Posted on 09/16/2004 9:44:29 PM PDT by arjay
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A former Texas Air National Guard official who served at the same time as President Bush says he believes the bigger story about gaps in Bush's service is being overlooked in disputes over the validity of certain Guard documents.
"I think the public ought to be concerned about his preferential treatment getting in and whether he satisfied his commitment to the Air Guard. Those are the two fundamental questions," said Robert Strong, the administrative officer in charge of air operations at Guard state headquarters from early 1971 until March 1972.
Documents publicized last week by the CBS program "60 Minutes" have been called into question by some experts and relatives of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who supposedly wrote them when he was one of Bush's commanders in 1972 and 1973. The memos indicated that Killian had been pressured to sugarcoat Bush's performance and that the future president had ignored an order to take a physical.
CBS stood by its reporting, but CBS News President Andrew Heyward said the network would redouble its efforts to determine the authenticity of the documents.
Killian's former secretary, Marian Carr Knox, 86, of Houston has said she believed the memos were fake but their content accurately reflected Killian's opinions.
"I know that I didn't type them," she said in an interview with CBS. "However, the information in those is correct."
Strong told The Associated Press on Thursday that he couldn't vouch for the authenticity of the memos, but "if Mrs. Knox didn't type those documents and she thinks they're fake, I'll go with her judgment." He said he doesn't know who provided CBS with the documents.
But Strong added that he and Knox worked closely with Killian and are in better position to know about his work habits and feelings about Bush than Killian's five children, who were between the ages of two and 19 in 1972. Strong said Killian's records would have been removed from his Guard office before his family would have been allowed to retrieve his personal items after he died in 1984.
Regardless of the authenticity of the memos, the question should be centered on Bush's Guard service, and what is indicated in the documents, Strong said.
"Why aren't we focusing on the content?" Strong said, adding that he believes there are holes in Bush's official Guard record.
"The White House has just got to be thrilled to death that everybody's tormenting about subscripts and superscripts," he said, referring to the several days of debate among experts about whether the memos were forgeries generated on a computer instead or if a typewriter common in the 1970s was used.
As Bush flew to campaign in Minnesota on Thursday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One that "CBS has now acknowledged that the crux of their story may have been based on forged documents."
Strong confirmed that at least one of the documents used by CBS bore a faxed header indicating it had been sent from a Kinko's copy shop in Abilene. Strong said he was shown copies of the documents about three days before the "60 Minutes" broadcast on which he appeared last week.
Bill Burkett, a retired National Guard officer who lives just outside Abilene, has been cited in reports in Newsweek and The New York Times as a source for CBS' report. His lawyer, David Van Os, issued a statement saying Burkett "no longer trusts any possible outcome of speaking to the press on any issue regarding George W. Bush."
Burkett did not return several phone messages left by The Associated Press this week, and did not talk to an AP reporter who visited his ranch in Blair on Thursday.
Burkett, 55, told The Associated Press in February that he had overheard a conversation in 1997 between then-Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, and then-Adjutant Gen. Daniel James of the Texas Air National Guard in which the two men spoke about getting rid of any military records that would "embarrass the governor."
Burkett said he saw documents from Bush's file discarded in a trash can a few days later at Camp Mabry in Austin. Burkett described them as performance and pay documents.
Allbaugh and James denied the allegations.
Watch between now and the first debate: The focus on Bush's Guard records will explode, and we will go into that first debate with a tied race...at least according to the polls Keith Oberforehead decides to quote from selectively.
When your adversary is making a mistake, never interrupt him.
Bush Served His Country Without Pay
PoliPundit.com ^ | September 16, 2004 | Oak Leaf
Posted on 09/16/2004 11:17:20 PM CDT by Merry
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1218512/posts
Could it be because the content is "make believe", Robert?
The parrot is not "resting". It's dead!
"Burkett said he saw documents from Bush's file discarded in a trash can a few days later at Camp Mabry in Austin. Burkett described them as performance and pay documents."
What this "journalist" neglected to mention is that the witness who could corroborate Burketts story says it never happened.
And the records he described were kept in Colorado, not Texas.
Other than that it's a pretty accurate story.
Kerry's people are always late, lame and fair game. Enjoy!
>"Other than that it's a pretty accurate story."<
LOL
"I really do not think there is anything "explosive" left on the NG story as far as the President is concerned."
Maybe, but has that stopped them before?
I don't have any faith in the MSM just sitting back and thinking, "Oh, well, we have nothing more to unload on Bush." As I said, we will see nonstop "Questions on the President's NG service" from now on.
I liked the comment from the Manchester Union-Leader:
"Rather’s latest defense is that the documents might be fake, but the information they contain is real. It sounds like he’s describing a novel."
Well, compared to Dan Rather.
Strong, Jim Moore and Burkett seem to have been the primary sources for the CBS story. All of them are obviously Bush haters but, if I am not mistaken, none of them actually knew Bush in the TexANG.
The old secretary obviously played a role too but, for some reason, CBS ignored her insistence that the documents were fakes.
CBS apparently brushed off every disagreeing witness as "pro-Bush."
I doubt it. Nobody except the DNC and Rather care about Bush's Guard records. The DNC just doesn't have anything else to run with and they can't get their candidate to let go of VietNam.
See the latest Gallup Poll? With CBS's help, Bush is increasing in the polls as coverage of this story increases. I say, keep showing the picture of Bush in his uniform. It helps, not hurts.
If this crap were working for the Kerry and the Democrats, Bush wouldn't be up 14%.
The truth is that the Democrats are desperate and willing to try anything, no matter how low, disgusting, or insane.
Because, you moron, even if every rumor and allegation was 100% true, at most it would mean that as a young man, Bush was somewhat of a slacker. This would be the most trivial "scandal" ever to be raised to the level of a campaign issue.
What's next -- a "Nightline" examination of the time that Bush had some overdue library books?
Kerry will be dumped by the Mrs. after 11/02/04, will marry Jane Fonda, they'll settle in Cuba, the socialist paradise, and pick sugar cane. That's all fake but the thrust is what counts.
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