Bush campaign is freaking out over Bush AWOL story

I just got the following email from the Bush campaign email list. It's sent in the name of Ed Gillespie, the head of the Republican National Committee. Basically, they're shitting bricks. They felt the need to come clean with EVERY ALLEGATION now - not really admit them, but mention them publicly, to at least get them out in the open, and hopefully, from their perspective, take some of the wind out of them. Hell, they even mentioned Bush's alleged cocaine use, and again, interestingly, imply he didn't use cocaine even though the president REFUSES to answer the question whether he ever has or hasn't used coke.

This implicit denial on all of these issues in this campaign-sponsored email NOW PUTS THESE ISSUES INTO PLAY. The campaign has delineated a series of issues it says are scurrilous lies. So the media now has a clear right and obligation to demand that Bush answer a few simple questions regarding this campaign missive, such as, your campaign says the allegation that you used coke is a lie. Have you or haven't you? Then watch his campaign say that the allegation that he used coke at Camp David is a lie, but not respond whether he EVER used coke (not to mention, they'd better HOPE it's a lie).

Read this email, it's quite desperate, and of course, packed full of lies. But it's the desperation I'm liking. They're so worried about the allegations of Bush being AWOL, and more, that they're actually talking about them rather than ignoring them. That's a big deal. And it also says to me, we need to keep it up. In the past, the Dems have rolled over and played dead every time the Republicans said "look at them, they're being mean." Even though, of course, the Republicans were simply charging us with doing what they were ALREADY doing. Well, not this time bucko.

We are going to make sure that every American is aware that George Bush ran and hid while tens of thousands of American service members were being sent to their deaths in Vietnam. He is unfit to be commander in chief. And I'll be damned if I let Ed Gillespie scare me, or anyone else, out of telling the truth about this liar of a failed president.

September 8, 2004

To: Bush-Cheney '04 Grassroots Team
From: Ed Gillespie, Republican National Committee Chairman
Subject: Brace Yourselves

In response to President Bush's Agenda for America's Future and a critique of his policies and Senate record, Senator Kerry's campaign is implementing a strategy of vicious personal attacks against the President and Vice President.

The campaign is bringing in a bevy of former Clinton henchmen, including CNN commentators James Carville and Paul Begala. In August alone, Begala called President Bush a "gutless wonder," said he has a "lack of intelligence," and called Vice President Cheney a "dirt bag." Carville said the President is "ignorant big time" and said "George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are a couple of nobodies."

It's not like Bob Shrum needed encouragement to engage in personal attacks. At a Kerry rally Friday morning in Ohio, campaign surrogate John Glenn compared the Republican Convention to a Nazi rally, and Kerry called the President unfit to lead our nation and once again sought to divide the country by who served and how 35 years ago.

Of course, the President was called a "cheap thug," a "killer" and a "liar" at a Kerry-Edwards campaign event in New York, Mrs. Kerry has called the President's policies "unpatriotic" and "immoral" and DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe falsely accused the President of being AWOL.

Democratic strategist Susan Estrich outlined the strategy last Wednesday in a column warning Republicans to "watch out." "I'm not promising pretty," she wrote before going on to call President Bush and Vice President Cheney alcoholics, then ask "is any alcoholic ever really cured?" ("I can see the ad now.") She deems the President's service as a National Guard fighter pilot "draft dodging," and says, "a forthcoming book by Kitty Kelly raises questions about whether the President has practiced what he preaches on the issue of abortion." (Interestingly, the New York Daily News reported back in February that the Kerry campaign intended to spread such a rumor in pro-life chat rooms late in the campaign.)

So the former Dukakis campaign manager has an advance copy of Democrat donor Kitty Kelly's book, which promises to throw unsubstantiated gossip at President Bush in the same way she falsely maligned the late President Reagan as a date rapist who paid for a girlfriend's abortion and wrongly castigated Nancy Reagan as an adulterer who had an affair with Frank Sinatra. A recent story says Kelly's book alleges President Bush used cocaine at Camp David while his father was President, which is as credible as her story that then Governor and Nancy Reagan smoked marijuana with Jack Benny and George and Gracie Burns.

