Kevin Drum asks exactly the right question in this post. Who in the press will place the call?
--Josh Marshall
I'm actually supposed to be on semi-vacation here at the ocean. But let me offer an update on this memo business. One of the guys who was in the mix in all of this at the time -- Hodges -- told CBS that these documents accurately reflected Killian's thinking at the time. On top of that, the White House -- and thus the president -- made no effort to question the story the documents tell. That tells me that they know the underlying story -- or at least some rough approximation of it -- is true.
All that said, however, the questions raised about these documents seem very compelling. And though those points above are telling about the underlying story, I can't see where they tell us much meaningful about the authenticity of these documents.
Over the last twenty-four hours I've received literally hundreds of emails that point out that each specific criticism, on its own terms, doesn't quite hold up. Thus, for instance, there definitely were proportional type machines widely available at the time. There were ones that did superscripts. There were ones with Times Roman font, or something very near to it.
But that only means that such a document could possibly have been produced at the time; not that it's likely. And taken all together, the criticisms raise big doubts in my mind about their authenticity. Adding even more doubt in my mind is that the author of this site was so easily able to use MS Word to produce a document that to my admittedly untrained eye looks identical to one of the memos in question. Identical.
That combined with the individual criticisms mentioned above seems very hard to get around.
Again, I've gotten a slew of emails. And I have to admit that I haven't plumbed the depths of every one of them because at a basic level I don't think there's much point. This isn't a subject I know anything about. So I'm not in much of a position to judge.
(Perhaps it's not a perfect analogy but it's sort of like my talking to various physicists about contending theories of the Big Bang and deciding which side is right.)
If a few qualified experts came forward and said, 'Well, those criticisms don't add up if you know the subject. And the bottom line is that there's nothing about these documents that raise any question about their being produced in the early seventies" that would be plenty for me -- because I don't have the expertise to evaluate the criticisms and the defenses in the face of such expert opinion.
But I'm not hearing anyone say anything like that. In fact, rather the contrary.
The ball is in the court of the publishers of these documents to authenticate them. And so far I'm not hearing any adequate defense.
--Josh Marshall
Okay, finally we're getting somewhere here.
The thing about these charges that the CBS documents are forgeries is that if it's so clear that they were made on a word processing program then it shouldn't be difficult for an independent news organization to comes up with a list of experts who will say that they don't look legit.
And the Post now has out an article that, at least to some extent, does just that.
Here are the key passages ...
Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed typographical and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the possibility that they were forged....
The Post contacted several independent experts who said they appeared to have been generated by a word processor. An examination of the documents by The Post shows that they are formatted differently from other Texas Air National Guard documents whose authenticity is not questioned.
William Flynn, a forensic document specialist with 35 years of experience in police crime labs and private practice, said the CBS documents raise suspicions because of their use of proportional spacing techniques. Documents generated by the kind of typewriters that were widely used in 1972 space letters evenly across the page, so that an "i" uses as much space as an "m." In the CBS documents, by contrast, each letter uses a different amount of space.
While IBM had introduced an electric typewriter that used proportional spacing by the early 1970s, it was not widely used in government. In addition, Flynn said, the CBS documents appear to use proportional spacing both across and down the page, a relatively recent innovation. Other anomalies in the documents include the use of the superscripted letters "th" in phrases such as "111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron," Bush's unit.
"It would be nearly impossible for all this technology to have existed at that time," said Flynn, who runs a document authentication company in Phoenix.
Other experts largely concurred. Phil Bouffard, a forensic document examiner from Cleveland, said the font used in the CBS documents appeared to be Times Roman, which is widely used by word-processing programs but was not common on typewriters.
They don't go as far as to say they're certain. <$Ad$>But the questions raised now no longer seem to be limited to amateurs or people doing experiments on their own copies of Microsoft Word.
CBS is sticking by their story, saying they ran them by their own experts and adding that one of their sources or points of confirmation for the genuineness of the documents is Killian's then-superior, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, who is mentioned in one of the documents and was involved in the back-and-forths described in the documents. A CBS source tells the Post that Hodges confirmed that the statements contained in the documents were concerns and thoughts that Killian expressed to him at the time.
The Times, meanwhile, has a piece up quoting Killian's son saying that he believes some of the documents are genuine but doesn't believe his father would have written the 'CYA' document.
The White House is keeping mum but also, needless to say, happy to encourage and/or observe the feeding frenzy of questions about the authenticity of the documents.
It is of course worth noting that the White House is the only player here with ready access to the president. If they had some confidence that the underlying claims contained in the documents were not valid, then presumably they would have more confidence in doubting the documents' authenticity.
But something in all this doesn't fit. For tonight, I'm going to associate myself with Kevin Drum's final thoughts of the evening.
--Josh Marshall
I'm clearly not a forensic expert on document analysis. So I don't have any way of knowing or even coming up with a reasoned opinion about the authenticity of these documents published by CBS.
But one point of criticism doesn't seem as clear as many are presenting it. I'm talking about the suggestion that a superscripted "th" marks these as clearly the product of a word-processing program.
