the problem is that the people who will vote for bush would vote for him no matter what he did, and the people who wont vote for him will most likely not have their votes counted in the upcoming election anyway, thanks to electronic voting....
Posted by justin @ 02/05/2004 02:04 PM NY
Y'know I really didn't think this would happen. I reckoned people didn't care but maybe it was more that Kerry's record throws Dubya's into sharp reliefe whereas Clintons was pretty much the same only Clinton went to school and Dubya went drinking.
Posted by salvage @ 02/05/2004 02:39 PM NY