And tonight on CBS, longtime Democratic operative Ben Barnes-a friend of, major contributor to and Nantucket neighbor of Senator Kerry's and vice chair of the Kerry Campaign--will repudiate his statement under oath that he had no contact with the Bush family concerning the President's National Guard service. (Anyone surprised that Barnes would contradict a statement he made under oath probably doesn't know his long history of political scandal and financial misdealings.)

So brace yourselves. Any mention of John Kerry's votes for higher taxes and against vital weapons programs will be met with the worst kind of personal attacks. Such desperation is unbecoming of American Presidential politics, and Senator Kerry will pay a price for it at the polls as we stay focused on policies to continue growing our economy and winning the War on Terror.

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Is Rep. Dreier (R-CA) about to be outed?

Inquiring minds apparently want to know. Read the rest of this post...

Here it is - CBS' "60 Minutes" transcript on Bush AWOL during Vietnam war

No need to even spin this one, it stands on its own, documents and all. From CBS. Read the whole story, here is just a clip:

Did then-Lt. Bush fulfill all of his military obligations? And just how did he land that spot in the National Guard in the first place? Correspondent Dan Rather has new information on the president's military service - and the first-ever interview with the man who says he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard...

A few months before Mr. Bush would become eligible for the draft, Barnes says he had a meeting with the late oilman Sid Adger, a friend to both Barnes and then-Congressman George Bush.

"It's been a long time ago, but he said basically would I help young George Bush get in the Air National Guard," says Barnes, who then contacted his longtime friend Gen. James Rose, the head of Texas' Air National Guard.

"I was a young ambitious politician doing what I thought was acceptable," says Barnes. "It was important to make friends. And I recommended a lot of people for the National Guard during the Vietnam era - as speaker of the house and as lt. governor."

George W. Bush was among those he recommended for the National Guard. Was this a case of preferential treatment?

"I would describe it as preferential treatment. There were hundreds of names on the list of people wanting to get into the Air National Guard or the Army National Guard," says Barnes. "I think that would have been a preference to anybody that didn't want to go to Vietnam or didn't want to leave. We had a lot of young men that left and went to Canada in the '60s and fled this country. But those that could get in the Reserves, or those that could get in the National Guard - chances are they would not have to go to Vietnam."

Read the entire story.

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DNC tells Bush to go Cheney himself

Bless you, bless you, bless you, Terry McAuliffe.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said the release of more Bush military records, on the heels of repeated attacks on Kerry's military service, 'made the issue of the president's service, or lack thereof, completely fair game.'

'It goes to the credibility of George Bush, it goes to the credibility of our commander in chief, who has told misstatements to the American public about his own military record,' McAuliffe said.

UPDATE: Oh my God. Atrios links to a WONDERFUL audio clip of McAuliffe today. It absolutely friggin rocks. Listen to this now. Read the rest of this post...

Denver?

Now ABCNews' reports that the Air Force is saying Bush didn't have to join a unit in Massachusetts, like he promised to do in writing, because HE WAS REGISTERED WITH A UNIT IN DENVER.

Denver? Woah. Wait a minute. Dan Bartlett, Bush's very pretty spokesman with the very pretty hair-do - I'd say the prettiest hair-do of any of the candidate's press spokesman - said in 1999 that Bush finished his duty in Boston, not Denver. Where did Denver come from? When was Bush even IN Denver? He went from Texas to Alabama to Harvard in Boston, and knowing he was going to Harvard he chose to somehow register in Denver?

Fishy much? Read the rest of this post...

Bush's contribution to the English language

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Another "Terror" Case Collapses

USA Today reports yet another attempt to prosecute the war on terror has collapsed due to government incompetence or the simple fact that they may have rushed to prosecute a "spy ring" when there was no spy ring in the first place.

"Military prosecutors who accused an Air Force translator at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, of taking part in a spy ring that tried to pass more than 200 secret documents to U.S. enemies now say that only one of the documents was secret, the Air Force said Tuesday.

