Doubts raised on Bush accuser (Burkett)

Boston Globe ^ | 2/14/04

[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.

[AndrewC]

But now he's getting a breather, a chance to redefine himself as people

Forgery row threatens to derail Kerry 

Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday September 16, 2004
The Guardian 

The problems dogging John Kerry's presidential campaign deepened yesterday as a row over the authenticity of
 documents about George Bush's National Guard service took centre stage. 


The Kerry campaign insists it had nothing to do with the documents, which contain derogatory remarks about Mr 
Bush's National Guard service, apparently written by a superior officer in the early 1970s. But evidence that 
they may be forgeries could damage Mr Kerry's challenge when he is trailing in the polls and striving to regain
 his footing. 

Forensic scrutiny of the typefaces, spacing and verbal style of the National Guard memos could help shield Mr
 Bush against a concerted Democratic attack on his Vietnam era record. 

"The 'forgeries' have become the story, not the story itself," David Corn, the Washington editor of the Nation 
magazine, said. 

The timing of the appearance of the documents has led some Democrats to wonder if they had been put into circulation 
to discredit the anti-Bush effort. Fingers have begun to point - as they often do among Democrats - at Karl Rove,
 the president's electoral mastermind. 

"If this is Rove, it is his greatest masterpiece," a Kerry campaign adviser said yesterday.



Attack on Bush military record
From correspondents in Washington
September 15, 2004
US Democrats stepped up their attack today on President George W. Bush's military service, while a "tell-all" 
tabloid biography assailing his family values hit the stores as an instant bestseller.

...
Today, the Democrats came back with a new campaign and video aimed at highlighting "unanswered questions" 
regarding Mr Bush's stint with the Texas Air National Guard three decades ago, a statement said.
The effort, dubbed "Operation: Fortunate Son", seeks to shift the focus onto what the Democrats call Mr Bush's use 
of family connections to get a cushy National Guard position and avoid duty in Vietnam. 

There is the tie-in. Kerry will suffer.

[Exigence]

Dan Rather with the help of his "forgers" wanted to take down a sitting President.

Especially since Kerry has insisted this campaign be about the 70s. This is going to seem like Watergate all over again to some voters. Think it's any coincidence Hannity had Bernstein as a guest tonight?

Just think of the CBS staffer who confirmed Burkett as the source for the NY Times article as "Deep Throat II."

[NavySEAL F-16]

I will not ever see the glass half empty. I am a half full kind of guy.

You're more than welcome to your opinion. I just don't have to agree with it.

[McGavin999]

If Bush were going to have something done with his records, he would have replaced the documents with bland documents saying he met all the requirements. Come on! If he had that kind of access to the records, why leave holes that the morons would exploit?

[Stonedog]

In the words of Ronaldus Maximus (paraphrased), I think the debt is big enough to take care of itself. Also, in case you missed it, the economy is surprisingly resilient... So get off the doom and gloom soapbox.

[Exigence]

To the Democrats, that means opportunity.

Nope. To the GOP, this means opportunity. The "believers" are all Kerry has left of his base.

[Hank All-American]

Just to reiterate, it's not like I hope what I'm saying is right. I merely fear it is. Maybe I'm just a contrarian. Back before the Republican convention, I told a friend of mine I was sensing what seemed like hints of desperation from the democrats, just by the tone of some of the quotes I was reading. Conventional Wisdom at the time was still based on the idea the election was Kerry's to lose.

Besides, I hope the G.O.P. has more people like me. I'm the guy who lays awake at night thinking about what can go wrong and how to avoid it.

[NavySEAL F-16]

I do think the "journalists" think they are going to bring back their glory days. They weren't able to destroy this country the first time, but it's the same people that think they've got another shot.

I despised what they did then and they just couldn't let well enough alone. They weren't prosecuted for treason at the time, as even David Horowitz said they all should have been, and now they're coming back to try to destroy this country one more time.

You can see it in the protest marches -- I think they are the same people I used to see in the 60s and 70s. They haven't changed -- just gotten older. Some I don't think have even showered since then.

Rather's machinations cannot be swept under the rug.

I do believe that if we had had the Internet in the 60's, the lies would have been stopped in their tracks as we are trying now.

[CurlyDave]

I don't know too many baby boomers who have ever counted on the "nannygate" social security to take care of us in our old age.

Well, right here is one who hasn't exactly "counted on" SS, but who will be mad as he11 if the program I paid into under threat of criminal prosecution can't pay back the money it promised to me in exchange for what it extorted.

No, I am not going to starve, and I won't even have to eat cat food, but SS was promised and should be paid. It is enough to make a difference in where I can live, how big a house, etc.

[Southack]

"I hope the G.O.P. has more people like me. I'm the guy who lays awake at night thinking about what can go wrong and how to avoid it."