In an article today in Weekly Standard, for instance, Steve Hayes writes that ...
... in some references to Bush's unit--the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron--the "th" is a superscript in a smaller size than the other type. Again, this is typical (and often done automatically) in modern word processing programs. Although several experts allow that such a rendering might have been theoretically possible in the early 1970s, it would have been highly unlikely. Superscripts produced on typewriters--the numbers preceding footnotes in term papers, for example--were almost always in the same size as the regular type.
This AP article also quotes a person presented as a handwriting analyst making the same point.
But if you look at this document from <$Ad$>the official Bush records it shows a list of descriptions of various times Bush served. (See the paranthetical at the bottom of this post for specific notes on where to find this in the pdf I linked to.) Thus, we can assume that the same document was typed on by different people and different machines over time. This document has one entry with a superscripted "th" and another further down on the page with a non-superscripted "th" -- which of course suggests that both kinds of typewriters were being used in the Texas Air National Guard system at the time.
It doesn't look like the same script used in the Killian memos and it strikes me that in this case the typeface looks monospaced rather than proportional. But clearly some typewriter with a superscript was in use. I'll leave it to others to discern the meaning of all this.
This debate has quickly spiralled in so many different directions that I can't keep track of all the different points of suspicion folks have raised about these documents. But this suggestion about the superscripts at least seems not to add up.
(To find the reference in question, click here to see the document on the USAToday website. Then scroll down to page three of the .pdf document -- which is the first vertically-oriented page. If you look at the second entry on that document -- dated "4Sep68" you'll find a superscripted "th".)
--Josh Marshall
It continues to be hard to get a read on exactly where this race is from the polls -- at least that's the case if you go on the basis of toplines. The Rasmussen daily tracking poll has it as a one point race today. And a new Fox poll -- usually a GOP friendly poll -- has the race at a two point margin among likely voters. On the other hand a CBS poll out today has an 8 point Bush lead among registered voters. And I'm told the ABC/WaPo poll that's coming out shortly is in that range or even worse for Kerry.
--Josh Marshall
Hmmm. That's an innovation.
In this morning's press gaggle, one of the reporters asked the following question: "This was a direct order he defied, right? I mean, he did have a direct order that he defied?"
The White House then applied a footnote to this question -- noted with an asterisk -- which referenced this explanatory footnote: "The memos that were released, in fact, show the President was working with his commanders to comply with the order."
This is a bit stunning.
Now it's not enough that we have a transcript in which the press asks questions and McClellan answers them or rebuts their implications. We get editorial notes explaining what the reporter really meant or disputing the question after the fact so that no one can follow up and call them on a demonstrable distortion.
Can't we just go back to the good old days when McClellan's office just edited the transcript after the fact? It was so much simpler.
--Josh Marshall
Reader comment <$NoAd$>...
Josh,Here's a note from a long-time social progressive/economic conservative who has gone increasingly progressive since Bush took office:
Bush's Guard service is a loser for the Dems even if the dereliction stories are entirely true, which they likely are. The problem is that nobody cares other than Democrats who despise Bush, and they seem like just a petty reaction to the Swift Boat ads. I would love for this election to be about the environment, choice on abortion, separation of church and state, invasion of privacy/Patriot Act, the economy, and the culture of fear the Bush admin is creating. But it's about Iraq and terrorism. Unfortunately, Kerry has done a terrible job of getting out any cohesive and compelling message about either. Here's what he needs to hammer for the remainder:
1. Bush is A TERRIBLE LEADER IN THE "WAR ON TERROR". He has failed in the hunt for Osama, misdeployed resources, and put off allies who are key to our long-term success against terrorism. Look beyond the macho swagger of Bush and see that he is completely screwing up this incredibly important long-term battle.
2. Bush and the neocon puppet masters deceived the nation into Iraq, then completely blew the execution of a horrible war, costing us more than a thousand soldiers and billions of dollars, killing countless innocent Iraqis, and creating a disastrous and extremely dangerous situation for America for years to come.
3. Bush has blown the economy.
4. Kerry is the man to put America and the world on course for a better future.Kerry must not only make these points, he must be pissed off about them. Undecided voters are not compelled to vote by Kerry's suggestion that he can do Bush better than Bush. They, and the party voters we need to inspire to actually cast ballots, will respond to Kerry's passionate belief that Bush is seriously taking this country down a bad path and that Kerry can take us on a safer, more prosperous path. Unfortunately, Kerry's voting record on Iraq prohibits him from taking the real winning stand that the Iraq war was a horrible mistake. So he must refocus on the idea that Bush is a horrible president whose decisions are having disastrous consequences. Kerry has to want to lead this country, and he needs to show Americans that he wants badly to lead this country.
Thanks for your great work. Scott
--Josh Marshall
The conservative blog Powerline has a roiling debate or series of charges that the documents published by CBS last night are forgeries.
The basis of the claim is that the sort of proportional font spacing evidenced in the memoranda wasn't available at the time in question. It only came later with word processors and computers and laser printers. Basically, they say, all people had back then were old fashioned block-type typewriters.
