NYT: Pentagon Releases Bush's Long-Sought Military Records

[kskiska]

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

(snip)

On Tuesday night, the White House put the blame on the Pentagon for the belated release of the newly unearthed documents. "Unfortunately, it has become clear that they didn't undertake as comprehensive a search as was directed by the president," said Claire Buchan, a White House spokeswoman.

A Pentagon spokesman, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said he could not explain why the documents had surfaced only now. "The short answer is I don't have an answer for you," the spokesman said.

But in a letter to The Associated Press, the Pentagon said Department of Defense officials had believed that these particular flight records did not exist because they would have been kept for only two years under Air Force and Texas Air National Guard policy. Nonetheless, when the request came in from The Associated Press, the Pentagon said, officials did a more extensive search "out of an abundance of caution" and found to their surprise that the records still existed.

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/campaign/08records.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. And if the press does it job

we will soon know that bush was at the very least UA

[Zorra]

37. Keep this thread kicked. Freepers may kick the "forgery" stories,

in LBN in an attempt to shift focus from the real issue.

The freepers are trying to shift focus away from the very real fact that Bu$h is an AWOL DESERTER by blowing relatively irrelevant memos all out of proportion.

The point is that Bu$h really is an AWOL DESERTER as proven by records released by the Pentagon, not some minor relatively unimportant memos.

[dave29]

2. But I got good grades

look for this spin out of the Oval Office

[punpirate]

4. He didn't...

... the documents indicate that he placed 22nd out of a class of fifty-three or so in flight school. Middling at best.

Probably this twit's best performance in any school.

[GingerSnaps]

38. LOL

He probably had to take several tests to get a better grade.

[speedoo]

3. Weak, pathetic attempt by Rove to avoid the cover-up tag.

Obviously, Kitty Kelly or someone else has already found the documents. Now shrub's brain is trying to paint the Pentagon as the cover-upper in this mess.

It won't work.

[grasswire]

5. Bumiller covers for Bush in this

Her husband was his classmate at Yale. Notice how much is left out of the story? Even the headline is misleading, making it sound as if the only records missing are now found.

[TacticalPeek]

9. Blatant!

She should credit whoever "explained" the records to her.

Actually, any reporter should probably share by-line or quote directly from the actual expert consulted, such as Kristof did with Lechliter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/opinion/08kristof.html

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/lechliter.pdf

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x72355

[The_Casual_Observer]

6. And guess what? There is some shitty news in there for the chimp!

Mr chimp came up missing for a long stretch when they had been called back in on alert. No wonder they wanted to forget the whole damn thing.

[skooooo]

7. Hey I thought stuff like this..

...was only supposed to be released on Fridays. Somebody's slipping up.

[fsbooks]

8. I suspect it has to do with tomorrow's 60 minutes.

just to muddy the waters and put a faux spin on it.

[girl gone mad]

11. Yep..

and the spin will be that he got good grades.

Nevermind that he wasted millions of taxpayer dollars being trained and then failing to show up for duty.

[DulceDecorum]

10. Then Hani Hanjour REALLY DID fly that Boeing

The latest documents show that during his flight training in 1969, Mr. Bush had a grade of 88 in airmanship, a 98 in aviation physiology, a 93 in principles of flight and a perfect 100 for flying without navigational instruments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/campaign/08records.html

Those scores PROVE it.

[DeepModem Mom]

12. Compare this panty-waist article to the Boston Globe article...

discussed in this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x809595

As someone posted at another time, about a different press outrage, why doesn't the NYT just hire Karl Rove and cut out the middleman (or in this case, middlewoman).

[EST]

13. It is such a joke!

So * was able to hold the plane straight and level under vfr. Teehee-BFD, any one hour student pilot can get a hundred percent at that, if he didn't have too bad a hangover! This won't whitewash the attempt to scrub the shrub's records. Clumsy, clumsy, clumsy.

[Judi Lynn]

14. Something earlier in the same article would suggest he was NOT God's gift

to aviation, either:

The latest National Guard records do not place Mr. Bush in Alabama during the time in dispute. But they do show that Mr. Bush ranked 22nd out of class of 53 pilots when he finished his flight training at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia in 1969.

It seems there are ways of rearranging fragments of a story so they can appear far more significant, right?

When it's said and done, why must we assume these figures, appearing from out of nowhere, just as the Texans for Truth step forward, are true reflections of his actual level of accomplishment, and are not altered upwardly? Who would know the difference?


Walk this way......

[EST]

17. You are absolutely right, JudiLyn,

I think it's so funny- They are trying to dribble these papers out to spread the shock. Kinda suspect the sanitizing job done by Rove's minions in the late eighties-early nineties was trusted and forgotten. After all, it had been questioned a couple times and, due to the lazy news idiots, was not exposed. Now, even though there's not much to go on, any further scrubbing will leave too big a hole in the associated records and be too obvious. This whole thing has me all atwitter, however, I suspect the true believers will turn up the volume on their yama-yama machines playing in their heads and it won't make a huge splash, (sigh) Every little bit helps.

[Willy Mugobeer]

15. This story's going to get a LOT bigger...

...before it goes away. There's just too much excretory material all hitting the rotary air ciculator at once...and just blathering like a sheep "he served honorably!" ain't gonna cut it anymore. 60 Minutes, Kristof in the NYT, Froomkin in the Post, USA Today, Kitty Kelly...it's all hanging out there now and I suspect it's what we'll all be talking about for the rest of this week...

