George W. Bush's Military Lies: The Real Story About the Undeniable Service Gaps He Got Away With

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/33031-george-w-bushs-military-lies-the-real-story-about-the-undeniable-service-gaps-he-got-away-with

Indeed, the gaps in Bush’s service record were undeniable. They were reported, but virtually ignored four years earlier, in the 2000 election cycle, when the media was monomaniacally focused on their self-fabricated narrative of Gore being the untrustworthy one who told tall tales about his past.

On May 23, 2000, Boston Globe reporter Walter V. Robinson reported finding a “one-year gap in Bush’s Guard duty,” saying that “22 months after finishing his training, and with two years left on his six-year commitment, Bush gave up flying — for good.” Beyond a momentary flurry, there wasn’t much other corporate media interest in that cycle, though Martin Heldt published a detailed analysis of Bush’s guard records at the Online Journal in September 2000. Fast forward to the morning of the “60 Minutes” report, and Robinson wrote another story “Bush fell short on duty at Guard,” with “Records show pledges unmet,” as the subhead. The framing had shifted from Bush’s attendance gap, to Bush violating his sworn duty — and getting away with it:

Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service — first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School — Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.

He didn’t meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.

[yardwork]

1. Disgusting.

[1939]

2. The problem was

when he faced the penalty for his failure to perform (punitive call to active duty), the services were downsizing and did not want to pull any guard and reserve people onto active duty. A lot of folk that joined the guard and reserve during the Vietnam era to avoid being drafted used that window to get out without consequence.

[Javaman]

3. or, because his dad was a big wheel and could crush anyone who got in his or his sons way...

they kept quiet.

[karynnj]

4. The real problem was the story surfaced before 2004, not 2000

Shortly before the Rather story, the NYT had a question, asked of those who supported Bush, on whether proof of national guard accusations would change their vote. The answer was that it would not.

The reason was that in 2004, you were speaking of a man who was a war time President and had been for the last three years by November 2004. It was very easy for his supporters to add even the worst stories to what was already baked in that he was rather disreputable as a young man. However, he was leader they rallied around in fear after 911 -- even though his initial actions were pretty lame. Instead they took the more theatrical than real Bush speaking through a bull horn as a leader. Note that Jeb Bush referenced just that moment in an early debate to show he kept us safe. (ironic as speaking of walking through the rubble speaks of the attack.)

Both those attacks and the lies about Kerry were to attack character. In Bush's case, had he been the challenger and the one not known to the public, it would have mattered. In Kerry's case, where the liars failed to convince people who were likely to vote for Kerry, they did keep his team from using that time to define Kerry's excellent character. Stories in his record answer nearly every negative characterization that the Republicans used against him.

[Octafish]

5. James Hatfield brought it up in ''Fortunate Son'' in 2000.

George W. Bush: 1968: Choice was avoid draft or sign up; I signed up

Numerous questions remain as to whether then-Congressman Bush used improper influence to obtain a coveted slot in the military reserve for his son that allowed him to remain stateside during the war. George W.'s official and oft-repeated version is that he "heard there were pilot slots open" at a unit of the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Air Force Base, and simply "signed up to fly a single-seat F-102 Interceptor," which provided him with a deferment. "Your options either were to avoid the draft or sign up," Bush acknowledged, "and I signed up."

Before enlisting, Bush took the Air Force Officers Qualification test. While scoring 25% for pilot aptitude on the screening test--"about as low as you could get and be accepted"--Bush scored 95% in the "officer quality" section.

His Guard application form asked for "background qualifications of value to the Air Force." Bush wrote "None." On whether he was interested in an overseas assignment, Bush checked the box that said: "do not volunteer."

Source: Fortunate Son, by J.H.Hatfield, p. 38-39 Aug 17, 1999

http://www.ontheissues.org/Archive/Fortunate_Son_Homeland_Security.htm

Before the author was publicly humiliated as a drug felon, the book and its stories were used to help defuse the Bush-cocaine story.

[karynnj]

6. I read the book - one of my daughters had bought it

In 2000, even the lesser things - such as his long time as a rather mean spirited drunk during the years his dad was President - rarely were given much play in the media. It is still mind boggling that the DC press who KNEW his history let him run on "bringing back honor and decency" back to the White House against Al Gore, a former Eagle Scout.

There were some articles on Bush's history - I think I remember one long one in either Harper's or Vanity Fair, that spoke of boorish behavior, but I suspect that nearly everyone who read it was likely not for Bush to begin with. In the mainstream press, he was routinely shown as genial with an attractive wife and 2 lovely daughters.

[UTUSN]

7. Here's 2012 reporting putting everything in context

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http://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/truth-or-consequences/

[font size=5]Truth or Consequences[/font]

May 2012 By Joehagan

.... And that (1996) is when a mysterious document began circulating in Austin that would serve as the Rosetta stone of the Bush National Guard controversy. The document, a single-page letter written by an anonymous author and addressed to a U. S. attorney, described an alleged secret deal struck between George W. Bush and Ben Barnes in which Barnes agreed to withhold the story of getting the governor into the Guard in exchange for Bush’s securing the GTECH contract against competing bidders.

The memo fingered a Bush aide named Reggie Bashur as the one who brokered the alleged quid pro quo: “Bashur was sent to talk to Barnes who agreed never to confirm the story and the Governor talked to (Miers) two days later and she then agreed to support letting GTech keep the contract without a bid.” And indeed, the previous summer, Miers had renewed the GTECH contract without a bid, against the wishes of state Republicans. ....

... One year after the fateful 60 Minutes segment aired, two FBI agents paid a visit to the Manhattan apartment of Larry Littwin, the former Lottery Commission executive director. If he were cleared to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the agents asked, what might he say about (Harriett) Miers’s invovement with GTECH during her time as chair of the commission? According to Jerome Corsi, who had resurfaced, post-Kerry, as one of Miers’s fiercest critics, what Littwin proposed to allege was quite a lot: that more than $160,000 in legal fees Miers collected from Bush in the nineties were a de facto payoff for maintaining the quid pro quo agreement with Ben Barnes and GTECH.

Regardless of the legitimacy of these allegations, White House officials were paying attention, in part because they were coming from the right. Miers’s nomination was already in deep trouble by the time Littwin emerged. But Corsi remains convinced to this day that the threat of Littwin’s testimony was the last straw for Miers. According to him, it was the GTECH deal, and not the CBS memos, that could have been the real smoking gun against Bush. “The day after they validated that Littwin was going to be called to the Senate Judiciary Committee, that’s when she pulled her nomination,” Corsi told me. ....

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