What a great point Byron makes here. Yeah, and it's funny how nobody ever talked about all the times that Clinton was faithful to his wife, isn't it?

This is really lame. Sure, Bush fulfilled his obligations some of the time, but Byron completely ignores the fact that Bush did not show up at times when he was supposed to. The fact that he showed up at other times is completely and utterly irrelevant.

I wonder if anyone accused of deserting or going AWOL has ever tried this tack in their defense: "But look at all the times I wasn't AWOL..." I don't think they'd get far with that.

"[I]t should be noted in passing that Kerry has personally questioned Bush’s service, while Bush has not personally questioned Kerry’s."

For obvious reasons.

The point isn't whether Bush served honorably then. The point is whether Bush is telling the truth now. He says he showed up for drills in Alabama. Others beg to differ. Bush says he was suspended only for failing to meet annual physical. The records now seem to show that he also failed to performs to standards.

Voters are free to take into consideration the details of either Kerry's Vietnam service or Bush's Guard service. Personally, I think that neither matter would be sufficient either to vote against Kerry or to vote Bush out.

Both Kerry and Bush are reaping what they have sowed.

He didn't show up at times he was supposed to.

Do you?

Never miss work?

Never missed class?

The Professor has links to cover this.

Sure, this is all well and good, but in our day and age we all have our own truths (thank you, Gov. McGreevey), and the only one that a certain cross section of people care about is "Bush lied, people died."

Again, the question is not so much whether he showed up or didn't show up, but whether he is telling the truth now.

Also, not showing up in the military is a little different than not showing up in civilian life.

The bottom line is that I consider both Kerry and Bush fit to be commander-in-chief.

Sandy,

I didn't realize the military was so lenient that you could equate this with blowing off a class or missing a day at work. Come to think of it, when I was in college nobody ever gave me [kerry] about "disobeying a direct order", but I guess you're right, the situations must be synonymous.

Great point, Sandy.

Creeper, Joel

Both of you make excellent points. I will not vote against Kerry or for Bush because of anything regarding Kerry's admirable Vietnam Service or Bush's very weak National Guard Record.

I will vote for Bush because he is a strong leader in very troubled times and against Kerry because he is a weak, flip-flopping, blow-hard who offers nothing for people who actually care about America.

The question isn't who they were thirty years ago but who they are today. By that standard John Kerry--who's consistently sided against America and the cause of liberty in the world over his careeer--is unfit.

However, Mr. Bush did, of course, report for duty in AL:

Ex-Guardsman Says Bush Served in Ala. (ALLEN G. BREED, 2/13/04, Associated Press)

A retired Alabama Air National Guard officer said Friday that he remembers George W. Bush showing up for duty in Alabama in 1972, reading safety magazines and flight manuals in an office as he performed his weekend obligations.

As OJ notes the issue is what these men do and think now, not 30 years ago.
That said, a few points: a) if we're going to look back 30 years I'm more comfortable with Bush, who may have missed a few weekend drills, to Kerry who took a prominent role (and built his political career on) in attacking the US govt and military, b) go check the military blogs who understand how the national guard process works and document how Bush met his TANG requirements, c) The left defeats their argument when they are all over every aspect of Bush's history but only want to focus on the 4 months Kerry spent in Vietnam, none of his other activities, and even then don't want to acknowledge what the Swift Boat Veterans have to say.

No matter the arguments about what Bush did in the year after May 1972, the fact remains: he spent more hours in the air flying his plane than Kerry did driving around the Mekong River.

And note the date on the Alabama man's validation (2/13/04) - 7 months for the media to confirm the story. Laziness, stupidity, or sneering bias. You decide.

Walter Robinson of the Globe sounded positively professorial yesterday on NPR as he dismissed Bush and also as he accused Bush of lying about continuing in the reserves while at Harvard. But he obviously didn't listen to Dan Bartlett (White House Comm.) give the simple answer - Bush was attached to a unit in Denver, with no duty required. They knew where he was.

The left just doesn't realize that by dredging up Bush's record, Kerry's confusing history and his refusal to release his records looms even larger, and might just become a question in the debates. And what will he say in front of 100 million people?

Welcome to my parlor said the spider to the fly.

"The question isn't who they were thirty years ago but who they are today."

That's right, and today Bush is someone who continues to lie about his past and refuses to set the record straight.

