This is being written as a journal in democraticunderground.com and crossposted on Dailykos and Myleftwing.
I urge readers of this series to obtain a copy of Unfit Commander by Glenn Smith, the only source of Bush's military papers in chronological order. Where internet references are not easily available I will give page numbers of this book for reference.
I also urge readers to become familiar with the report by Lt Col Gerald Lechliter, published in the NY Times, available at:
http://www.nytimes.com /....
Or Google: NY Times Gerald Lechliter. I will be referring to both of these sources in this study.
Many, many Thanks and an Airborne salute to Paul Lukasiak and his AWOL Project:
http://www.glcq.com /
I can be reached at concernedexlrrp@hotmail.com
Journal Entry #24
Yesterday, in an answer to BMHP, one of my Readers referred to our Fearless Leader as a slime ball and said that this series shows it. I have to agree with him on both issues: George W Bush IS A slimeball and this series does show it. It shows, among other things, just how much Bush will trash other peoples careers to cover his own ass, and what a longtime liar he is.
Much of this series is just stating the obvious, tho some is subtle, but this study is mainly about making simple connections. One of the reasons it’s a fascinating story to study is that there’s a lot of real Ah HA! moments like: “ Oh THAT’S why Killian and Harris didn’t sign the 72-73 OER and there’s no confirmation from Hodges—nearly every word is false!” You BET they didn’t sign it!
And ”Oh THAT’S why there was no official investigation of the CBS papers—they CAN’T have one or Bush goes down in flames!”
And there’s some real ROTFLMAO moments too, like watching Bush and his aides trying to make America think they can keep America safe in the war on terror but can’t find out who forged federal documents about the president of the United States—even when they know who all the players are. Was that too subtle for the rest of you? The BMHP had a good laugh about it. And so should have America. Have one now.
The connections come up at the most amazing times. Like if you understand that Bush and his aides know whether the CBS papers are real, and have known all along , you realize that Bush and his aides spent a wonderful happy Christmas ’04 watching Mapes and Rather twisting slowly, slowly in the wind ( Republicans DO know how to turn a phrase) when they knew the answers all the time. (Doesn’t that piss you off, Mary and Dan? Demand a federal investigation!)
Now you’d think that if Bush had any morals at all, he would have gone down there and told what he knew about the situation—which was plenty. It is, after all, all about him, just like Burkett said, its his name on every one of the CBS documents. And so would have the rest of his surviving chain of command who also know full well whether he was ordered to take his physical or not, and what his real suspension order looked like.
The fact that he didn’t; that he, Rove, Bartlett, et al, had a wonderful time by the tree toasting his victory, watching Mapes, Rather’s, and the other people’s careers get ruined, while they had certain knowledge whether the CBS papers are real or not proves more than anything else in this story that Bush is a slimeball without the morals of a gutter rat. And an extraordinary liar, perhaps bordering on the psychopathic. And the same goes for the rest of the people named in the BMHP that know whether the papers are real or not, like Hodges and Martin, Rove and Bartlett.
And that’s what the world would also think if it was ever to turn out that the CBS papers are real—and they haven’t been proven false yet in anything resembling an official proceeding. If they ever are, the effects on Bush will be devastating. The world will come to understand he knew all the time—and didn’t share it with America, while his paid hounds savaged Kerry’s medals. And the world will come to understand how much he and his aides lied.
Here’s a quickie ethics quiz:
What would an Honest Man do if confronted by documents about his military career that he knows or suspects to be false?
A) Organize his papers in a proper fashion, stand up front and answer all questions fully, demand an official investigation to clear his name
B) Hide behind his aides, never make a direct comment about the papers, never deny the papers were real, sic bloggers on the media who brought it up, scramble up all his papers, pretend the documents weren’t federal documents and had nothing to do with him although every one has his name on it, and never even bring up the subject of an official investigation.
Here I am pointing out the obvious again: which one most resembles the course taken by our Commander in Chief? (The Correct answer to the quiz question, if anyone in the media should ever read this, is—SURPRISE!—“A!” I’m giving the answer to the media because it is becoming increasingly obvious that there’s no one any more in the media who knows what an Honest Man is supposed to do)
Yes, one of the surest signs that the CBS documents are real is that Bush and his aides never acted like they were forged. Forging federal documents about someone’s career, especially about the President of the United States, is an outrageous crime—so where was their outrage? We from Laura that she thought at least one of the papers were forged. Another ROTFLMAO moment: all she had to do was ask her husband, tho he might not have been honest about it to her either. We heard from Barbara that she was proud her boy had served in the Guard. But we never heard ANYTHING from the man whose name is on ALL the CBS papers: George W Bush.