"The prosecutors' move, six months after the collapse of a case against a Muslim chaplain in the same probe, is fueling questions about whether there ever was a spy ring at Guantanamo."

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60 Minutes Sneak Preview!

Here are some advance quotes from Ben Barnes, the former Texas House speaker and Lt. Governor who says he now regrets helping George W. Bush jump the line and get into the Texas Air National Guard ahead of other young men who were also afraid to go to Vietnam but didn't have the family connections that Bush did.

Barnes told interviewer Dan Rather:

Barnes on His Decision to Help George W. Bush and Others Get Into the National Guard:
"I've thought about it an awful lot and you walk through the Vietnam memorial, particularly at night like I did a few months ago and, I tell you, you'll think about it a long time.... I don't think that I had any right to have the power that I had to choose who was going to Vietnam and who was not going to Vietnam. That's power. In some instances, when I looked at those names, I was maybe determining life or death and that's not a power that I want to have...."

Barnes on his Feelings of Regret:
"It would be very easy for me to sit here and tell you, Dan, that I had wrestled with this and lost a lot of sleep at night, but I wouldn't be telling you the truth. I... not eagerly, but readily, was willing to call and get those young men into the National Guard that were friends of mine and supporters of mine.... Reflecting back, I'm very sorry about it, but you know, it happened and it was because of my ambition, my youth and my lack of understanding. But it happened and it's not... something I'm necessarily proud of."

The piece airs tonight at 8 p.m. on CBS. Read the rest of this post...

Flip Flop! Bush At It Again

George "flip flop" Bush is at it again.

Bush was against the 9-11 commission before he was for it. (Flip-flop!)

Bush was against giving them mounds of pertinent evidence before he was for it. (Flip-flop!)

Bush was against the commission finishing its work before the election until he was for it. (Flip-flop!)

Bush was against the commission extending its deadline (necessary because Bush had dragged his feet in cooperating) before he was for it. (Flip-flop!)

Bush was against testifying before he was for it. (Flip-flop! Though he remained firm on being too afraid to testify alone.)

Bush was against Condi testifying before he was for it. (Flip-flop!)

Bush was opposed to an intelligence czar before he was for it. (Flip-flop!)

And now Bush was opposed to an intelligence czar with any budgetary authority before he was for THAT. (Flip-flop!)


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Let's not forget who got this AWOL ball rolling

Reportedly, the Boston Globe had a little help (more than a little) on their new Bush-is-AWOL story, but didn't credit it. I can't confirm that fact, but I can confirm that the RawStory.com has been reporting this stuff for quite a while - you can read their story here. Read the rest of this post...

Wow

"The war, meanwhile, answers the Bush administration's need to justify an unprecedented repressiveness in the "homeland," and simultaneously prompts widespread docile submission to the new martial law. But more deeply still, by understanding ourselves as a people at war, we Americans find exemption from the duty to face the grotesque shame of what we are doing in the world." - James Carroll in the Boston Globe

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BOSTON GLOBE: ''He broke his contract with the US government -- without any adverse consequences. And the Texas Air National Guard was complicit"

Wow, wow, wow. The Boston Globe piece about Bush going AWOL is AMAZING. They've got the bastard nailed to the wall. And even caught the White House spokesman lying. Someone needs to buy a big ole ad and run with this. Read this article, it's probably the best synopsis of this confusing issue I've seen to date, and includes lots of NEW info.

In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

But 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.

On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, ''It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months. . . " Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit.

But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. ''I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview.

And early in his Guard service, on May 27, 1968, Bush signed a ''statement of understanding" pledging to achieve ''satisfactory participation" that included attendance at 24 days of annual weekend duty -- usually involving two weekend days each month -- and 15 days of annual active duty. ''I understand that I may be ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory participation," the statement reads.

Yet Bush, a fighter-interceptor pilot, performed no service for one six-month period in 1972 and for another period of almost three months in 1973, the records show.

