Yeah, I agree with you that it would be better if Bush were more honest and open about this whole issue. But essentially you are accusing him of being a politician. Openness and honesty are rare traits in that breed. Perhaps I’m just being cycnical, but I long ago ceasedt to expect pols to be “open and honest”. And frankly, I hope Bush does not put dredging up every last record out there on top of his “to do list”. There are a lot more important things going on right now than getting every record avaiable from 1972 into the public’s hands.
This issue can hurt him more indirectly than directly. To the extent that it’s front page news, it will be a distraction from other issues that Bush want’s to get out there. It’s hard to win an election when you’re on the defensive.
But if the anti-Bush folks want to gloat on this issue, it’s hard to blame them. After all, the anti-Clinton crowd did their share of gloating at every “bimbo explosion” during his 8 yr term.
Sam According to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30494-2004Feb10_2.html (located via Calpundit), Albert Lloyd seems to have changed his story - somewhat - as to the quality of available documentation as to whether/how Lt Bush completed his service. He seems to feel that there should be documentation saying where, when, and what Bush did rather than just a pay stub. Not a retraction of his previous statement but neither a clear endorsement that Bush did his time appropriately.
Airman, you seem to have pretty good knowledge of things bureaucratic and military. Do you know anything about the ARF document that I linked to at calpundit above?
So did I. Which is why I’m not talking about that.
I certainly don’t expect openness from our politicians. I don’t want to know any more about their personal lives, for instance, than I know about that of the fellow down the street. And when it comes to political strategy, I fully expect them to hold some cards close to their chests.
And I don’t expect perfect honesty, either. Any message that’s simple enough to resonate with the body politic is going to cover up some contradictory petty details, at the very least. As long as the details are small enough that they don’t undermine the fundamental validity of the message, I’m certainly not going to jump on a pol for turning the message into a sound bite or stump speech.
But some degree of honesty is necessary and expected from our politicians. How am I supposed to know how to decide who to vote for if they’re not telling me the truth about where they stand?
And if you make a promise, you at least try to keep it. This seems pretty simple. Bush went on TV on Sunday presumably in order to communicate with the American people. He promised to open his records. This isn’t a conditional promise; his political opponents can’t block him from doing this. All he has to do is say the word.
So do I. All I expect him to do is sign a blanket release to his military records, and let the rest of us do the dredging.
I agree. So he should spend the minimum amount of time on it that is necessary, which I figure is about 30 seconds. he calls a subordinate in, says, “I promised to open all of my military service records to the public. Draft me a release that will accomplish that. Run it by so-and-so to make sure the wording’s right. Once you agree on that, bring it to me and I’ll sign it.” Then when it comes back, he reads it and signs it.
If it can hurt him a lot more indirectly than directly, he ought to sign the release and have done with it. Whatever the worst news is, it would be out there, and would eventually lose most of its edge.
Unless he really did have his buddies clean up the file for him, of course. In which case there’s still time for the GOP to look for another candidate, if the story is confirmed sooner rather than later.
Damn you if you think I need to release the records.
I should point out that even these pay stubs still don’t settle the issue even for Texas: they contradict statements of his commanding officers who say that they could not perform his annual evaluation since Bush had “not been observed at this unit” from May 1, 1972, to April 30, 1973. "
No solid evidence contradicts the idea that he served 36 days of active duty in the Texas unit in May, June and July 1973 before being honorably discharged, but it isn’t well supported either, and if he DID do this as claimed, then this seems very much like it could be make up time: which raises the question, make up for what? And did he have permission to slag off in the first place, given that none of his commanding officiers were informed about it, and even wrote reports complaining that he wasn’t there?
Frankly, this whole military-service-records thing would be a non-issue for most other politicians. Under a Clinton-style era of peace and prosperity, discussing National Guard records would be seen as “why you bringin’ up old stuff?” nitpicking.
However… Bush has, for better or for worse, draped himself in the cloak of “America’s #1 terrorism fighter,” ever since 9/11. His presidential campaign is going to run largely on war and terror – “I took the WAR to al Qaeda! I went to WAR to stop Saddam! I should be re-elected because I can fight the WAR on terror better than anyone else!” And it doesn’t take a six-year-old to realize that you can’t claim to be an effective warrior if you weasled your way out of combat and then spent a good chunk of time not even meeting the minimum obligations for the job (“Mommy, how come I’m in trouble if I skip school, but the President can skip his duty and not be in trouble?”)
If Bush didn’t want to make the “war on terror” a centerpiece of his campaign, then I’d agree that this is much ado about nothing. But he is, and this is merely an example of George being hoisted by his own petard.
It looks to me like a standard retirement point summary. Retirement points are earned for any active duty you do. UTAs are considered active duty. I’m still working on it myself, because I just came off my active duty and so don’t quite know exactly how it works quite yet, but there are “good” years and “bad” years for points. A good year indicates that you either served or made up all of your drills for that year. A bad year is one when you didn’t do all of your duty, and is damaging for retention purposes. Also, a bad year opes up a whole bunch of punitive options for your unit, such as involuntary activation within the unit or outright transfer to Active Duty, thus deployable with the Active Duty troops. That’s not an issue now since we all have to go anyway, but back then it was obviously a big deal.
The amount of points he earned on that point summary is not a “good” year. IIRC, you get one point per UTA period and one point for any FTPs (that’s Flight Training Period, i.e. flying training). It is necessary for you to get 48 points between October and September of the next year (a fiscal year) to have a “good” year. It looks like he missed a lot of UTAs and did a bunch of RUTAs (R is for Replacement), nonetheless it looks like he came up short that year, meaning he could have been sent to the Active Duty and thus to Vietnam.
