Posted on 01/31/2004 7:07:00 AM PST by billorites
George W. Bush lied about his military service record. The lie can be found in his own 1999 campaign autobiography (as written by Karen Hughes), where he dramatically describes his experience as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
On page 34 of A Charge to Keep, Mr. Bush claims that, after learning to fly the F-102 fighter jet, he was turned down for Vietnam duty because "had not logged enough flight hours" to qualify for a combat assignment. Before going on to recall the "challenging moments" that involved close formation drills at night during poor weather, he adds: "I continued flying with my unit for the next several years."
In light of what journalists and other researchers have learned since the publication of Mr. Bush’s book, his account is unmistakably fraudulent.
The issue is again relevant because Michael Moore, the author and filmmaker who supports Wesley Clark’s Presidential campaign, recently impugned the President as a "deserter." During the final Democratic Presidential debate in New Hampshire, moderator Peter Jennings called Mr. Moore’s statement "a reckless charge not supported by the facts," and demanded that General Clark repudiate his celebrity backer.
As the ABC newsman may (or, more likely, may not) know, the facts about the President’s National Guard stint are complex, disputed and, in many respects, unflattering. To call him a "deserter" was wrong and inflammatory, even if Mr. Moore was joking, as he now insists. Although Mr. Bush may well have been absent without leave, he was never prosecuted for that offense, let alone desertion, and he eventually received an honorable discharge. But to suggest that the Bush record is beyond criticism, as Mr. Jennings did, is both misleading and biased. That bias reflects an enduring double standard on this topic that has protected Mr. Bush ever since he first declared his Presidential candidacy.
The facts, established by Boston Globe reporter Walter Robinson in 2000, explode the lyrical flights of fancy penned by Ms. Hughes.
George W. Bush graduated from Yale in June 1968. After his father’s influential friends contacted Texas Air National Guard officials, they awarded young George a safe berth in Houston’s famed "champagne unit," where sons of the Texas elite avoided Vietnam. His very special treatment included instant admission to flight training and an extraordinary commission as a second lieutenant. According to his former superiors, Mr. Bush performed admirably as a pilot while patrolling the coastal waters of the United States.
But in May 1972, only 22 months after he completed pilot training, he stopped flying. In August 1972, he failed to show up for his annual physical examination and was automatically grounded. According to The Times of London, a conservative newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, Mr. Bush’s campaign spokesman said he knew that he would be suspended if he missed that physical.
He never flew a military aircraft again (or not until his flight-suit photo op last spring, when he briefly took the controls of an S-3B Viking jet before landing on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln). Instead, he left his Guard unit in Houston and went to Alabama to work in a Republican Senate campaign. He claims to have continued to serve in an Alabama Guard unit, but there is no evidence to support that assertion, and much contradictory evidence. The commanding officer of the Alabama Guard Unit told the Boston Globe that Mr. Bush never showed up for duty there. Nor is there any evidence that he sought duty in Vietnam.
In fact, there is considerable evidence that Mr. Bush skipped all duty for a full year, until April 1973. At that point, his two superior officers in Houston noted in writing in an official document: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." They erroneously believed that he had been completing his duty in Alabama. Yet he somehow received an honorable discharge eight months before he completed his six-year commitment so that he could begin attending Harvard Business School.
As the Globe noted, the "champagne unit" and others like it back then displayed "a tendency to excuse shirking by those with political connections."
So Mr. Bush’s claim that he "continued flying with my unit for the next several years" is an unabashed falsehood. Yet the spotty coverage of his military record in the mainstream press—aside from the Globe investigation and similar efforts in the Dallas Morning News and the Los Angeles Times—elided that lie. Compare his soft treatment with the media scourging of Bill Clinton, who was held accountable during the 1992 campaign for every word he uttered about his draft record.
What the Jennings episode validates is not Mr. Bush’s strange military career, but the Bush method of press management. Treat journalists like vassals, with nicknames, cheek-pinching and—whenever they forget their place momentarily—sneering disdain. It works brilliantly.
You may reach Joe Conason via email at: jconason@observer.com.
That struck me too. Anyone with a lick of service time knows what a moron Joe Conason is by thusly asserting.
SAYING AGAIN: JOE CONASON IS A COMPLETE MORON. OVER.
I hope that many of your fellow Vietnam Vets will join you to demonstrate / write letters-to-the-editor, etc. if Kerry wins the nomination. Only Vietnem Vets will be listened to without the leftist media calling them liars.
The cincher that the Boston GLUB-GLUB-hic went into this story as a hatchet job.
I know very little about Kerry except that is he a slime ball.
The truth will carry the day. And it is about time for Kerry to be held accountable for his slanders and lies.
I must be a "nobody." I volunteered for Nam.
You stand tall. I am in awe.
Kerry likes to say he spent two tours in Vietnam, but his "other tour" was a six month stint on the USS Gridley offshore. By that definition, I spent two tours in Vietnam, 8 months offshore and 12 months in-country. I despised Kerry in 1971 for his anti-war activities and do now.
Many people stopped flying at that time. The military had more pilots than they could use, and getting time in the planes was difficult. Many pilots were showing up at the air field at five in the morning hoping to get a plane. If they weren't at the very top of their class, they often didn't get flying time. Many opted to quit being pilots and serve out the rest of their commitments in other ways.
Actually, there is a very good reason he stopped flying. In 1972, they began phasing out the 102s from active service. So there was no reason to stay current on a plane that was being mothballed.
That also answers why he didn't take a flight physical, he wasn't going to fly anymore. His stint was nearly up and he wasn't planning on staying in, so training to fly another plane was out of the question.
He was anti-war by being anti-soldier.
He slandered an entire generation of men who made as much of a sacrifice as he did, or even more of a sacrifice than he did.
Hopefully in the long run, but we just had 8 years of Clinton, showing the power of the leftist press.
And it is about time for Kerry to be held accountable for his slanders and lies.
I sure agree with you here.
And those three "wounds" put him out of action for a grand total of TWO days.
I would be willing to wager that 90%+ of the people who fault GWB for his military service have never done anything knowingly that involved as much personal risk as flying combat maneuvers in a supersonic fighter jet.
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