Posted on 09/15/2004 9:13:38 PM PDT by ambrose
Doubts raised on Bush accuser
Key witness disputes charge by Guard retiree that files were purged
By Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff, 2/13/2004
For at least six years, a retired Texas National Guard officer has maintained that President Bush's record as a member of the Guard was purged of potentially embarrassing material at the behest of high-ranking Bush aides laying the groundwork for Bush's 2000 run for the presidency.
Retired Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett, who has been pressing his charges in the national news media this week, says he even heard one high-ranking officer issue a 1997 order to sanitize the Bush file, and later saw another officer poring over the records and discovered that some had been discarded.
But a key witness to some of the events described by Burkett has told the Globe that the central elements of his story are false.
George O. Conn, a former chief warrant officer with the Guard and a friend of Burkett's, is the person whom Burkett says led him to the room where the Bush records were being vetted. But Conn says he never saw anyone combing through the Bush file or discarding records.
"I have no recall of that," Conn said. "I have no recall of that whatsoever. None. Zip. Nada."
Conn's recollection also undercuts another of Burkett's central allegations: that he overheard Bush's onetime chief of staff, Joe M. Allbaugh, telling a Texas Guard general to make sure there were no embarrassments in the Bush record.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Hurricane Memo is bringing a 40-foot storm surge onto Black Rock...
I keep hearing this over and over again.
Wouldn't Ann Richards have used the files to beat Bush if they had been there? It's not like she isn't part of the rough and tumble Texas politics.
She certainly isn't above dirty tricks herself, drunk or sober.
We can have our Night of Long Knives after the election. I think this is hurting Bush. The less attention given to Kerry, the less people know about him, the better off he is. But constantly having the words "Bush" and "controversy" leading off the news is not doing him any good.
This whole thing is blowing up in the RATS face
Every single piece of this TANG story is falling apart. Why anyone continues to discuss the substance of the charges in lieu of the real story about an obvious attempt to influence a presidential election with a massive hoax (complete with the complicity of a major news organization) is beyond me...
No way. People know who Bush is. Kerry is the one who has to get his message out and that's what is getting crowded out by this mess. I'd rather have them hearing about fake memos than lib media takes on healthcare and social security.
ping
You don't give people enough credit. It's coming off as a huge smear campaign against the President. Just about everyone's been the victim of vicious gossip and can sympathize with him.
I think this is hurting Bush.Oh, yeah. And the polls reflect it. I mean, Bush is ahead in PA and even pulling even in NJ and NY. It hurts so good.
Washington Post......
CBS anchor Dan Rather acknowledged for the first time yesterday that there are serious questions about the authenticity of the documents he used to question President Bush's National Guard record last week on "60 Minutes."
"If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story," Rather said in an interview last night. "Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.'
(snip)
Some friends of Rather, whose contract runs until the end of 2006, are discussing whether he might be forced to make an early exit from CBS.
Count me with you. Good analysis. Nobody likes dirty pool (well, except for dirty pool players, of course).
That is without a doubt the smartest thing I've read from anyone tonight. You're absolutely right, Ann's handlers would have pored through Bush's files. Forget about this fictitious sanitization in '97—anything in those files would have hit the press way back in '94. Excellent observation.
Kerry hasn't stepped up to the plate to say that it's terrible that someone has falsified documents for political gain. That says a great deal about the man's character.
Actually there are more important issues than whether he did or Kerry did or didn't. We do have a 7.5 trillion debt that is in danger of destroying the dollar without any additional spending. Medicare went up 17.5% last year. The 800 billion drug benefit package has not even started to kick in yet. Yet we hear a constant barrage of he said, I said, with no seeming realization that we are in the middle of a financial storm. Both canduidates seem to be living in a dream world with no realization that there are other problems. We are living on borrowed time with the winner of the election getting the honor of participating in the beginning of a financial upheaval. I don't expect either to bring up any plan to save the economy after the election.
A person who so eagerly villified Bush 41 in the 1988 DNC Keynote would have never hesitated to destroy the son in an election, particularly after his very impressive disection of Gov Richards in the gubernatorial debate. Note that we have not heard from Ann Richards on any of this. I'm waiting for her face to drop, oops I mean the other shoe.
The DemocRATS did try to use his TANG service, when he ran against Ann and when he ran for re election. They beat this dead horse every time he runs for office.
There should be a law against beating a dead horse.
Perhaps Dan Rather, friend to the ACLU and Ann Richards (Rather attended a 1988 fundraiser for her, according to Liz Smith), could even advocate the admission of forgery into courts of law as long as it kicks loose a deeper truth about a guilty defendant.
Now, I am wondering when someone else is going to put Ann Richards in the mix?
Gee, guys, it's not like I WANT this to hurt Bush. I just think this is not doing him any good. Conventional wisdom says it is, but the rules are different for Republicans. It could turn out well, if it is shown the Democrats were behind this (which is likely to be the case but not likely to be proved), but I don't think you're going to see his poll numbers go up if it dominates the news. The Democrats who keep pimping this story, discounting the falsity of the documents in favor of the "real" story, are not as stupid as everyone thinks. They are trying to fire up their base ("Bush Lied!") and slam Bush's credibility among undecideds. This is free air time for them to restate over and over and over their stupid catechism on the subject, every day, every night, every channel. Do I think it will hurt Bush much? No, not much. But Kerry is avoiding scrutiny right now, even though he should be getting slammed on his ant-war activities in the 70s, while at the same time what would normally be old news about Bush is getting unprecedented attention. The poll I saw showed only 38% of the public think the documents are fake. That's only 12% more than those who think they're real and basically the percentage of Republicans in the population.
I'm sorry, I just don't think this is good for him. If the Democrat's fingerprints show up (which they won't in a way that isn't deniable, even though it will be obvious to us), that would be different. But this is not what I would want to be dominating the discussions of my candidacy, if I were him. Just my opinion. If a poll comes out next week that shows Bush growing his lead, I'll be happy--thrilled, even--to be wrong. I don't think that will be the case. But if this BS didn't happen, I think we would see him consolidating his gains as Kerry floundered. Bush isn't on message now, his people aren't pounding Kerry's legislative record or flip-flops. Like a beleaguered fighter up against the ropes, Kerry was ready to be put away. But now he's getting a breather, a chance to redefine himself as people forget the impressions that were starting to form that were helping to rocket Bush into the lead. Kerry's still got problems, I just think the conventional wisdom that this hurts him and helps Bush is wrong.
zzzzzzzzz.....we heard about this under Reagan, as well. The economy is rebounding and the deficit will take care of itself like it always did. Just remember that Clinton's "surplus" was the result of citizens being overtaxed. The govt doesn't generate income, it only confiscates it.
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