If Bush can't handle the truth about something like this, then what other deceptions does he have in store for you, and what other lies is he willing to tolerate in his administration? The fish rots from the head.

creeper:

He lied us into war in Iraq and you're worried about a physical? Would we want a president who won't lie for what he believes in?

"The fish rots from the head..."

Wasn't that cliche also used in 1988?

This may end up as trivial inside baseball stuff, but the folks over at Powerline to highlight an e-mail that notes the unusual fonts and spacing of the reproduced memos, given that in 1972 anything other than courrier light being used on a typewritter was unusual (the replacable font balls on the IBM selectrics being about the only way to alter the normal typewritter font).

There may be a logical explanation for this, but since the left has had its problems over the years with typewritten documents, it is worth asking those who uncovered the documents a question or two.

oj,

I'm not worried about a physical, I think it's telling that Bush is not capable of handling the truth about his past. Straight shooter, yeah right.

"Would we want a president who won't lie for what he believes in?"

If you do think Bush lied us into the war, how do you feel about that?

jim hamlen,

Wasn't "I will restore honor and dignity to the White House" a nifty slogan back in 2000?

Also, the swift boat duty was only a part of Kerry's military service - he served much longer than four months.

It was noted on another blog that IBM introduced typewriters with proportionate fonts were introduced in 1944.

creeper:

I feel good. Getting rid of Saddam was more important than truthfulness.

creeper:

Do you really want Kerry to answer questions about Christmas in Cambodia, the CIA man with the Magic Hat, gun-running into Cambodia, secret VVAW meetings in Kansas City, and multiple 'covert' meetings in Paris with NV govt. officials?

If so, then we'll be happy to play your game.

jim,

I wouldn't mind to have those questions posed to Kerry - though some of them have already been answered. And at the same time I'd like Bush to answer all the questions he's dodged so far, from his dissolute life up to his religious conversion (and after it), to Harken, Halliburton, Enron, to his administration's energy policy, who in his administration outed a CIA agent and if and when he knew about that - the list goes on, but you get the idea.

Yeah, let's have it all out on the table and then pick the lesser of two evils.

Now if only Bush and Kerry would co-operate, we could play this game.

As it is, we have to make do with our surrogate version - the blogosphere.

oj,

Was the only way to get rid of Saddam by avoiding the truth?

creeper:

YOU wouldn't mind? That's OK, but Kerry hasn't spoken to a reporter in 39 days precisely because he doesn't want to hear those questions.

creeper:

No, but Tony Blair thought the WMD threat argument would help him get the UN and EU to go along, so we lied for him. It was the least we could do.

ratbert,

And when was the last time Bush did an unscripted press conference? And gave straight answers?

Like I said, I wouldn't mind... but I imagine both Bush and Kerry do not want to play such a game.

oj,

So do you think Bush lied, whether on behalf of Blair or for whatever other reason?

creeper:

I believe it was April 13. With somewhat regular appearances before the WH press corps after that.

Your guy is the challenger - he has to answer all this stuff first. But he is hiding in the back of the plane. Too bad.

Kerry hiding in the back of the plane? Not answering questions? Where do you get this?

Kerry has given quite a number of interviews while on the campaign trail, including within the last 39 days (why are you so picky about that number, btw?). Do a google on "Kerry interview". He also talks to the press on the campaign trail all the time - check out articles about him on the campaign trail.

Incidentally, since when is it a prerequisite to being a challenger that one has to answer "all this stuff" first? If that were the case, then Bush would have answered all these questions back before he got to be the challenger, right? And there wouldn't be any unsettled questions or new revelations this time around (especially since the Bush administration claimed over and over that they had released everything, but then kept finding more - including the two documents they released yesterday).

Compared to previous presidents, Bush has set a pretty low standard for making himself available to the press the last few years, btw.

Creeper --

You've answered Question 1 about the availability of the varied fonts. Question 2 is whether or not the National Guard would be using variable font typewritters in 1972, which would require a check of the General Services Administration's procurement proedures for the military, and specifically for the department in question, at that time.

