Texas official regrets allowing Bush to enlist in National Guard

Knight Ridder ^ | 8/27/04

[kcvl]

Today a successful Texas lobbyist, the 65-year-old Mr. Barnes is one of Democratic front-runner John Kerry's top fundraisers, a vice chairman of his national finance committee for having collected more than $100,000 for the Massachusetts senator's campaign. Half a lifetime ago, Mr. Barnes was the young Texas House speaker who helped George W. Bush get into the Texas Air National Guard as the Vietnam War raged.

The connections are just one more twist in Mr. Barnes's storied life of highs and lows, of brushes with power and wealth--others' and his own.

'I still get a lot of calls every day about the Guard story,' Mr. Barnes says. But he disclosed the matter only under duress five years ago, amid a lawsuit, and now says, 'I've said all I'm going to say.'

As for Mr. Kerry, Mr. Barnes says he is backing him because the senator 'needs no learning curve' on foreign or domestic issues. But should Mr. Kerry lose his bid, he still will sit on the Senate Finance Committee, a very important post for Mr. Barnes's clients. Asked how much he has raised for the senator, Mr. Barnes says, 'I don't have any idea,' then quips: 'You know, George Bush's state isn't the easiest place to raise money.'

Among his biggest initial clients was GTech Corp., which pushed for a Texas lottery and then won the contract to run it. In 1997, federal prosecutors suggested Mr. Barnes might be involved in kickbacks with a former company executive. He denied it, and a judge ordered prosecutors to apologize. But GTech severed his contract-and paid him $23 million. When Texas fired its lottery director that year, the director sued and alleged that GTech kept its lottery contract so that Mr. Barnes would remain quiet about how then-Gov. Bush got into the Guard. A Barnes spokeswoman yesterday dismissed the director's story as 'flatly without merit.'

In 1999, Mr. Barnes was forced to testify about it. According to his deposition and a statement, Bush family friend Sid Adger, a Houston businessman, asked then-Speaker Barnes to put in a good word with Brig. Gen. James Rose, the Texas Air National Guard commander. Mr. Barnes did. Mr. Bush's father was then a Houston congressman.

In 1998, with the younger Bush preparing to run for re-election and then president, Don Evans--now Mr. Bush's Commerce secretary--got Mr. Barnes's assurance that no Bush family member ever, talked to him about the Guard. 'Dear Ben,' Gov. Bush wrote on Sept. 9, 1998, 'Thank you ... for killing the rumor about you and dad ever discussing my status.'

By then, Mr. Barnes was a top Democratic fund-raiser. He attended one of President Bill Clinton's controversial White House 'coffees.' But mostly, he courted Democratic senators in Washington as he built his lobbying business, Entrecorp.

He dates his national debut to a decade ago, when he attended the annual Nantucket, Mass., fund-raiser of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, where he met Mr. Kerry. Now, Mr. Barnes, like Mr. Kerry, has a house on Nantucket, and is a host during the annual event. He also holds frequent fund-raisers at his home in Austin. Among his closest associates is Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

'He's a doer,' says Republican lobbyist Scott Reed, who sometimes forms a bipartisan partnership with Mr. Barnes to gain access to officials of both parties. 'He'll actually say he'll do something, and that afternoon he's in Tom Daschle's office.'" (Jackie Calmes, Wall Street Journal, March 3, 2004)

[Chode]

for cryin out loud... he was the son of the HEAD of the CIA!!!

it's very likely he would not be alowd in many positions anyway lest he get kidnapped.

and who was it that got Slick willie OUT OF joining the service again???

[ArmyBratproud]

Kerry will be tainted by just being tied to Barnes.

That dude is a crook. I agree...he ranks up there with LBJ.

LBJ was a king among crooks. That dude used that Indian act to have his ranch area listed as an Indian reserve. So he could hunt there...and no Game Wardens could enforce rules. He did it with a building in Austin as well so he could use funds to redo an office to his liking.

I know a guy who once worked as a uniformed federal officer who can tell you stuff that lbj did...it will actually shock ya.

The way I see it....every native American in the country should be able to go out to LBJ's old homestead and claim it as home now.

[WestTexasWend]

Ben Barnes...hell, he hasn't had this much pub since the Sharpstown scandal (for which he should've been jailed).

Here's an old piece on Ben from the liberal Texas Monthly:
http://www.texasmonthly.com/mag/issues/2001-09-01/politics.php

[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Ben Barnes was a democrat who was so crooked even they couldn't stand it and he was driven from office. George H. W. Bush was a little known, first term Republican Congressman, who had been head of the Republican Party of Harris County and was disliked by the dims.

Given that, why would Barnes go out of his way to help the current President?

