New Questions On Bush Guard Duty [CBS USES FORGERIES TO SMEAR THE PRESIDENT!!!!!]

New Questions On Bush Guard Duty

CBS) The military records of the two men running for president have become part of the political arsenal in this campaign – a tool for building up, or blowing up, each candidate’s credibility as America's next commander-in-chief.

While Sen. Kerry has been targeted for what he did in Vietnam, President Bush has been criticized for avoiding Vietnam by landing a spot in the Texas Air National Guard - and then failing to meet some of his obligations.

Did then-Lt. Bush fulfill all of his military obligations? And just how did he land that spot in the National Guard in the first place? Correspondent Dan Rather has new information on the president’s military service – and the first-ever interview with the man who says he pulled strings to get young George W. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard.

...

But 60 Minutes has obtained a number of documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file. Among them, a never-before-seen memorandum from May 1972, where Killian writes that Lt. Bush called him to talk about "how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November."

Lt. Bush tells his commander "he is working on a campaign in Alabama…. and may not have time to take his physical." Killian adds that he thinks Lt. Bush has gone over his head, and is "talking to someone upstairs."

Col. Killian died in 1984. 60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.

powerlineblog.com has updated his page. This is as of 12:40 pm, Sep 09:

UPDATE 3: We have received so much information from readers that it's hard to keep up. Reader Fred Godel points us to Kevin Drum's Washington Monthly "Smoking gun update" stating that the White House has released copies of two of the memos and left their authenticity undisputed. Reader John Burgess adds:

I'm afraid the Post 47 at Free Republic is not compelling. By 1969, I was using an IBM Selectric typewriter, with proportional type balls. They were widely available in the public sector-and thus readily available to the military. I do not recall having used a Palatine typeface, but Times Roman was certainly common. While I do think the entire argument about "Bush/AWOL" is bull, the raising of type faces is not useful. In fact, it's counterproductive because it's demonstrably false.

Chris Rohlfs points to another document in Bush's record (http://www.cis.net/~coldfeet/doc27.gif) which, if real (I got that link from here) appear to have some typing from the same typewriter. Look at the word "Recommend." Reader Larry Nichols adds:

What a freakin' joke! I served in the Air Force for 21 years -- 1968 to 1989 -- the first 7 as a Personnel Specialist and the remainder as a PSM (Personnel Systems Manager). I also spent 2 years as an inspector at Hq SAC, Offutt AFB, NE in Omaha, inspecting Personnel Offices at all 26 SAC bases. As a PSM I had to know every job in Personnel, including the proper filing of documents in individual military records. Memos were NOT used for orders, as the one ordering 1LT Bush to take a physical. This would have done as a letter, of which a copy should have been sent to the CBPO (Consolidated Base Personnel Office) to be filed in 1LT Bush's military record. Memos DID NOT get filed in personnel records.

I first used a computer in the Air Force in 1971 while stationed at Albrook AFB, Canal Zone. The computers were used only for updating records data. The Air Force was the first branch of the military to use a mainframe (Burroughs B-3500) computer for updating military records. Punch cards were used up until then. There were no Word Processors used until the late 1970's or early 1980's. Typewriters were still used extensively until the mid-1980s. These memos appear to be bogus.

As far as an Officer Effectiveness Report (OER) on Bush, unless he was under a supervisor for X number of days during a reporting period, no report could be written. Under special circumstances, a report could be written with only 60 days of supervision. The period may cover an extended period. Example: FROM 1 JUN 1970 THRU 15 DEC 1971 (more than 1 year) DAYS SUPERVISED: 60. The "vanilla civilian" Liberals and Journalists should quit trying to talk and write about things they know nothing about. In Sen. Kerry's case, that includes almost everything!

Finally -- finally for the moment -- reader Joshua Persons writes:

I've written a post regarding the forgery post on my weblog (click here). Mostly a rehash, but I googled and found a comparable, unrelated government memo from 1972 for visual comparison. Check it out at http://www.ecy.wa.gov/pubs/72e30.pdf .

Posted by The Big Trunk at 07:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBack (38)

[end paste]

Click on the Trackback (38) to see how it's spreading through the blogsphere.

Yes, colonels definitely ran some "holiday camps" as you put it. That's why IGs were all the time busting them for that, or something else very much like that.

Over in Deutschland back in the late 1960s more than one colonel (e.g. a couple of the guys who rotated through my unit in fact) made sure certain guys in the the medical platoon got winter duty at Garmish.

One day an IG discovered that all the medics getting this special assignment were "ta-da, ta-ta-ta-da" HOMOSEXUAL!

Although no one could ever say whether or not these colonels had sent the gayblades off to Garmish as a reward, or just to get them out of the unit, they really got into some trouble.

I would imagine "W"s colonel had every incentive imagineable to provide CYA memos showing every step "W" took to get out of Texas and into 'bama.

Makes me wonder just who it was in charge of the 'bama scene anyway. That, and the failure of the Log Cabin Republicans to endorse "W" this time out might go a long way toward explaining why there are a couple of old party boys from 'bama telling us they really don't ever remember "W" attending a single drill there.

Maybe they really were "expecting him" because there really weren't all that many single guys, or maybe they were "expecting him" because he was fresh meat.

This cries out for investigation.

I thought these were Pentagon release, not (claimed to be)from someone's personal files. That makes a big difference.

Yes, it does make a big difference. While I'm on record as doubting these are forgeries, it's important to note that they were NOT part of George W. Bush's file.

New Questions On Bush Guard Duty

Excerpt:

But 60 Minutes has obtained a number of documents we are told were taken from Col. Killian's personal file. Among them, a never-before-seen memorandum from May 1972, where Killian writes that Lt. Bush called him to talk about "how he can get out of coming to drill from now through November."

Lt. Bush tells his commander "he is working on a campaign in Alabama…. and may not have time to take his physical." Killian adds that he thinks Lt. Bush has gone over his head, and is "talking to someone upstairs."

Col. Killian died in 1984. 60 Minutes consulted a handwriting analyst and document expert who believes the material is authentic.

~snip~

BTW, reading the memos, CBS has misrepresented the content of the May memo. NO surprise. In the memo Killian notes discussing with Bush that he is due for his physical and that Bush said he'd take it in Alabama IF he maintains his flight status. The rest of the story, as we all know, is Bush ended up being assigned to a base where he could not fly so he did not take the physical. Nothing new, nothing wrong.

"Read the bolded, and tell me if it's within the bounds of reality that this procedure was performed on this arcane machine for a memorandum in the ANG in 1972. Occam's Razor screams FORGERY! The forger didn't take the proportional spacing into account when he ginned up this fake on his PC."

Correct. The IBM Executive required a trained clerk to type the memo TWICE to get the proportional font...hardly something that a Lt. Col. is going to do on his own (there are no clerk's initials on the bottom of the memos) for a memo so informal that it didn't even merit TANG letterhead or a CC list.

Moreover, I have yet to see an IBM font from that era that had the small sized superscript "th" character(s). Some clerks knew to roll the page half a line down to get the "th" above the 111 or 147, but getting the "th" to be a small "th" is a different thing entirely with technology from that era.

2 Full Legislative Days Left Until The AWB Expires

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