One of the Bush administrations most basic media ploys is to set the terms of the dialogue and just keep repeating their talking points. Its one of the ways they keep the dialogue from expanding into places they don’t want to go. That’s obviously what happened here isn’t it?
Taking what you Constant Readers now know, consider Rove’s (and Bush’s) problem: they had to get these papers declared false but they couldn’t have an official investigation because it would have blown up in their faces bigtime when the easily discovered falsifications and missing documents are recognized. They CAN’T discuss Bush’s records showing specifics because if they do, they’re sunk.
What to do, what to do, Karl? They can’t have an investigation so what they did is “create controversy,” one of the Bush administrations most signature media ploys. And here’s the measure of Roves genius: when you can’t have ANY part of the contents of the papers discussed, concentrate on the fonts!! Genius, Karl, pure genius! Elevate Bush above the fray where he doesn’t have to answer embarrassing questions and then send out the attack dogs, the internet MauMaus and the peasants with pitchforks in a coordinated attack from a completely unexpected direction, attacking things that very few people have any knowledge of. The compliant media and the equally clueless Democrats bought it all. It was a surprise, even had me fooled for a couple of days.
Fonts are a technical aspect of the written language that hardly anybody is familiar with so it was safe to “create controversy” there because it’s impossible to resolve---except for those pesky federal authorities, who have experts that know all about fonts. So you have to get them out of the way: this they did by claiming the files came from the “private files of Col Killian” and that therefore the federal government was, unfortunately, unable to verify them. CBS and the rest of the media played ball here shamefully, even set this up for them.
This is completely specious as all my Constant Readers know by now. The federal government can investigate and involve themselves in anything they want. How federal was Terry Schiavo? And these are FEDERAL documents! That, if forged, LIBEL the President of the United States!
But the Bush administration is actually telling the truth here—they DID most probably come from Killian’s personal files. But what they didn’t say is that the two written orders should have been in Bush’s files also. The fact that they’re not is a crime itself. I need to jump ahead in the story a little: Burkett accused Joe Allbaugh and General D James of the TXANG, in a sworn statement in a lawsuit against the TXANG, of cleansing Bush’s files in the late 90s. We know that many documents are missing (see Lehliter), including Bush’s original suspension order written by Killian. This is most probably when they were removed. In this sworn statement, Burkett says he overheard Allbaugh and James talking about cleansing Bush’s documents and then:
“Ten days later, Burkett's friend and fellow guardsman, George Conn, led him to the base museum, which was run by General Scribner. Once there, Burkett saw a trashcan sitting on a table, and when he looked in he saw 20 to 40 pages of documents with George Bush's name on them…”
(from :
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_02/003280.php )
Well, well, well. Here we have, according to Burkett’s SWORN statement, Burkett and George Conn looking at a wastebasket full of files about George Bush, probably alone. Conn wouldn’t have led Burkett to a wastebasket full of Bush’s old laundry lists. Burkett has always disliked Bush intensely because he knows what Bush got away with, having served in an investigation of “ghosting” in the TXANG. Later, incriminating documents about Bush appear from Burkett—I woooooonder where they came from. I’m betting not Lucy Ramirez. (guess what? That “20-40 pages” tells us there’s a lot more)
We’ll be looking at Burkett’s role very closely in the future and his dicey legal position: he either gave CBS copies of forged federal documents—or copies of STOLEN federal documents it they’re real. There is no 3d choice. Yet, amazingly, the federal government has never sent anybody to ask Burkett under oath where he got the CBS papers from.
Ive jumped ahead in the story a little, don’t want to give it all away in the beginning, but I need to point out that nothing said above disagrees with the notion that the CBS papers came from Killians files. They most certainly did: what Burkett and Conn were looking at came from Bush’s files AND Killian’s files (and maybe others) —but that cvertainly doesn’t negate them as federal documents. The notes to himself could only have come from his own files but the written orders should have been in Bush’s file s also. We’ll be covering more of this in future BMHP’s
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