The reexamination of Bush's records by the Globe, along with interviews with military specialists who have reviewed regulations from that era, show that Bush's attendance at required training drills was so irregular that his superiors could have disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973, or 1974. But they did neither. In fact, Bush's unit certified in late 1973 that his service had been ''satisfactory" -- just four months after Bush's commanding officer wrote that Bush had not been seen at his unit for the previous 12 months.

Bartlett, in a statement to the Globe last night, sidestepped questions about Bush's record. In the statement, Bartlett asserted again that Bush would not have been honorably discharged if he had not ''met all his requirements." In a follow-up e-mail, Bartlett declared: ''And if he hadn't met his requirements you point to, they would have called him up for active duty for up to two years."

[JOHN'S NOTE: BULLSHIT. HE ALSO COULD HAVE BEEN HONORABLY DISCHARGED AND NOT CALLED UP BECAUSE DADDY PULLED SOME STRINGS.]

That assertion by the White House spokesman infuriates retired Army Colonel Gerald A. Lechliter, one of a number of retired military officers who have studied Bush's records and old National Guard regulations, and reached different conclusions.

''He broke his contract with the United States government -- without any adverse consequences. And the Texas Air National Guard was complicit in allowing this to happen," Lechliter said in an interview yesterday. ''He was a pilot. It cost the government a million dollars to train him to fly. So he should have been held to an even higher standard."

Even retired Lieutenant Colonel Albert C. Lloyd Jr., a former Texas Air National Guard personnel chief who vouched for Bush at the White House's request in February, agreed that Bush walked away from his obligation to join a reserve unit in the Boston area when he moved to Cambridge in September 1973. By not joining a unit in Massachusetts, Lloyd said in an interview last month, Bush ''took a chance that he could be called up for active duty....

The documents Bush signed only add to evidence that the future president -- then the son of Houston's congressman -- received favorable treatment when he joined the Guard after graduating from Yale in 1968. Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the Texas House of Representatives in 1968, said in a deposition in 2000 that he placed a call to get young Bush a coveted slot in the Guard at the request of a Bush family friend.

So my question is: What's the penalty for signing those documents and not fulfilling what you promised? Read the rest of this post...

Gay Republican Group, Log Cabin, votes to NOT endorse Bush

This is a big deal. 1 million gay voters supported Bush last time around, and Log Cabin is their leader. When Log Cabin says don't support the guy, a lot of soul-search gay Republicans will finally dump this president. It's also a big deal because it means the Log Cabin Republicans are maturing as an organization. For years they've been trying to surf the waters between being loyal Republicans and loyal gays, and all too often, in my opinion, siding with the Republicans rather than the gays. Last night they put themselves and their people before their party. They did the right thing and they deserve our praise. Read the rest of this post...

Scarin' up some votes...

So this morning, as 7000 Delta employees are losing their jobs, the big dick is telling us a vote for Kerry increases the chances for another terrorist attack.

Preznit has said on several occasions he expects to win the election, and he's also said on several occasions he's certain that we'll be attacked again. So, according to him, the chances of an attack under his "bold, decisive leadership" is 100 percent.

How do you increase chances beyond that? Simple -- you don't. It's just another cheap, disgusting, fearmongering smear tactic that insults the intelligence of the American people, increases anxiety, and tells us that the current administration has absolutely nothing to run on -- not the economy, not health care, not education, not the environment, not civil rights, not even the war.

It's not part of a larger strategy. It IS the strategy. Fear is all they have, and it's all they will use. Sadly, it shows they're smart enough to use what works, but it's what makes these so-called "bold, decisive" leaders such despicable people.
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Bushie hack illegally withheld data from Congress on Medicare costs

These are legally troubled times for the Bushies. With a Kerry victory within reach there ought to be some pretty nervous folks around DC. Too bad Scully didn't have a corporate slush fund like Richard Perle to dig into.

The Bush administration illegally withheld data from Congress on the cost of the new Medicare law, and as a penalty, the former head of the Medicare agency, Thomas A. Scully, should repay seven months of his salary to the government, federal investigators said Tuesday.

