QandO: Bush administration travels through time to cover up AWOL records!

July 09, 2004

Bush administration travels through time to cover up AWOL records!
Posted by Jon Henke

Turns out, some important documents in the Bush "AWOL" scandalette were conveniently destroyed.....in 1997.

Military records that could help establish President Bush's whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon.

It said the payroll records of "numerous service members," including former First Lt. Bush, had been ruined in 1996 and 1997 by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service during a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. No back-up paper copies could be found, it added in notices dated June 25.

So, really, it's a Clinton administration scandal. That Bush fellow sure is crafty.

Note: Get ready for a steady drumbeat on this from Bush critics. They will be shocked--really shocked--that military record-keeping is not fool-proof, impervious to any damage, forever-and-ever, amen.

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Comments

Jon,

To be fair, it's not outside the realm of possibility that the records were "cleansed" in anticipation of something else.

It was Friday morning, and Wayne Slater of the Dallas Morning News was sitting on the Bush campaign plane as we flew from Milwaukee to Grand Rapids, Mich. Slater was telling his fellow journalists about his conversation with Bush in the fall of 1998, when he asked Bush if he had ever been arrested since 1968 and Bush said, "No."

(emphasis mine)

Word could have started leaking out before 1998, and mayber someone thought it was a good idea to take care of it then. I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist or anything, but that is a possibility. (I'm sure other politicians are guilty of the same thing)

Posted by: sean at July 9, 2004 09:56 AM

In the realm of possibility, I suppose....but did it really look like Bush was going to run for President in 1996-7? And how would they have arranged for the Defense Finance and Accounting Service to spoof up a "salvage" operation and destroy the specific microfilm?

We certainly can't know for sure, but great claims require great evidence. The theory here has no evidence behind it, really.

Posted by: Jon Henke at July 9, 2004 10:03 AM

Sean: in 1973 there was a huge fire that destroyed a ton of military records at the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC). I'm wondering when the left will try to tie this to Bush as well.

Things like this happen, especially in the era of microfilm and paper. Film deteriorates fairly quickly. Paper has to be routed to the proper place, filed in the proper file and then properly stored. All along the way, because it is a human endeavor, mistakes can be made and files can be destroyed or misplaced.

Why is it so important to assume otherwise?

Oh, and one more thing ... if the intent was to remove Bush's record, that's not hard to do. If you go to the archive and request the record, they'll deliver it to you right there and point you to a Microfische reader. How hard would it have been, if we want to feed conspiracy theories, to simply do that and destroy the microfilm or switch it to a sanitized version?

Yeah, not that hard. It certainly wouldn't have been necessary to destroy the payroll records of "numerous service members" to accomplish that task.

Posted by: McQ at July 9, 2004 10:09 AM

I'm wondering when the left will try to tie this to Bush as well.

Heh. I see your point. It just seems a bit convenient that the pertinent data relating to the three months in question burned up. I try not to be all "Mel Gibson Conspiracy Theory," but high-jinx and politics have gone hand in hand for a long time. You always have to wonder just a little bit.

On the other hand, a lot of conservatives are still convinced that Vince Foster was murdered by the Clintons. I think that doubt will always exist when thinking about the other side.

Posted by: sean at July 9, 2004 10:57 AM

Sean: I'd thought of that initially, as well.....but consider why that information is considered the "pertinent data".

Why? Because it hasn't been seen, yet....because it had not turned up. Of course, if it was destroyed in 96-97, it wouldn't have turned up, would it?

So, it's a bit of a cyclical argument here, like pointing out that something is "always in the last place you look"...which is, of course, true, because you don't need to look any longer once you've found it.

Posted by: Jon Henke at July 9, 2004 11:11 AM

Very true.

Posted by: sean at July 9, 2004 11:14 AM

I remember the first buzz on Bush was in late 1998 and he was debating doing it with his family in '99, and seemed to be leaning towards not running... so I don't see how a "conspiracy" is possible, unless you have the tinfoil on so tight it damages your brain.

Posted by: HH at July 9, 2004 03:58 PM