[ArmyBratproud]

Barnes works as a chair on Kerry's campaign finance committee. This is further proof..besides the statement made on Kerry's campaign site...
http://www.johnkerry.com/pressroom/releases/pr_2004_0427b.html

That Kerry has attacked Bush's service. Kerry keeps saying he has not. BUT THE PROOF THAT KERRY IS LYING IS ON HIS OWN CAMPAIGN WEB PAGE.

[DoughtyOne]

And this from a member of the 'So what?' clan.

[asgardshill]

During Bush's first presidential run, Barnes confirmed in a written statement that he had, at the request of a Bush family friend, contacted a Guard official to ask that Bush be allowed to enlist.

If what Barnes is saying is true, then GWB would have been the first individual "enlisted" in the TANG as an officer. (Officers are not "enlisted", they are "commissioned". And except under unique circumstances (warrant officers), enlisted personnel do not pilot aircraft.)

Either Barnes is a lying sack of dog waste or the lazy "journalist" who quoted him is. I tend to believe both.

[buzzsaw6]

GWB had to 'EARN' his wings

Per-zackly!

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Sounds like a hold card the Dems were saving for November 1st. They're desperate.

[Tribune7]

How low will they go?

As low as they can. Fortunately it is getting to the point where you can laugh at them.

[John Thornton]

Barnes works as a chair on Kerry's campaign finance committee.

Gee, how hard would it have been to find that out before reporting this story? Didn't anyone think that this little fact might be important?

Before any Swift Boat Vet story is written, exhaustive searches are conducted to find even one Republican leaning position. Yet, this paper doesn't even report that Barnes is a DEMOCRAT--not to mention that he is a finance committee chair for Kerry.

[ridesthemiles]

He**, I am very sorry I married the man I did in 1959. Do I get to publically apologize and ask for a do over?

This man might have used his position to help connected families keep their young men off the hottest front lines. How did his own family influence get him the positions he has held in his life? Do all the people who gave him a leg up get to publically spout off and "regret" they helped him??? Where does it end? Are the Dems going to drag out the classmate who helped GWB understand dangling participles and geometry? GIVE ME A BREAK.

[Dan from Michigan]

Better a so called chickenhawk than Benedict Arnold Kerry.

[altura]

Maybe not, but we've had a few.

AT least we're behind New Jersey.

[76834]

He probably learned his trade and was a protege of the Infamous Bobby Baker, onetime henchman of LBJ. Anyone remember him????????????????

Here's another beaut:
Billie Sol Estes

One of LBJ's old buddies

[ArmyBratproud]

Bush's family would not need a low level punk like Barnes for anything. Starting with GW's grandfather....they had some serious pull.

Barnes is lying. He has been proven a lier on this issue several times. He started this crap..not in 1999...but when Bush ran for Governor. He was helping that worthless hag Ann Richards.

A NICE SIDE NOTE...One year...at the Baylor University homecoming bonfire...There was a huge campaign sign that students had put up on the bonfire....there was some stuff spray painted on it.

The first large piece to catch fire...was the Richards sign. Went it went up in blazes.....the crown cheered like mad. I think she went to Baylor....so that should tell you how much people don't like that woman here.

Another time...at TCU..she was speaking at convocation hour...and we (the TCU Choir) had to sing (against the director's wishes. Many of us did not want to sing for her...a majority of the choir..huge majority was against her)

I had to help with the techs running stuff on stage...so I (and a good pal) were in the wings and just a few feet from the old witch. Before she went out to speak...she looked nervous...SO SHE PULLS OUT A FLASK AND HITS IT HARD.

This was just days after she had went out in the press and claimed that she was well done with her drinking problem.

She looks scary close up.

That was during my first years of college...before I took off to work and then go back and finish.

[Howlin]

Let's all pretend that this was done all the time back in the 60s.

[kcvl]

....In his deposition, Mr Barnes said he had been asked to intervene by a Bush family friend, Sid Adger, but he did not know whether George Bush Sr., then a congressman, knew about the request. The former president said recently that he was "almost positive" that he had never discussed the matter with Adger, who died three years ago, and never asked for help. Rose died in 1993.

Ben Barnes was one of the most powerful politicians in Texas in the 60s and 70s — "the next LBJ" — until an scandal derailed his career (although fret not for Barnes: his consolation prize was becoming a garden variety Texas tycoon and political fixit man).

SNIP

Ben Barnes, a lobbyist to whom GTech paid fees of $23 million

SNIP

Whether the Bushes used their influence to get George W. out of serving in Vietnam was a big issue during George W.'s neck-and-neck race for governor against Ann Richards in 1994.

(It didn't work for Richards either)

[joonbug]

I thought Kerry enlisted in the Navy Reserves. Is that anything like the National Guard? Meaning no definite combat? Possible combat only if called up? Any military folks out there want to clarify?