On the face of it, that sounds logical to me. But the editor of the site has now posted the comments of at least one reader who says such machines were actually widely available at the time.
It seems worth noting that the White House accepted the documents as genuine and even began releasing them to other journalists yesterday evening -- though it's not clear to me whether they were releasing their own copies or simply passing on what CBS had given them.
The deeper point is that CBS reported that they had handwriting experts scrutinize these documents to ascertain their authenticity. It seems hard to imagine they'd go to such lengths to have experts analyze them and not check out something so obvious as seeing if they'd been written by a typewriter that was in existence at time. (Hard to imagine or, if true, unimaginably stupid.)
One way or another, I doubt we'll have to speculate about this for very long. This question about what sort of typesets were available in 1973 should be easy enough to settle.
--Josh Marshall
A few follow-on points about this Guard business.
First, I note over at Andrew Sullivan's site that Andrew asks whether anyone is coming forward or can come forward with a refutation of Ben Barnes' story. This makes it probably as good a time as any to note again that not only has the Bush camp not disputed Barnes account, they have positively affirmed it. (I go into some of the details in this post from a week or so back.)
Another point: Dan Bartlett, as you can see in the transcript published below, is sticking to the claim that there was no reason for President Bush to show up for the flight physical in question because it was no longer relevant to the duties he was performing (or not performing). But the records published by CBS -- and summarized here in the Post -- show Bush received a direct order to submit to that physical by a given date and refused or failed to do so.
Bartlett seems to be saying that it doesn't matter that Bush didn't follow the order because the order didn't make any sense.
Now, I'm no military man. But aside from orders that contravene the laws of war, the Geneva Conventions or the US constitution, I don't think an officer or an enlisted man is allowed to disobey an order just because he comes up with some logic by which he decides the order doesn't really make sense. An order is an order, right?
Wartime situations can also provide extenuating circumstances for disobeying an order, as in cases where the exigencies of combat render an order moot or create a situation where the recipient of the order can say that circumstances had changed so radically that the issuer of the order wouldn't have issued it had they known, etc. etc. But I assume we can stipulate that this wasn't a live combat situation.
And here we get down to a specific and perhaps touchy point. Why wouldn't Bush show up for that physical? An Air Force pilot's physical is a bigger deal than the one civilians get on a routine basis. But still, it's not that big a deal. Even if he didn't think it was necessary, why disobey a direct order to get around it?
And on this point let me make a more general suggestion. The White House's story has changed many, many times on the Guard matter. And they've been careful -- and wisely so -- to avoid make definitive statements that would limit their room for maneuver after future revelations.
There are now two news organizations actively at work (and at least one of them is pretty far along) on a story about just why Bush was having those problems in the Guard in 1973. With that in mind, now my might be a good time to press a few more specific questions. At least one major news organization -- and I suspect others -- is working on a story that touches directly on why Bush might not have been willing to take that physical.
--Josh Marshall
A sage piece of commentary from Kevin Drum that <$NoAd$>shouldn't get lost in the mix ...
This story is a perfect demonstration of the difference between the Swift Boat controversy and the National Guard controversy. Both are tales from long ago and both are related to Vietnam, but the documentary evidence in the two cases is like night and day. In the Swift Boat case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence indicates that Kerry's accusers are lying. Conversely, in the National Guard case, practically every new piece of documentary evidence provides additional confirmation that the charges against Bush are true.
That really is the heart of the matter. But in telling fashion it's a distinction many miss.
--Josh Marshall
The complete text of CBS's interview with Dan <$NoAd$>Bartlett ...
Q: So, Dan, you've had a chance to look over these documents, to have a good look at them, discuss them. What do you say?DAN BARTLETT: Well, I think, generally, it's obvious that it's election season now. But every time President Bush gets near another election, all the innuendo and rumors about President Bush's service in the National Guard come to the forefront. And the fact that it's coming up now at a time when President Bush has taken a lead in the polls -- it's not surprising that people like Ben Barnes, long-time activist, Democrat activist, who is a vice chairman of John Kerry, would be making these recycled charges of President Bush.
The fact of the matter is that the files that have been provided by this President to the public demonstrate that he served his country, he logged hundreds and hundreds of hours as a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard. After four years of flying, he requested and received permission to do training in Alabama. He got that request. He did it in a non-flying capacity because they weren't flying his aircraft. He did his drills. He came back. He met his drills then when he came back. And that's why he received an honorable discharge.
So -- and many of the documents you have here tonight affirm just that, that President Bush asked for permission and received permission to do just that.Q: It's interesting when you talk about Ben Barnes, because I wasn't even talking about that. I was talking about these documents. What about these two official documents signed by Jerry Killian is rumor and innuendo?
DAN BARTLETT: Well, it's impossible for anybody to read the mind of a dead man. Jerry Killian writes memos to himself in this file --
Q: I'm not talking about the memos to himself. I'm talking about the two official documents.