Like I said, I dunno how things were then, I can only go by what it’s like now.
Not just the electorate, either - the national media is who really needs to execute their responsibilities, as they did not 4 years ago. There may be a feeling there that they contributed to our current mess through dereliction of duty, and have to make up for it somehow. Maybe - but the grilling of McClellan is a hopeful sign.
The refusal to release medical records, unfortunately for Furious George, only brings up echos of the alcohol and cocaine problems that also went unexplored the last time. There may be other reasons for his blowing off the exam and leaving flight duty, something no pilot would do lightly, but how many alternatives are there? All we need now is for some detail or event to give the media “permission” to finally get into that seriously, the way that Clark’s answer to Jennings’ interrogation about his reply to Moore’s “deserter” allegation gave them “permission” to get into this topic again. Bush could end it all, though, and quickly, if he chose to - but he doesn’t risk even the slightest chance of embarrassment, or admitting being wrong, about anything at all.
You guys don’t have to go down here, into the basement of politics. If you do, there’s an elephant named Jim Bowie who is willing to fight you with knives.
As I have continually insisted, but nevertheless egregiously tolerated, the entire issue of this President’s war record and lack thereof is a losing battle.
I have personally witnessed the tangible downturn in American prestige, competitiveness, leadership and competence in the past three years. In my own small way, I have actually documented it.
You can bust this guy’s ass fairly as the misleading and unforthcoming fellow he is simply rom his lackluster and deceitfully titled initiatives alone: clear skes, healthy forests, no child left behind.
This President is categorizing himself as a “war President” because he is fighting an amorphous terrorist organization, and he sold us an apparently unrelated and unwarranted war of occupation in addition to it, and continues to sell it despite the refutations of his justifications for the war itself by his own appointees.
This guy is the worst President ever. And possibly the last, should we mire ourselves in the arcana of his carefully screened and presented past. So can’t we readjust our focus to document what a sort of loser this guy is right now instead of proving what we already knew about him?
As I’ve pointed out, the time to be throwing the small stuff at him is right now. We can’t just hammer on a couple of points for nine months. By November we’ll have bored the country silly.
We have plenty of ammunition against the incumbent. Tons of it. The tactical decision to be made now is not what to use, but what order we use it in.
This issue is small potatoes. It’s probably going to blow over. By the time the press and the public get tired of it, there’s going to be a whole new issue to hammer Bush over. The trick is going to be to get the most play out of each issue, to make the public remember each one distinctly when they’re at the polls, and to not overplay any one point.
If nothing comes of this scandal, if the President just waffles for a few more days, changing his mind about what he’ll reveal, telling half-truths and avoiding simple requests for easily obtainable records, then it’s a win. The public has, once again, gotten a picture of a deceitful, ineffectual leader. We move on to the next issue.
Meanwhile, we gain insight into how Bush is going to deal with these issues throughout the campaign. We lob some artillery at him, to test his defenses. So far, it seems, he’s going to be relying heavily on the “Look! Over there! Scary gay people!” approach.
That’ll only play so many times. And I don’t think he’s got much more in his arsenal. Already, we’re seeing sexual allegations thrown against Kerry, which I’m sure they wanted to trot out much later in the campaign.
They’re pulling out what big guns they have, while we’re still plinking away with small arms fire. So far, so good.
Oh, and one more point. The time to bring up the president’s dirty laundry is now, before they can pin the attacks on one candidate. Once the candidate is named, the White House can start whining about how this guy plays dirty politics, no matter what tactics they use themselves. If Bush starts blaming this story on anyone now, he gives weight to that candidate’s campaign. After the primary, he’ll be able to say “Dirty pool! Dirty pool!” all the time.
Now the public can be made aware of this issue, and the Democratic candidate can run a clean campaign.
I almost hesitate to cite Democratic Underground, but this is fun to chew on (lest we’ve forgotten the sad case of the late James Hatfield):
He could clear it up entirely with just a few *honest * sentences. Ron Ziegler isn’t around to explain ithe political facts of life to him, but William Safire is: It isn’t the crime, it’s the coverup.
Here’s an interesting wrinkle (courtesy of atrios and calpundit):
As noted in the document, Bush was suspended a month before James R. Bath (they were in the same unit). James R. Bath later invested in Bush’s oil venture Arbusto. James R. Bath was also a front man for Saudi investors, including Sheik Salem bin Laden, Osama’s brother. There’s no direct connection established between bin Laden money and Bush’s oil company, but sheesh.
They’ve looked them all over carefully, and there’s nothing in them to worry about. So this will be over, and we can get back to the serious issues like Kerry’s support of a Constitutional Amendment to force Eagle Scouts into gay marriages.
How many pages were released? 400? Sounds like some reporters are going to get sh*t from their girlfriends for spending Val’day with Bush’s military records instead of taking the g-friend out to dinner…
it appears that dubya has been a slaker all his life, as a student, as a business man, as a gov. why would he be any different when he is in the guard or in the white house?
my gut feeling while reading all the articles is that there was something going on in '72. i’m sensing alcohol related… could be drug… but def. something. somehow, somewhere, it will be found, esp. if there were legal actions. it is very hard to destroy every document, every reference, for something that would travel the halls of the military and justice.
I haven’t checked on this, but Chris Mathews today reported that the time period when this guy says he saw Bush in attendance is a time period when Bush’s records say he wasn’t paid. That doesn’t mean the guy is lying, but it does appear that the controversy is not going away.
I’ll be down at the local pub when the show airs again tonight (8PM PST) on MSNBC, but if you get it up in Canada you might want to tune in.