Mr. Scully's salary in 2003 was $145,600, the department said. He would owe the government $84,933 under the legal opinion issued on Tuesday.

Lawmakers of both parties said the law would not have passed in its current form if Congress had known of the higher cost estimates, prepared by the chief actuary, Richard S. Foster, a career civil servant who has worked for the government since 1973 and received an award for outstanding service in 2001.

The law under which Mr. Scully could be penalized says that no federal money can be used to pay the salary of any federal employee who "prohibits or prevents, or attempts or threatens to prohibit or prevent, any other officer or employee of the federal government'' from communicating with Congress.

The department itself found that Mr. Scully had threatened to dismiss the actuary if he provided information and estimates sought by Congress last year in the heat of debate over Medicare.

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Bush to avoid one of three debates

The guy really has an issue with avoiding.

The officials said Bush's negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in the crucial state of Missouri.

The audience for the second debate, to be at Washington University in St. Louis, was to be picked by the Gallup Organization. The commission said participants should be undecided voters from the St. Louis area.

A presidential adviser said campaign officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans.

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Bush MIA in National Guard -- More Proof

Bush is under fire for the first time in his life -- not during battle, as John Kerry was, but for avoiding battle by hiding in the National Guard. The guns are finally blazing away on this one, with New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof devoting a column to it where he quotes men who served in Alabama who insist they would have seen Bush if he'd ever shown up more than once.

Bush was clearly derelict -- pilot after pilot says remaining ready to fly was a point of honor for them, even though some, like Bush, were trained on planes that would never see combat in Vietnam. The records clearly show he was absent for months at a time and the ONLY person who would claim to have seen Bush in Alabama more than once unfortunately for Bush insisted he saw the future Prez there even when Bush admits he wasn't.

Plenty of other officers have said they also don't recall that Mr. Bush ever showed up for drills at the base. What's different about Mr. Mintz is that he remembers actively looking for Mr. Bush and never finding him.

Mr. Mintz says he had heard that Mr. Bush - described as a young Texas pilot with political influence - had transferred to the base. He heard that Mr. Bush was also a bachelor, so he was looking forward to partying together. He's confident that he'd remember if Mr. Bush had shown up.

"I'm sure I would have seen him," Mr. Mintz said yesterday. "It's a small unit, and you couldn't go in or out without being seen. It was too close a space." There were only 25 to 30 pilots there, and Mr. Bush - a U.N. ambassador's son who had dated Tricia Nixon - would have been particularly memorable.

This issue can and should speak to Bush's integrity and presumably will play a lot more poorly for him than debating how serious John Kerry's wounds were while serving in 'Nam. It also ties in with his possible drug use, that new Kitty Kelley book and the confession by the politico who got Bush into the Guard and now regrets it.

If the media can stay focused for more than one news cycle on this (remember Abu Ghraib, remember Afghanistan for god's sake?) then this could start to build up the negatives for Bush. Read the rest of this post...

US Concedes Iraq Falling Into Disarray

Who said Iraq was always going to be a positive for Bush? In the latest news, the US finally admits the reality of what is happening in Iraq: rebels/insurgents/terrorists/religious fanatics/patriots or whatever you wanna call them are taking increasing control of major chunks of Iraq.

This comes after the US death toll goes above 1,000 and attacks on our troops there have shot up almost 400% from 700 in March to 2,700 in August. Force in dealing with these insurgents is of course always an option. But US military officials thought they might hold off on that for say, oh, I don't know, maybe two months which -- wouldn't you know -- would mean until after the US elections.

As the New York Times pointed out,

"A two-month hiatus before major force is applied to rebel areas would also mean a delay until after the American presidential election, but senior officials insist there is no domestic political calculus in the decision to wait - only a conviction that time is needed for negotiation and for Iraqi forces to gain strength."

Uh-huh. One more sign of US desperation: local residents say insurgents control the city of Samarra but US commanders say that isn't true, claiming that "the messages at Friday prayer are becoming more and more moderate." Military officials having to characterize the tenor of Friday prayers is a sad sign indeed.
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