DAN BARTLETT: The two official documents that notified that he did not take the flight exam, which is exactly -- it is explained in your document that he did not take the flight exam because he was going to Alabama in a non-flying capacity because, in Alabama, they weren't flying the same plane that President Bush was trained on.
Q: But what about these two documents is rumor and innuendo?
DAN BARTLETT: Well, again, the surfacing of these charges by many people who have partisan purposes behind it, the ads that are coming that denounce President Bush -- Ben Barnes, who has spoken to your program about his alleged involvement in President Bush's entry into the National Guard -- all of these things are coming out now, as they do every year when President Bush goes through an election. But these documents state exactly what we said, and that is President Bush didn't take the flight exam because he was going to a unit that didn't fly his plane. And in that very document you're showing it says that he was working out with the staff to find a unit that he could train with, but it was going to be in a non-flying capacity.
Q: Dan, you said it's interesting the way that these things suddenly surfaced during an election campaign. Should these have not been part of the record that the White House released of the President's military service earlier this year?
DAN BARTLETT: Well, in fact, my understanding is that is a part of another person's personnel file, Jerry Killian's. That is not the President's personnel file. He only has control over his own files that he has ordered for the full release, and we have fully released every document that the Department of Defense has regarding President Bush's service.
Q: But these are two official memorandums. Any idea of why these would not be in the record?
DAN BARTLETT: I can't explain why that wouldn't be in his record, but they were found in Jerry Killian's personal records themselves, is what I've been told. But it reaffirms exactly what President Bush said. Everybody knows President Bush didn't take his flight exam. After flying for 400 -- more than 500 hours in the cockpit, President Bush, after his fourth year in service, asked for permission to go in a non-flying capacity to Alabama. There was not reason for President Bush to take a flight exam if he wasn't going to be flying.
Q: Okay. So you seem to paint that as an option, that he could have taken the flight exam if he wanted to continue to fly, but didn't really have to take it. But this first document, dated 4th of May 1972, specifically says, "You are ordered to report for a physical examination." So he either ignored, or didn't fulfill a direct order, not an option.
DAN BARTLETT: Well, in fact, the memorandum shows -- the other memorandum in your possession shows that he spoke to the commander who made that order to talk about his personal situation in the fact that he was going to Alabama. So at every step of the way, President Bush was meeting his requirements, granted permission to meet his requirements. And that's why President Bush received an honorable discharge.
Q: You've also said that the President was removed from flying status because he failed to meet the physical requirements, he didn't take the physical. Yet the second memo from Lt. Colonel Killian, dated the 1st of August 1972, says, "He was suspended from flight status due to failure to perform to Air Force Air National Guard standards and failure to meet an annual physical exam." So there's two reasons in there that he was removed from flying status, not the single reason that the White House has talked about, that he didn't meet the physical requirements. It says here he didn't meet performance requirements.
DAN BARTLETT: No, the records have been clear for years that President Bush did not take a physical because he did not need to take a physical because, obviously, the choice was that he was going to be performing in a different capacity. That might be official language, but the bottom line is President Bush did not take that physical, so that does not suggest, nor is there any evidence that President Bush did. And the reason why is as I stated, that it was clear, as it says in your own documents, that President Bush talked to the commanders about the fact that he'd be transferring to a unit that no longer, or did not fly the plane that he was trained -- he was trained and a fighter pilot on F-102, which he flew for four years. And in this case, he was going to a unit in Alabama that didn't fly that plane.
Q: The White House has also set the -- the White House has also talked about the idea that it wasn't necessarily that important that the future President continue his flight training because they were phasing out the F-102. Yet in this very same memo, Killian writes, "I suggested we fill this critical billet with a more seasoned pilot." It would suggest that your view of how important the F-102 was, and Killian's view of how important the F-102 was are somewhat at odds with each other.
DAN BARTLETT: I don't agree with that characterization. Again, we're trying to suggest the comments were the orders of somebody who is no longer alive. But the fact of the matter is, is that just because they weren't flying the F-102 anymore doesn't mean they were not flying a new, modern aircraft. The point was, is that it didn't make sense for the Texas Air National Guard to train President Bush in a new aircraft at the end, toward the end of his service, when he was being given permission to attend Harvard Business School. It's a critical billet. Any slot for a pilot is critical. But the critical nature of it is that there was an ongoing mission at that unit. It just, in the future, was not going to be in the F-102.
Q: All right. Now, this goes to Killian's personal file -- I want to point that out. A couple of points that he makes -- he says that the President has come to him to talk about how he can "get out of coming to drill," suggesting that he's trying to avoid something. He also says that he advised the future President of the Air National Guard's investment in him and his commitment to the Air National Guard, which Killian seemed to suggest he would be shirking if he were to transfer out.
DAN BARTLETT: For anybody to try to interpret or presume they know what somebody who is now dead was thinking in any of these memos, I think is very difficult to do. What we do know, and what we know from people who are alive today, is that President Bush performed his duties well as a pilot, that he sought and received permission -- in those very same documents, it says what he was doing. He was not getting out of drills, he wasn't going to be physically there to do the drills because he was going to be in another state to perform his civilian occupation, which was very common in the Guard then, and it is very common in the Guard today -- that it's a civilian occupation which allows them to also fulfill their military obligation. And President Bush was working with the commanders at that point, at that time, to find out how he could fulfill his duties, as well as meet the duties in civilian life. That's one of the beauties of the National Guard system, that you can do both.