Every company in the world is filled with people like you; people who go out of their way to say "No" at every opportunity, to every change, against every improvement...all while claiming that you are "open minded" and modern and progressive and open to change.

It's the man who says "Yes", however, who wins. It's the man who finds a way to make good things happen, no matter how hard the work or how dark the path, who changes the world for the better.

Most people look for ways to say "No, there is a problem with that."

The few who make it to the top, however, are almost always the ones who somehow found a way to say "Yes."

The AWB Has Expired - Gun Owners Have Won Again For All Americans!

[Hank All-American]

I'm certainly not telling anyone they have to agree with me. Heck, I hope I'm fabulously wrong. I just also remember how the Democrats managed to totally change the subject of the leaked congressional memos from what they said, which was reprehensible and should have caused a media firestorm, to who leaked them and how they got them. They did that by repeating over and over again that THAT was what was important and ignoring what they were caught red-handed doing. So what if they were conspiring to extend the 911 hearings so the timing would damage Bush for the election? So what if groups like People for the American Way were dictating whether judges would be allowed to receive a vote or be filibustered? I'm not pessimistic as much as I am chary about the opposition and their tactics.

[rwfromkansas]

Thought you would like Bill Burkett's e-mail address:

BBurkett16@aol.com

From this blog in which he actually replied to some criticism in August:

http://www.steveverdon.com/archives/politics/001110.html

[Fabozz]

"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."

Which just reinforces NSF-16's point. As I recall, Richards didn't introduce the AWOL angle back in 1994. Her whole point was that Bush's father pulled strings to get him into the Guard. They pushed that story hard—it was even a question in a debate I think. That tells us two things:

1. If Bush's file, which Richards' staff would easily have had access to, had any support for the "Daddy-pulled-strings" meme, it would have been used.
2. If there were even rumors circulating in the Guard of this AWOL nonsense, that would have gotten trotted out too.

Nothing even remotely resembling these memos could possibly have been in Bush's file in 1994.

[NavySEAL F-16]

If the government ever gave us the choice of taking what we paid in in one lump sum, as opposed to spread out payments over the life of our "retirement" span. I'd sure take the lump sum.

[NavySEAL F-16]

That's what the Dems want us to do -- expend all our energy worrying about them and take our eyes of the real goal.

I cannot and will not think like a liberal.

[Hank All-American]

That is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. You don't know the first thing about me.

You go find yourself a lawyer who doesn't lay awake the night before your trial, worrying about what can go wrong and thinking how to avoid it. I'll hand him his lunch in court.

Forgive me if I'm the guy who says let's not start ****ing each other's ****s just yet. It has nothing to with having or not having a can-do attitude. In fact, where the heck did you even get that from what I was saying? I tend to question conventional wisdom because it is often wrong. Going against the grain. Isn't that the opposite of what you're implying?

Who do you want prepping Bush, a guy who says "oh, everything will be fine, look at the polls!" or a guy like me who will study every Kerry debate tape, every Kerry stump speech, and every Kerry talking point for weeks trying to anticipate how he will likely approach issues while also studying Bush's prior debates and democratic criticisms to find out what kind of questions make him stumble so he can work on them? I'm sorry, I'd want someone like me. I hope Pollyanna is prepping the other guy.

This is too stupid to even discuss.

[ClancyJ]

Well we can't do anything about it - so it does not matter whether it hurts or helps him. We just have to play the hand dealt.

[Hank All-American]

Actually, the new Minnesota poll someone just posted shows I may be wrong. That is very recent, and if Kerry is trailing there by two points, he is in trouble. That state went for Mondale, for crying out loud. Mondale only beat me in that election by three electoral votes, and I didn't even run.

I'd still rather not have this national-guard stuff take Bush off message.

[Hank All-American]

That's true, but I just don't want anyone to become complacent. I want to go to sleep on election night nice and early.

[knuthom]

There is also an article about Burkett in the Houston Chronicle from last Feb. It is no longer accessable at their site without subscription, but a FReeper posted it here at post # 44.

In an essay Burkett wrote for an anti-Bush Web site in March 2003, he claimed he was sent to Panama, where he contracted a fatal disease, as retaliation by the Texas Guard after "refusing to alter personnel records of George W. Bush."

But in a telephone interview Friday, he backed off the claim that he was ordered to falsify Bush's records.

"That statement was not accurate, that is overstated," he said.(snip)

All of those directly involved (in allegedly cleansing Bush's file)-- Allbaugh, Conn, James and Scribner -- emphatically deny Burkett's charges. (snip)

Details of Burkett's story rang false to some Guard officials.

For one thing, Texas Guard officials said no personnel records were ever stored at the museum. Also, even if the records had been scoured in 1997, it would have been too late. The bulk of the material in Bush's Guard records had been transferred to a Colorado facility where records are permanently stored and copied on microfilm, Guard officials said. Some Bush Guard records emerged from that facility this week.