[DeepModem Mom]

16. Hey, WM -- welcome to DU!

[EST]

18. We DO live in exciting times!

Welcome to DU!

[cthrumatrix]

21. IF the media (other than 60 min) will not talk about it..what happens?

Becuase that's where we are... the other talk shows will not have her on. The awol story will fade and the coke story will be brushed off with graham's book... watch and see who is on the RW payroll.

[The Icon Painter]

26. Welcome

Glad to have you. Keep cheering us up; sometimes we are inclined toward pessimism.

[leetrisck]

19. They will say we are smearing the present

National Guard people in Iraq. Not so - if our Guardsmen today did what bush did, they would be in jail.

[dbt]

20. DUers who served in the military:

Isn't every piece of data concerning your time in uniform instantly available? Doesn't your former employer know where you were at damn near every moment that you served?

Isn't this whole business about "missing records" a giant, steaming CROCK? Having escaped the Viet Nam draft by the luck of the draw, I know nothing of life in the service, so I call upon DU Veterans For Truth to enlighten me.

Thanking you in advance for sharing your knowledge, I remain:

Your Fan,
:hi:
dbt

[displacedtexan]

22. Excellent point, dbt!

My father-in-law was an AF pilot (Flag Officer) in 3 wars (he volunteered in Korea and Vietnam). He had every log book, every TDY assignment, every transfer order, and every single medical record (along with every other piece of AF paperwork and memorabilia) neatly bound and displayed prominently in his den.

[Frances]

28. My husband was a navy fighter pilot in Korea too

and he has his log books!

He (and I) were furious about those purple heart bandaids. We saw them as an attack on my husband's medals!

[Pepperbelly]

23. everything goes into your jacket and when you leave ...

the jacket is shipped to the repository of your branch of the service. I am unsure if they put pay records and health records in with the jacket but I know that when you are reassigned, you carry all of them together.

And yes, they know where you are. They did me, anyway. I couldn't get away with shit.

[Pepperbelly]

24. one more quick point ...

I was Navy and apart from my jacket, there were traces of me everywhere in my assignments. The Plan of the Day had watch assignments. When you stood watch, you had logs to fill out and sign. Most things that were done were chased with paperwork.

I am confused why none of this stuff surfaced from Bushie doing his duty. Unless he didn't do his duty and had no watches to stand or no reports to file. Musta been some other service he was involved with, eh?

[MGKrebs]

31. Does one qualify for VA benefits from NG service?

If so, seems like the service would want those records to determine eligibility.

[nolabels]

32. In the military, your records are your records (as recorded by them)

I think in some places they might give you place to rebut or have things changed in them if you can prove they are not correct. But mostly they never take things out or loose the stuff wholesale like AWOL is claiming. Regardless he should be also be able to produce a DD214 (status of discharge from service), which he has also never produced.

The guy has no honor at all, and people claim he does are also a liars

Service Records of John F. Kerry and George W Bush - Links to all public documents - AWOLBush.com:
http://www.awolbush.com/

[saigon68]

33. EVERYONE IN THE MILITARY WAS TAUGHT TO KEEP EVERY PAPER

The military also has a penchant for record keeping. It is inconceivable that the DOD wouldn't have turned the Pentagon upside down if the CINC wanted some record.

THIS IS A STEAMING PILE OF SHIT.

Yes, I have a copy of every paper I ever received, even temporary duty orders and TDY vouchers !!!! This after 38 years

[TahitiNut]

41. Two words: "Morning Reports"

Every unit to which I was ever assigned produced Morning Reports, which was a duty of the Company Clerk and signed by the C.O. Every single person assigned to the unit was identified and their duty status noted.

Indeed, it was the Morning Reports which provided me the data from which I designed and implemented the (in-country) USARV Strength Accountability System in 1969 - a system which gave country-wide data within a week rather than the 6-month delay the DoD had been subject to prior to that time. Nixon took office on the promise to pull the troops out of Vietnam ("Vietnamization") and 'discovered' that the DoD couldn't tell him how many troops were actually there. They could say how many were there, and where, 6 months ago, but couldn't provide current data with any accuracy. It was an interesting project.

[dumpster_baby]

25. Bumiller is a bought-and-paid-for MediaWhore

Just like Nagourney.....

[dryan]

27. Was in the NROTC....

for a short period of time and one of my first lectures was on the importance of personally keeping your records in tact. This really served me well when I tried (and succeeded) in receiving a top secret and Q clearence from the government.

[lumpy]

29. For pete's sake

the US government had my father's military records when he served in the Phillipines during the early 1900s.

[xxqqqzme]

30. now it is the Pentagon's fault

Is there one single agency that does ANYTHING right under this asswipe.

[Supersedeas]

35. skipped physical b/c jet not available - Pentagon's fault too?

Good job Bumiller -- eat up that trash and spew it to the American public like it was gospel.

[Catfight]

34. "I don't have an answer for you?" What kind of administration is this?

We want answers that why when the records were asked for they were not provided and only after going to extremes with the Freedom of Information Act did they have to give Americans a realistic picture of a fake President.

[Zorra]

36. Kick

[Zorra]

39. Kick

[donkeyotay]

40. the mysteries run so deep

snip:

A Pentagon spokesman, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said he could not explain why the documents had surfaced only now. "The short answer is I don't have an answer for you," the spokesman said.

end:

Here, let me try: The pretzel's service records are missing because some mole went in and cleaned them up before we replaced the actual president with this cardboard cutout in 2000.

Had we known that anyone kept a private file that would make us look bad, we would have burned those too.