The bottom line is, is that President Bush would not have received the honorable discharge that he was granted when he returned from Alabama if he had not met his requirements.
Q: Now, in terms of reading what the intent and the point of view of these memos was, Colonel Bobby Hodges, who was the commander of the 147, Killian's immediate superior, said just this week that these documents accurately describe how Killian felt. And Robert Strong, the administrative head of the Air National Guard, said, "These documents are consistent with what he saw on the job every day, and consistent with the man he knew Killian to be. So there is certainly some opinion out there among former members of the military that these documents do indeed describe how Killian felt, what Killian thought about the situation.
DAN BARTLETT: Well, again, these are people --
Q: So it's not really open to interpretation --
DAN BARTLETT: Well, it is. It is. And when you're talking about a memo to somebody's self, this is a memo to his own file, people are trying to read the mind of somebody who is no longer with us.
The fact of the matter is, is that the files and the President's documents, official record, speaks for itself. The fact is, is that he received an honorable discharge. He was given permission at every step of the way, when President Bush had a request, whether it was to fulfill his civilian occupation or to do his training, to make sure he met the requirements, he received the permission necessary to do it. And that, I say, is why he received his honorable discharge.
Q: Do you know if the President handled his transfer to the Alabama National Guard strictly through Killian? Or did it go through other people, as well?
DAN BARTLETT: I'm sure not just -- I'm sure the group -- the commanders there are involved in the paperwork for all their pilots.
Q: But do you know if he talked to them, or had anybody else talked to them?
DAN BARTLETT: Again, I can only go by what the documents show. All of the documents, up and down the chain of command, approved his permission -- gave him permission that he sought and received, up and down the chain the command.
Q: Killian writes and voices an opinion here that he believes that the President was talking to someone upstairs about his transfer.
DAN BARTLETT: Again, that is conjecture on a part of somebody who is no longer with us.
Q: Well, that's why I asked you -- that's why I asked you if you knew.
DAN BARTLETT: No idea.
Q: Okay.
DAN BARTLETT: But the bottom line is, is that up and down the chain of command, he received the necessary permission to fulfill his obligations.
Q: Also, one other opinion, and again, an opinion, in a memo titled "CYA" that Killian wrote to himself that he believed that there was pressure coming from upstairs, General Staudt, of the Air National Guard, to "sugarcoat" the President's record, and that Killian wasn't about to do that.
DAN BARTLETT: Well, again, it was Colonel Killian at the time who approved, as did other members in the chain of command, President Bush's service, approved his drills, approved -- gave him permission to go to Alabama.
Again, we are trying to read the mind of somebody who has been dead for more than 10 years. The fact of the matter is, there are people alive today that show and demonstrate that President Bush performed his duties and received his honorable discharge because he did perform those duties as he was told to do so. At any given time, somebody -- a commander or anybody -- could have told him, you're not fulfilling your obligations, and he would have met them. But he did meet them. And that's why he was given an honorable discharge.
Q: Killian writes that he was backdating the Officer Efficiency Training report. Anything irregular about that?
DAN BARTLETT: Well, again, these are cryptic lines of saying, backdate, won't rate these things. Again, what we're asked to do is to try to read the mind of somebody who is no longer with us. I think we ought to look at, and what the public can look at, is a full file, hundreds and hundreds of pages that demonstrate that President Bush fulfilled his duties.
Again, this is -- this is part and parcel for what happens during a presidential campaign. People come forward for whatever motives to put forward innuendo or to raise rumors about President Bush's service. But the official files tell the facts. And the facts are President Bush served, he served honorably, and that's why he was honorably discharged.
Q: Are you questioning at all the veracity of these documents, or just the point of view?
DAN BARTLETT: I think it's the point of, after 32 years ago, and all of the politics that has taken place, it does seem -- raise questions that some documents would be given to the media at 55 days before the President's election, right when he takes over in the national polls -- the same time that a partisan Democrat, who supports John Kerry, comes forward with a recycled charge like Ben Barnes has done, to try to raise concerns or to attack President Bush on his Guard service.
President Bush has made it clear that Senator John Kerry served admirably. In fact, he said, he served more admirably because he went into harm's way. But President Bush is proud of his service. He's proud of the fact that he flew fighter jets and trained as a pilot for four years. He's proud of the fact that he got the permission to meet his requirements. And he's proud of the fact that he was honorably discharged.
And the fact that people are raising politics at this time is part of the game. But it doesn't ignore the facts. And the facts are there in his file. He met his requirements. He satisfied his commander's requirements. And that's why he was given an honorable discharge.
Q: Is your suggestion that these documents, at least a couple of them, could have been fabricated?
