corrente

It really is a question of character, isn't it?

WaPo's Froomkin writes:

Even after a big White House document dump, many questions remained unanswered about Bush's service, including how he got his posting, whether he fulfilled his obligations and why he missed a key physical.
(via WaPo)

Yep. Check out Kevin Drum and The Howler for the state of play when the SCLM dropped the story (yet again). And check out Atrios today for another interesting unanswered question.

James Moore writes in Salon:

The story keeps changing.

Just like the WMDs. And we know how that story turned out (unless the CPA/RNC has finally managed to bury something to "find", say in October).

And regardless of what the White House says about George W. Bush and his time in the Texas Air National Guard, journalists tend to accept the explanation. I can't. The president of the United States is lying to hide his behavior while he was a young pilot during the Vietnam War, and he has almost taken away reporters' ability to get the whole story. Unfortunately, the national media have other distractions, and they apparently don't think the Guard story is important enough to warrant additional effort. I think they are wrong.

The president's behavior while under oath to serve in the military is an important matter. By George W. Bush's own admission, there were at least eight months in 1972 when he was not performing assigned Guard duty. What if today's Guard members behaved as irresponsibly as Bush did during his hitch?

Actually, Joseph Heller had Yossarian give the answer to that question in Catch 22: "If everyone else behaved that way, then I'd be crazy to behave any other way!" The point, however, is that many others can prove they served their country honorably—like John Kerry, who still carries shrapnel in his leg. Bush, unforturtunately, just can't seem to prove he served his country honorably—or that he fulfilled his obligations.

Four documents that would clear the story up are all missing
Moore lists 4 missing documents that would clear Bush's good name once and for all. It's funny that none of them are in the record that the WhiteWash House keeps insisting is complete. And it's also funny that there is no enterprising reporter in the SCLM who has ever followed up on the story.

[1] The mandatory written report about Bush's grounding is mysteriously not in the released file, nor is any other disciplinary evidence. [2] A document showing a "roll-up," or the accumulation of his total retirement points, is also absent, and so are [3] his actual pay stubs. If the president truly wanted to end the conjecture about his time in the Guard, he would allow an examination of his pay stubs and any IRS [4] W-2 forms from his Guard years. These can be pieced together to determine when he was paid and whether he earned enough to have met his sworn obligations.

And Corrente readers know about the 5:00 horror, right? That's when Bush released the "complete" files—that weren't even complete:

when the Bush administration provided White House reporters with the "complete" file in the dead-news zone of a Friday night in early February, there were about 400 pages. Two hundred forty pages, unavailable to us during the presidential campaign, had suddenly been discovered. Nonetheless, the most important documents were still missing. Reporters just didn't know what was absent.

Reporters didn't know where to look, of course, because they hadn't been following the story in the blogosphere, where the work was being done. Oh well!

Where is the record of why Bush was grounded?

A pilot simply did not walk away from all of that training with two years remaining on his tour of duty without a formal explanation as to what happened and why. This narrative report is the document the public has never seen and the Bush White House is unlikely to ever release. Disciplinary action taken against Bush ought to be a part of his personnel record. No such files have ever been disclosed.

Why were the so-called complete records scrubbed twice before being released?

According to two separate sources within the Guard who saw the printout and spoke with me, the microfiche was shipped to the office of Maj. Gen. Danny James, commander of the Air National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va. James' staff printed out all of the documents on the film and then, according to those same sources, James vetted the material. Subsequent to being scrutinized by James (who commanded the Texas Guard and was promoted to Washington by Bush,) the records were then sent to the White House for further scrutiny prior to release to the news media.

Note that McCain, when the Bush campaign smeared him, signed the authorization for all his records to be released. This, Bush has never done.

What does "clean up the files ... and remove any embarassment" mean?

James ordered a cleanup of the Bush Guard files in 1997. Burkett said he was waiting outside James' office when he heard a speakerphone conversation between the commander of the Texas Guard and Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff in Texas. Recounting the conversation, Burkett said he heard Allbaugh tell James to "clean up the governor's files and remove any embarrassments in case he wants to run for reelection or something higher."

"Karen [Hughes] and Danny [Bartlett] are going to be coming out to take a look at this file," Allbaugh said. "They're going to write a book."

Where is the microfiche that will tell the whole story?

If it had been cleaned up, as Burkett alleged, the only place to find the complete file would be on the microfiche [in the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver and the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis]. This is undoubtedly why the president has not simply ordered the entire file printed out and released without restriction to news media outlets. The paper records, which may explain the grounding and prove the president did not serve sufficient time to meet his legal obligation to the Guard, have likely been removed from the Austin files. But the microfiche has the whole truth, and that's why its dissemination is being controlled.

And note that the microfiches are still available.

The documents given to Washington reporters [in the 5:00 horror release] were printed from one of those two microfiches.

Who gave the order to the National Guard to stonewall?
Especially when it would be very, very simple for Bush to sign the paper to release all the records—just as John McCain did, and just as John Kerry did.

The stonewalling on this is still succeeding. Reporters calling the National Guard offices in Arlington and the Pentagon are being told the staff is no longer authorized to speak about the president and his time in the Guard. One national reporter, who is still trying to get to the bottom of the controversy, told me the White House said they were not going to talk about the Guard matter any further.

I wonder who the national reporter is...

From drip, drip, drip to splash, splash, splash?