Obciously, there could be different types of equipment for different departments -- you'd assume secretaries that were responsible for producing many documents on a daily basis would get the higher-priced equipment, while others would get basic manual typewritters with the single key for each character and the lone courier font. If you know of any site that has the information on what kind of typewritters the GSA was purchasing for the military in the early 1970s, pass along a URL link.

creeper:

Yes. Saddam was no threat to us. Neither was the Kaiser nor were the Nazis the Japs & Commies. The lies to get us into wars with all of them were justifiable. People who won't fight because its the right thing to do will if you convince them they're in danger.

John,

Does anyone have a reasonable explanation why the White House would release forged documents that would make the president look bad?

Actually, that last one was mine - typed in John by mistake.

John:

Good question. The White House didn't release them, in the sense that they weren't in the WH's hands to give away. The file was in the military's storage. As I understand it, CBS got the file from the military, and apparently faxed what it had to the White House before airing the 60 minutes segment.

So, any forgery would presumably have to have been placed in the file before CBS got it.

I'm not saying that this is the case, but there is a reason to release forged documents that you know will make your side look bad.

The documents get released, and your candidate gets beat up. Then, you prove that the documents were forged, and assert that an agent for the opposition must have done it. Now, the needle on the Bad-O-Meter swings hard over to the opposition.

It works particularly well against Democrats, since, as a party, we're well known not to be above forging documents...
But, as Orrin notes, lying for a higher truth isn't really a sin, is it ?

If we really want to get esoteric about it, the original paper that the documents CBS used in their report can be checked and dated to see if that specific type of paper was in use in the early 1970s. Document paper nowadays is far smoother then what was in use 30 years ago, because a flatter surface works with inkjet and laser printer rollers; if the originals are on something besides the coarse bond paper that was standard back then, that would raise questions about authenticity.

The other kurfuffle about the document as of mid-afternoon was the use of the smaller point size and raised "th" in the ordinal number towards the end of the document. Such lettering certainly was possible in 1972, but the question was did the National Guard base have access to such a typewritter at the time. Back in those days, things like that were usually limted to equipment available only via very expensive IBM typewritters or through print shops, and it's hard to see why a report on some Air Force reservist would merit anything more than a note on a standard typewriter with possibly a couple of carbon duplicates.

What I find fascinating is how clean and sharp the letters are. No filled in "a"s or "e"s or "o"s, and none of that blurriness you get from a cloth ribbon that's hasn't been replaced in months. Now it is true there were those one-time plastic ribbons that made sharp impressions, but those were expensive and reserved for special documents. (And figured in the plots of too many bad detective stories of that era,too.)

Which means that this guy Killian knew way back then that he was typing some really important documents, and took extra care to use the best typewriter and ribbon he could find. And he even scrounged up the special characters type-ball so as to include that superscript "th" in one of them. Ya gotta admire that attention to detail.

(As for testing the paper, even if this is genuine, it's not the original. Nice try, though.)

AWOL means "Absence Without Official Leave". George Bush asked for permission to be absent in 1972 to work on his father's campaign, and was granted it. So he can't have been AWOL. So what's he lying about?

I think the military only released copies of the original files, so presumably an original or carbon of an original would exist. Though it seems improbable that an informal memo would merit carbon copies.

Does it seem odd that this kind of memo would find it into an ex-serviceman's file, anyway?

Robert Duquette,

"AWOL means "Absence Without Official Leave". George Bush asked for permission to be absent in 1972 to work on his father's campaign, and was granted it."

AFAIK, he was not granted it.

See this document: http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/doc5.gif

And how it fits in context of other documents here: http://www.awolbush.com/kerry-vs-bush.asp

It appears that some people are under the impression that service in the National Guard is the same as service on active duty.
It isn't.
Missing drill is frowned upon, but it happens, and can be made up later, even with a different unit, that one is not assigned to, if arranged in advance.

The only way to go AWOL from a Nat'l Guard unit is to not show up for deployment, although of course one might get a less-than-honorable discharge before then, if enough drills are skipped without permission.

Further, Orrin's point about busy-work is well made. It depends on one's unit, of course, and one's MOS, but a lot of drill involves sitting around chatting, because there's no money in the budget to go somewhere to train, and not much can be done at the Armory.
There are only so many times one can go over NBC training or Soviet military equipment identification drills.

Unfortunately this idea that the NG work was just busywork and that it wasn't terribly important if you miss a month here or there kind of undercuts the narrative of the Bush campaign that Bush was doing something important when the country was, after all, at war.

They also serve who sit and draw in coloring books.

Do they?