DAN BARTLETT: I'm not saying that at all. I'm just saying that the fact that documents like this are being raised when, in fact, all they do is reaffirm what we've said all along, is questionable. And what's questionable is at the same time that these documents are raised is the very same time that Democrats are leading a new ad campaign against President Bush and his service in the Guard, the same time that a partisan Democrat who is aligned with John Kerry makes his public attacks against President Bush and his Guard service. It's not a coincidence.
Q: Let's talk about Barnes for a second. Here's a guy who, in the year 2000, signed an affidavit to say that, as Speaker of the House, he got -- in Texas -- he managed to procure a position for the President -- a coveted position -- in the Texas Air National Guard at the request of a Bush family friend. True or untrue?
DAN BARTLETT: What Ben Barnes has said and what he testified under oath is that he knew of no knowledge or any information that President Bush or his father was involved at all in trying to get him into the Guard. The commander who was in charge --
Q: That's why I said, "at the request of a family friend."
DAN BARTLETT: But the important part is that the commander in charge, General Buck Staudt, the person who really had control over who came into his unit or not said, it's flat out not true. Now, the fact that Ben Barnes, who's a partisan Democrat, who left office under scandal in Texas in 1971, has his own issues. For him to come up after 32 years, during the 2000 presidential election, and now during the 2004 election when he supports John Kerry, I think completely discredits the veracity of his claims.
Q: So you could say just because a person has issues that they're not to be believed? I mean --
MR BARTLETT: Well, people -- his chief of staff, who worked for him at the time, another assistant who worked for him at the time, also have said publicly that they did nothing to help George W. Bush get into the Texas National Guard. I chalk it up to politics. They play dirty down in Texas. I've been there. I see how it works. But the bottom line is, is that there is no truth to this.
Q: This is dirty politics.
DAN BARTLETT: Oh, I think it is. I think the fact that 55 days before an election, that partisan Democrats are recycling the very same charges we hear every time President Bush runs for reelection, is dirty politics. It's the type of politics President Bush has tried to end by shutting down the 527s, which Senator John Kerry won't join him in doing. So we do believe it's part of the dirty politics. Recycling old accusations that aren't true, a partisan Democrat who's vice chairman of the fundraising efforts for John Kerry to come forward now and make these types of claims, I think smacks of dirty politics.
Q: Let me ask you one more question. Why didn't the President sign up with a National Guard Reserve Squadron when he moved to Massachusetts to attend school at Harvard?
DAN BARTLETT: Well, he was given permission to attend school at Harvard Business School, and he received his honorable discharge to do so. If there are any requirements he were not meeting, the National Guard at the federal level, the state level, and the local level, they all knew where he was. He was in Cambridge, Massachusetts, going to school. And if they felt that he needed to be called up, or if there was any reason for him to fulfill service or go on active duty, they knew where he was and they knew he could serve.
So I don't think there was any question, and that's much ado about nothing. The fact of the matter is, President Bush received a permission to go -- to go to school in the first place.
Q: But should he have sought out a reserve unit, and at least offered his services, if not outright join up?
DAN BARTLETT: I'm confident that President Bush followed the strict instructions in which the Guard gave him when they gave him his honorable discharge. So he went to school. The Guard knew, at federal, state, and local level, where he was, what he was doing, and if they wanted him in an active duty capacity, they knew exactly where to find him.
Q: Dan, thanks. I don't have anything else.
DAN BARTLETT: Appreciate it.
CAMERAMAN: Could I just get a little bit of a long question, please, sir?
Q: Yes, absolutely. You know, I'd love to talk to you about where the campaign's going and things like that.
DAN BARTLETT: Off air? (Laughter.)
Q: I guess I'll have to talk to you about that off air. But I guess -- you know, you've talked all about the policies and things. I don't know what else that I could try to mine from you on that particular front. The only thing --
DAN BARTLETT: I can't -- I can't say.
Q: Yes. The only question is, it has been raised, and it's almost impossible to verify the truth of what people are saying, that the President's record was scrubbed by -- I think you were a part of the allegations, I can't remember who else was at this point, it's in my notes somewhere, and that the reason why two of these documents were not in the record was because they were removed from the record, and it just so happens that Killian managed to keep his --
DAN BARTLETT: We -- at every -- for 10 years, I have been involved in this. And for 10 years, we have requested, directed. When he was Governor of Texas, I guess you don't have as much leverage, but when you're Commander-in-Chief and President of the United States and you ask for something, you ought to get it. And at every step of the way, we ordered, instructed the Department of Defense, the National Guard to turn over every single document. And we released every single document. We've made -- in an unprecedented fashion -- his medical records available. We've given everything we have. And as soon -- as we proved yesterday -- we get anything new, we will give it to the public. We've asked for it, we want it, and we want to release it.
Q: Have you asked the Pentagon to go back and try to find these two --
DAN BARTLETT: Of course. We will ask them for every single document they have.
Q: All right. Great. Thank you, Dan.
Questions, questions, questions ...
--Josh Marshall
Certainly it is one of the lesser threads in this controversy, but let's note for the record that RNC Chair Ed Gillespie told what was almost certainly a knowing falsehood today in an email sent out to the GOP faithful and printed in ABC's The Note.
