QandO: Into the AWOL breach again...

September 09, 2004

Into the AWOL breach again...
Posted by Jon Henke

Well, it appears that August was Kerry's month for criticism, and September is Bush's. I'll comment and link to interesting pieces here....
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* Interesting, isn't it, that the first major media stories of the Swift Boat Veteran story were pieces investigating connections and inconsistencies. Yet, the first major media stories (this cycle, anyway) of the Bush/AWOL stories are simple recitation of the allegations. Case in point:

The New York Times first story on the SBVs....

Kerry called them "a front for the Bush campaign." A series of interviews and a review of documents show a web of connections to the Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President George W. Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove.

Records show that the group received the bulk of its initial financing from two men with ties to the president and his family - one a longtime political associate of Rove's, the other a treasurer of the George H.W. Bush Library Foundation.
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A Texas publicist who once helped prepare Bush's father for his debate when he was running for vice president provided them with strategic advice.
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And the group's television commercial was produced by the same team that made the devastating ad mocking Michael Dukakis in an oversized tank helmet when Dukakis and Bush's father confronted each other in the 1988 presidential election.
[...]
Perry, who has given $200,000 to the Swift group, is the top donor to Republicans in the state, according to Texans for Public Justice, a nonpartisan group. He donated $46,000 to Bush's campaigns for governor in 1994 and 1998.
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Rove, Bush's top political aide, recently said through a spokeswoman that he and Perry were longtime friends, though he said they had not spoken for at least a year.
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Crow, the seventh-largest donor to Republicans in the state according to the Texans for Public Justice, has donated nowhere near as much money as Perry to the Swift boat group. He is listed as a trustee of the George H.W. Bush Library Foundation. One of his law partners, Tex Lezar, ran on the Republican ticket with Bush in 1994, as lieutenant governor. Lezar, who died last year, was married to Merrie Spaeth, a powerful public relations executive who has helped coordinate the efforts of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
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Spaeth was a communications official in the Reagan White House, where the president's aides had enough confidence in her to invite her to help prepare George H.W. Bush for his vice-presidential debate in 1984.

The New York Times first story on the Texans for Truth...

Anticipating his remarks, Republicans worked to discredit Mr. Barnes as a partisan Democrat and large contributor to Mr. Kerry.

I guess Republicans had to work to discredit Mr Barnes, since the New York Times seems to have exhausted all of their investigative budget on discovering that one of the Swift Boat Veterans contributors was a Republican who knew a guy who knows George W Bush.

Odd, isn't it, that the NYTimes did the legwork for the Democrats in the Swift Boat Veteran story, but the "connections" in the Barnes story are only cited as a Republican attempt to discredit him? (actually, that's a rhetorical question)
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Ok, with that out of the way, let's round up some important contributions to this story.

* Beldar Blog probably has the most comprehensive, detailed discussion of the Barnes allegations from 60 Minutes....

See, especially, where Beldar notes the attention paid to Barnes contributions to Kerry, (not that Barnes affiliation is dispositive of anything, but the attention it receives, when compared to that received by the SBVs, is notable) and the Dallas Morning News story he cites, wherein Bush's commanders disavow any coercion from above.

Mostly, Beldar notes that this is nothing more than a compilation of old stories, with a brand new patina of hyperbole.

* Powerline notes some reason to believe the documents may be forged...

I'm not so sure I'm going to buy into this, especially considering the fact that the White House has also produced a couple of the documents.

On that subject, Kevin Drum asks a good question:

"The real question now is: what other documents does the White House have? Obviously they've had these sitting around for a while, and just as obviously they've held them back even though they claimed in February that they had made available every known document related to Bush's National Guard record."

That's a good question, though I suspect that--since these were documents from the files of other officers--the White House may not have had earlier access to them, either. Or not. I don't know.

UPDATE: Well, I know now. Credit to Bithead for noting Kevin Drums update...

I now have copies of the memos the White House released, and they are just versions that CBS faxed to the White House the day before the 60 Minutes segment aired. There's no indication that the White House had its own copies of these memos and had been sitting on them.

Apologies.

I admire a blogger who will correct himself, and publicly. Good on Kevin.

* Tom Maguire reams Nick Kristof for (take your pick) lying/bad reporting....

Maguire, as usual, goes deep and it's hard to come away from this without wondering how much ink the NYTimes will have to buy to print all the corrections.

* A new Virginia Beach area blog--written by a Naval Flight Officer--FlightDeck offers some military insight. (hint: the media is going nuts where it's not warranted....which they would know, if they knew something about the military)

Make sure you read the whole thing to get an idea of where the media hyperbole is diverging from military reality.

* Finally, via TrueBlue, this Gordon Bloyer piece at American Daily makes some good points...

UPDATE: John Cole helpfully provides a complicated flowchart detailing the tangled web of connections.

