The Kerry campaign's new logotype
Posted on 09/11/2004 4:16:00 PM PDT by MadIvan
A pro-Democrat lobby group is to offer a financial reward for evidence that George W Bush fulfilled his duties with the Alabama National Guard.
The new Texans for Truth group is determined to keep the President's military record under scrutiny. A CBS television expose has also cast doubt on Mr Bush's service as a pilot.
The CBS report, presented by the veteran news anchorman Dan Rather in the flagship 60 Minutes slot, was ridiculed by Republicans after forensics specialists suggested that key military documents used as evidence were fakes. Rather was forced into publicly defending his report on a CBS news bulletin on Friday night, insisting that the witnesses and documents were authentic.
The programme had suggested that in May 1968, when Mr Bush had just graduated from Yale, a former Texas House Speaker and lieutenant governor, Ben Barnes, helped prevent him being drafted to Vietnam. It drew on memos which also apparently showed that Mr Bush's National Guard commander believed the future President at times shirked his duties.
CBS said no investigation into the report was planned. "This report was not based solely on recovered documents, but rather on a preponderance of evidence."
The furore has spurred the Texans for Truth to redouble efforts to back up claims - denied by the White House - that Mr Bush went absent without leave during the period in 1972 when he stated that he served as a pilot in Alabama. The group sees itself as the Democrat counterpart to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, who attacked Sen John Kerry's Vietnam war record throughout August.
Glenn Smith, a director of the Texans group, said: "The case that this President was cavalier about his military service does not just rest on those documents, whether or not they are forgeries. Why can no one on the Guard remember seeing him in Alabama in 1972? Republicans defend the President by asking how anyone can remember what they were doing 30 years ago. Well, I'm still friends with people from 30 years ago. How is it that no one recalls him serving in Alabama?"
Although Texans for Truth has no formal ties with the Democratic Party, the White House has accused its members of being "surrogates" for the Kerry campaign, which has been urged by former aides of Bill Clinton, the former President, to "get nasty" as Sen Kerry continues to slip in the polls. Mr Smith has worked on several previous Democrat campaigns in Texas and recently attended the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
The group will broadcast a 30-second television spot tomorrow in which a senior former member of the Alabama National Guard claims that President Bush failed to turn up to duty in Alabama in 1972. At one point, a voice-over implores: "Tell us who you served with, Mr Bush."
Mr Smith told the Telegraph that the reward for a documented Bush "sighting" in the Alabama Guard would be taken from a war-chest total of $400,000 (£222,250), all of which had been raised during the past week.
"It will be a substantial sum which will be paid out if convincing evidence is provided that President Bush attended training on a certain day and so on," he said. "We're making the point that here we have a martial President who took a cavalier attitude towards his own military service. After the Swift Boat Veterans campaign, we figured that someone had to do something to make sure people understood what the President's military career consisted of."
As Mr Kerry continues to trail Mr Bush in the polls - by as much as 14 points in the bellwether state of Missouri - financial donations have poured into the Texans for Truth headquarters in Austin.
Last week, a single $100,000 donation was made by a former writer on the hit sitcom, Seinfeld. However, the campaign represents a risky raising of the stakes after a week in which persistent Democrat attacks on the National Guard service of President Bush have backfired to the point that one senior Kerry supporter described the party as being close to "despair".
The documents which CBS aired, but which are said to be forged, purportedly reveal the frustration of a senior commander, Lt Col Jerry Killian, at the behaviour of George W Bush as a 25-year-old pilot. According to the documents, Mr Bush refused to take a physical examination to maintain his flight status in 1972 and also sought to be excused from "coming to drill". President Bush has maintained that he faithfully fulfilled his National Guard duties, receiving an honourable discharge in 1973.
After the documents were handed over to independent experts, several stated that the pages were in fact produced on a word processor, and could not therefore have been authentic military memos from 1972 and 1973, when such technology did not exist. The wife and son of Lt Col Killian, who died in 1984, have also rejected the papers as fake.
The prospect that the CBS "expose" could have been based on forgeries has caused panic among senior Democrats. Immediately after the CBS programme was aired on Wednesday evening, the Democratic National Committee stated that the programme showed that Mr Bush had "lied" over his National Guard service.
"If they are forgeries, then the race is over," said one influential Democrat strategist. "Democrat officials have gotten themselves so involved in this issue that if the papers are not authentic, they're going to be blamed for it."
I donno.... Paging John Macaint... Please pick up the curtousy phone. Hello?????
How about a reward for anyone who can remember seeing an IBM Selectric Composer at the Texas Guard in 1972?
The Kerry campaign's new logotype
Memories fade, people die, some people lie, all is irrevelant.
GWB has a DD214, Honorable Discharge.
End of discussion.
BTW, I joined the USMC Reserves, and served two years, before graduating college, and going on active duty for seven years. At the time, failure to meet your reserve obligations got you placed immediately into an active duty status and an almost automatic trip to Viet Nam. But I was a PFC, not a Lieutenant/Pilot.
The dems down here play dirty...They've been at this since Bush ran for Governor (and beat the dem darling, Ann Richards). I really did not take this as a blow because I've been through it so long here in Texas...but CBS using fraudulent documents with a dead man's signature on them and refusing to believe anyone who served in the Guard and supports Bush has put this front and center..
Ben Barnes' credibility is a laugher, the family refutes the sentiment and says the man didn't type memos, Hodges said he was told they were hand written, now thinks they are frauds, Killians man in charge of personnel doesn't believe they are authentic...Sigh
Don't forget his dentist.
May end up being the only good thing--and it was quite inadvertent--Dan Rather ever did.
Lt Col John "Bill" Calhoun served with Bush in Alabama.
http://www.FreeRepublic.com/focus/f-news/1077990/posts
Someone should give his testimony some legs.
They are likely to end up in court with some Guardsman demanding dough.<<< ...Stupid is....as stupid does.....
Where's my freaking reward, by the way?
"do Dan and Chrissy say they weren't serving in Bush's plane, so their accusations aren't valid?"
LoL! That's right!
The swift boats on JFK's boat's bumpers could "know nothing, NOOOTHING" about Kerry.
Only the people ON HIS BOAT.
Of course it is a ridiculous argument, but it would be fun to throw it back in their faces. ;)
Humor may be as powerful a weapon as evidence in this "game".
"The people giving this reward will just dismiss anyone who saw Bush because they have no "proof.""
They can just use the same rationale CBS did, when given a chance by LTC Killigan's son to talk to other sources and vet their story: "we know about those people, but they are for Bush."
Being "for Bush" automatically disqualifies anyone as an "objective witness" according to the rules of this game, so the only people they CAN put on tv, listen to, etc., HAVE TO BE anti-Bush.
"Someone should give his testimony some legs."
Indeed. He blows their claim out of the water.
But they will just run the ad anyway, truth doesn't matter. Driving down Bush's numbers is the ONLY thing that matters to them.
My Dad served with W too. He just got back from Iraq a few months ago. And as Michael Medved properly pointed out, W's "band of brothers" is the over one-hundred thousand soldiers who regard him highly as their CINC.
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