Writes Gillespie ...
"And tonight on CBS, longtime Democratic operative Ben Barnes -- a friend of, major contributor to and Nantucket neighbor of Senator Kerry's and vice chair of the Kerry Campaign--will repudiate his statement under oath that he had no contact with the Bush family concerning the president's National Guard service. (Anyone surprised that Barnes would contradict a statement he made under oath probably doesn't know his long history of political scandal and financial misdealings.)"
The reference here is to <$Ad$>a sealed deposition Barnes gave in a civil case in 1999 in which he stated basically the essence of what he said tonight on CBS, but went to great lengths to note that he had no direct contact with the Bush family. The request, he said, came from a mutual friend of Barnes and the elder Bush, a guy named Sid Adger, now deceased.
(This point -- the lack of any direct contact -- has always been a point of great importance to the Bush camp.)
And yet, Barnes didn't contradict that earlier statement at all.
As the Times notes in Thursday paper, both with respect to 60 Minutes and an interview with the Times: "Mr. Barnes maintained, as he has since 1999, that he had contacted his friend who headed the Texas Air National Guard, Brig. Gen. James Rose, not at the behest of anyone in the Bush family, but rather a Houston businessman, Sidney A. Adger, a friend of the Bushes who has died."
Indeed, press reports have been saying for days that Barnes would not contradict that point. Thus Michael Dobbs wrote the following in the Post wrote only a few days ago: "Friends said Barnes will expand on the remarks in his interview with "60 Minutes" while taking care not to contradict sworn testimony from 1999, in which he said that no member of the Bush family had directly asked him for help."
One might certainly speculate that even if there had been direct contact with the Bush family, that Barnes might choose not to reveal it, since he's sworn to the contrary under oath. But that's all speculation.
The point is that he didn't. It's been reported for days that he wouldn't. And Barnes telegraphed that fact widely in Texas political circles. And yet Gillespie said he would. And it would seem that he did this not just on the basis of no evidence, but with manifest evidence to the contrary. All of which is to say that he made it up because making it up worked to his advantage.
Alas, I guess there's no getting around the fact that Gillespie lied through his teeth.
--Josh Marshall
Here's my quick transcription of one of the memoranda CBS has just posted on <$NoAd$>their website. It's the last in the series of memos from Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's commanding officer ...
18 August 1973Memo to File
SUBJECT: CYA
1. Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush. I’m having trouble running interference and doing my job. Harris gave me a message today from Grp regarding Bush’s OETR and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it. Bush wasn’t here during rating period and I don’t have any feedback from 187th in Alabama. I will not rate. Austin is not happy today either.
2. Harris took the call from Grp today. I’ll backdate but won’t rate. Harris agrees.
Perhaps someone can unpack this for us? Who's Harris? Who's Hodges? Why isn't "Austin" happy? What document is getting backdated?
Some of these questions are no doubt answered in the encyclopedic Bush AWOL project website. (Hodges, if memory serves, was above Killian in the chain of command. Where precisely, whether he was his immediate superior, I'm not sure.) But clearly there's quite a story to tell packed in this short memo. Perhaps some intrepid journalist can explain it all for us.
Late Update: Part of the work has been done in this must-read piece by Eric Boehlert in Salon. Here's one passage that caught my eye ...
On Oct. 1, 1973, Bush received an honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard in order to move to Boston and attend the Harvard Business School, where he was still obligated to find a unit in Massachusetts to fulfill his remaining nine months of duty, or face being placed on active duty. Once again, Bush made no such effort. But the Air Force in Denver, acting retroactively, in effect overturned Bush's honorable discharge and placed him on "Inactive Status" effective Sept. 15, 1973. When Bush left Texas, his personnel file was sent to Denver for review. The ARPC quickly realized Bush had failed to take a required physical exam, his Texas superior could not account for his whereabouts covering nearly a 12-month period, and due to absenteeism Bush had failed to "satisfactorily participate" as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. Bush's "Inactive Status" meant his relationship with the Air Force (and the Guard) was severed and he was therefore eligible for the draft.Soon afterward, large gaps began appearing in Bush's paper trail. Lukasiak concludes that only last-minute intervention, likely from Bush's local Houston draft board, saved him from active duty, as well as finally securing his honorable discharge, removing his "Inactive Status." Ironically, that means strings were pulled to get Bush out of the Guard in 1973, just as they were pulled to get him enrolled in 1968.
As I said, that's one passage that caught my eye. But it's really worth reading the whole thing all the way through -- particularly with reference to President Bush's honorable discharge.
And, finally, let's not miss the obvious point here. This isn't about what President Bush did 30+ years ago. Or at least it's not primarily about that. The issue here is that for a decade President Bush has been denying all of these things. He did so last January. He did so again as recently as last month. He's continued to cover this stuff up right from the Oval Office.