UPDATE II: How could I forget my co-bloggers contributions of yesterday?

Dale Franks responds to Kristofs column, pointing out that Mr Kristof draws some awfully tendentious conclusions. And leaves out some awfully important points.

McQ note the (ir)relevance of the UCMJ in Bush's case....meaning, AWOL is off the table.

As I come across more information, I'll post it here. Check back.

TrackBack

Comments

In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing (especially in the military), and typewriters used mono-spaced fonts.

There was a typewriter that used a proportional font: the IBM Executive. But it was a sans-serif font. That doesn't necessarily rebut Powerline, but it does show their line of reasoning isn't watertight.

Posted by: Steverino at September 9, 2004 09:53 AM

Relevant information: Former Guardsman: Bush served with me in Alabama

Posted by: Rusty Shackleford at September 9, 2004 09:54 AM

I'm growing rather weary of trying to take Drum seriously... the man wouldn't know a good question if it jumped up and bit him, if he knew the answer had the slightest chance of making the republican look good.

The White House is being very public in it's annoyance with the Pentegon on the matter, apaprently calling a few out on the carpet for not releasing to the general public the records found incidental to the FOIA request from the Globe.... despite a direct presidential order to that effect.

If the WH had such documents in hand, Kevin, explain to me how they came to be found buried at the Pentegon?

Further, what would the WH have gained by keeping such documents as have been released to the Globe? It's not like anything new came out of them.

Posted by: Bithead at September 9, 2004 10:15 AM

So the Bush defense is, at least partially, the same as the Kerry defense on SBVT - show that the critics are partisan hacks. Ben Barnes and Mintz are clearly partisans, as is O'Neill and SBVT. But what blasted SBVT out of the water was not the NYT web o'connections but the WaPo article that actually looked at the facts and concluded that the only thing SBVT had going for it was Cambodia and the fact that Kerry hadn't released his entire medical file. Beyond that Kerry's service record checked out entirely. In order for Bush to sink the TANG story he has to demonstrate what he was doing in mid-1972, why he didn't take the physical, whether he really showed up for Guard duty in Alabama (and yes he was STILL a member of TANG). A handful of people have come forward saying he was there - but strangely not when even Bush claims he was there. A handful of people say he wasn't there. But then there's the documentation. Bush was ORDERED to take a physical and refused. The idea that he refused a physical because he didn't want to fly anymore is just not believable. We're not talking about being asked to log 1000 more hours of flight time. We're talking about showing up for a physical for one hour. When you piece it all together - the connections to get him into TANG, the connections to get him assigned to Alabama, Killian griping in a personal file about "running interference while trying to do his job" the inference is clear: Bush gamed the system and then when he got his plum assignemtn he didn't do what he was supposed to do. Whether that matters now is another story.

Posted by: Elrod at September 9, 2004 10:26 AM

Beyond that Kerry's service record checked out entirely

I have no problem with assuming that Kerry's record is (roughly) as stated, but I'd remind you that a few of Kerry's supporters told stories that contradicted Kerry's story in parts. Rood, for example.

Further, the reliance on the official record is, potentially, a circular argument. Essentially, one is left saying "Kerry's story is accurate, because the official record--which reflected Kerry's version of events--is accurate".

Well, whether Kerry told that version today, or at the time, they still disagree with it.

While I'm perfectly willing to admit that the SBVs story is full of holes, it seems to me that the Kerry supporters are going around the bend to pretend that there are not legitimate holes in their candidates story.

re: Bush. Some of the linked stories deal with that.

Posted by: Jon Henke at September 9, 2004 10:40 AM

But what blasted SBVT out of the water was not the NYT web o'connections but the WaPo article that actually looked at the facts and concluded that the only thing SBVT had going for it was Cambodia and the fact that Kerry hadn't released his entire medical file.

The only thing that article blasted was the WaPo's claim to unbiased reporting. Like most media outlets they were in over their heads concerning anything military.

Beyond that Kerry's service record checked out entirely.

Actually it doesn't which is why there's now a formal investigation into why he has three Silver Star citations.

A handful of people have come forward saying he was there - but strangely not when even Bush claims he was there. A handful of people say he wasn't there. But then there's the documentation. Bush was ORDERED to take a physical and refused.

Those that say he wasn't there only say they never observed him. As for the physical, he wasn't "ordered" to take it. Its an annual event for those on flight status. If you're no longer in a flying slot (Bush was in AL) there is no reason to take it. When you miss it, they administratively remove you from flight status until such a time as you take it. It isn't any more complicated than that. And since he was in AL in a non-flying slot, there was no reason to travel back to TX and take a flight physical.

When you piece it all together - the connections to get him into TANG, the connections to get him assigned to Alabama, Killian griping in a personal file about "running interference while trying to do his job" the inference is clear: Bush gamed the system and then when he got his plum assignemtn he didn't do what he was supposed to do.

There are no connections that I'm aware of that got him into the guard. He may have gamed the system to get to AL, but regardless he had the permission of his commander to go to AL ... period.

The fact remains that Bush has a record which shows he got the points necessary to have good years and he got an honorable discharge. If you inclined to argue that Kerry's record is his best argument, then you have to accept the same for Bush's.

Posted by: McQ at September 9, 2004 11:01 AM

Curiously absent from this roundup is the following site:

THE AWOL PROJECT
An Examination of the Bush Military Files

http://www.glcq.com/

The author of this site has been on the story for months, unlike the bloggers who occasionly dip their toes in the pool. And what he has to say ain't pretty.

Posted by: mkultra at September 9, 2004 11:53 AM

Hey MK ... what does he have to say about the fact that AWOL is a charge under the UCMJ and Bush wasn't subject to the UCMJ?

Posted by: McQ at September 9, 2004 12:25 PM

Ben Barnes, chased from office after the Sharpstown Bank scandal in the Texas Legislature (the Lt. Governor presides over the Senate and sets the agenda) and then found to be suspiciously tied to both Governor Richards and the company hired to do the Texas Lottery, still has credibility??

Not in Texas, unless you're a Democrat partisan.

Posted by: David R. Block at September 9, 2004 12:41 PM

MK ultra knows as much about the military as my six year does. Oops, retract that. My 6 year does know more as he has met my ex military friends and heard their stories.

McQ, As I said in my response to your excellent summary, that fact does not fit and therefore it will be ignored. so, QED.

Posted by: capt joe at September 9, 2004 12:41 PM

The basic allegations against Kerry by SBVT were that he fundamentally fabricated his own service record. None of that has proven to be true. Sure, there are some open questions: Cambodia, the puzzling, extra Silver Star citations, the unreleased medical file. But the crux of the allegations has been disproven, with only harcore GOP partisans to press at the margins. The documentary evidence backs up Kerry, but so does eyewitness evidence. I may not know much about the modern-day military but I do know how to investigate the past. No piece of evidence is rock solid - some are more credible than others. But when weighing the reliability of the various forms of evidence, from SBVT, the Naval documents, eyewitnesses in particular, it is reasonable to conclude that Kerry's story holds up and the SBVT are basically lying. That's what Michael Dobbs concluded in a very fair-minded article and I agree with him.

So let's apply this standard to Bush. The documents show he was honorably discharged and received the requisite points. But as I would concede in the Kerry case, the documents aren't rock solid. They can be fudged or they can be reflective of less-than-objective decisions by those who wrote them. If Bush refused to show up for his required drills then it is reasonable to ask why he received an honorable discharge. If Bush did show up for his drills then why is there so little evidence for it? If Bush was ORDERED to take a physical (and yes, he was ordered, according to his own commanding officer), and subsequently grounded from flying, why was there no follow-up investigation? There may be an innocent explanation to all this but I haven't seen it yet.

Posted by: Elrod at September 9, 2004 01:04 PM

"None of that has proven to be true. Sure, there are some open questions: Cambodia, the puzzling, extra Silver Star citations, the unreleased medical file."

Errrr, yeah - cognitive dissonance here or what?
No one questions that Kerry was present where the witnesses say he was present. The variation seems to be in the version of events told.
You omitted Kerry claiming to be in charge of the 94 boat when he wasn't.
You omitted Kerry's story claiming a guy on his boat as evidence of his actions, when the guy was in the hospital recovering from the wounds he got when Kerry wasn't in command of the boat.
You ignore the fact that commendations being changed has a statue of limitations on it and they can't be upgraded every couple of years.
You ignore the fact that the Navy on it's own wouldn't have gone over them and changed the wording.

The suspension of belief pill you're expecting us to swallow is turning into a goat.

And then you turn around and have the chutzpah to call the SBVT liars?

Posted by: looker at September 9, 2004 01:36 PM

The copies of the memos that the White House released were copies that had been faxed to them by CBS news. Here is the link. http://wid.ap.org/documents/bush/040908xfer.pdf
More importantly, this link seems to me to be almost conclusive proof that the documents are forgeries. http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=12526_Bush_Guard_Documents-_Forged
When the documents are typed with Microsoft WORD's TimeRoman 12 point font using WORDS' default margains and tabs, the word document lines up exactly the same as the purported document written 30 years ago. Every line end with the same word on the purported old documents as WORD automatically wraps the text today. Seems highly unusual to me.

Posted by: Paul DeMott at September 9, 2004 01:54 PM

regards my comments on Drum; Apparently he's been spanked into submission.... He says now...

UPDATE: I now have copies of the memos the White House released, and they are just versions that CBS faxed to the White House the day before the 60 Minutes segment aired. There's no indication that the White House had its own copies of these memos and had been sitting on them. Apologies

Posted by: Bithead at September 9, 2004 03:02 PM