--Josh Marshall
On ABC this evening, Terry Moran has a piece that runs down the state of play on the Bush Guard issue. In addition to taking an extremely skeptical view of the questions about and criticisms of the lapses in the president's service, he repeats the claims of James "Bill" Calhoun, who says he saw young George W. Bush show up for his drills as many as six times during the period in question.
"I have no doubt in my mind that it was George W. Bush that he made his drills," Moran quotes Calhoun telling him. "He was very professional. He came in uniform. He signed in. He was very low-key."
What he doesn't mention is that six months ago numerous press reports noted that records showed that Bush hadn't even been assigned to the unit in question at the time Calhoun remembers seeing him there.
See Atlanta Journal Constitution, "Memories place Bush in Alabama if records don't," Feb. 13th, 2004, among other examples.
I think 'liar' is too strong a term for lapses in momentary recollections from 30+ years ago. But the significance of Calhoun's recollection seems pretty questionable on this count.
Perhaps Moran could have mentioned that.
--Josh Marshall
A bunch of folks have written in to ask what I thought of Dan Rather's piece on the Bush Guard story. All I can think to say is, that's what's called getting rolled by the White House.
Supposedly CBS is going to put these memos themselves up on their website later this evening. Will they ask the White House for permission?
--Josh Marshall
New ICR poll, conducted September 1st-5th ...
With Nader, among 'likely voters': Bush:46, Kerry: 46, Nader: 4.
Without Nader, among 'likely voters': Bush 48, Kerry 47.
Without Nader, among 'registered voters': Bush 46, Kerry 47.
--Josh Marshall
CBS has now gone live with its online promo for the Ben Barnes interview that is running tomorrow evening. But, as I noted earlier, that's not what the headline will be after the segment runs.
The big news won't be how Bush got into the Guard but how he blew off his duties once he got there. Again, new documents -- stuff that is clear and straightforward and apparently puts beyond any debate or doubt that the now-President blew off the duties that he said, as recently as this year, that he fulfilled.
--Josh Marshall
Where would we be without Alan Keyes?
According to this new report, Keyes now says that Barack Obama is a "socialist" and a "liar". He accuses Obama of using anti-black racist code words. And he claims that if Jesus were still walking the earth today in the flesh and eligible to vote in the Illinois Senate election, that he would definitely not vote for Barack Obama.
So much for secret ballots!
--Josh Marshall
Slimy as they wanna be ...
Cheney: Kerry Victory Will Bring Devastating Terrorist Attack.
(The AP's got the story.)
--Josh Marshall
Coincidences are the strangest things ...
AP: 'U.S. death toll in Iraq passes 1,000 mark' ... 4:27 PM, Sept. 7th, 2004
AP: 'Ridge: Terrorists hope to disrupt election' ... 4:40 PM, Sept. 7th, 2004
--Josh Marshall
Feel the buzz. Contrary to what I had originally understood, the Ben Barnes interview is running Wednesday evening. But, I'm told by several sources that the Barnes' interview is only a relatively small part of the package 60 Minutes is running. There's other stuff that CBS has -- newly discovered, or at least newly-revealed, documents that shed light on Bush's guard service or lack thereof.
--Josh Marshall
The text of a letter former President Carter sent to Zell <$NoAd$>Miller over the weekend ...
You seem to have forgotten that loyal Democrats elected you as mayor and as state senator. Loyal Democrats, including members of my family and me, elected you as lieutenant governor and as governor. It was a loyal Democrat, Lester Maddox, who assigned you to high positions in the state government when you were out of office. It was a loyal Democrat, Roy Barnes, who appointed you as U.S. Senator when you were out of office. By your historically unprecedented disloyalty, you have betrayed our trust.Great Georgia Democrats who served in the past, including Walter George, Richard Russell, Herman Talmadge, and Sam Nunn disagreed strongly with the policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and me, but they remained loyal to the party in which they gained their public office. Other Democrats, because of philosophical differences or the race issue, like Bo Callaway and Strom Thurmond, at least had the decency to become Republicans.
Everyone knows that you were chosen to speak at the Republican Convention because of your being a “Democrat,” and it’s quite possible that your rabid and mean-spirited speech damaged our party and paid the Republicans some transient dividends.
Perhaps more troublesome of all is seeing you adopt an established and very effective Republican campaign technique of destroying the character of opponents by wild and false allegations. The Bush campaign’s personal attacks on the character of John McCain in South Carolina in 2000 was a vivid example. The claim that war hero Max Cleland was a disloyal American and an ally of Osama bin Laden should have given you pause, but you have joined in this ploy by your bizarre claims that another war hero, John Kerry, would not defend the security of our nation except with spitballs. (This is the same man whom you described previously as “one of this nation's authentic heroes, one of this party's best-known and greatest leaders -- and a good friend.")
I, myself, never claimed to have been a war hero, but I served in the navy from 1942 to 1953, and, as president, greatly strengthened our military forces and protected our nation and its interests in every way. I don’t believe this warrants your referring to me as a pacificist.
Zell, I have known you for forty-two years and have, in the past, respected you as a trustworthy political leader and a personal friend. But now, there are many of us loyal Democrats who feel uncomfortable in seeing that you have chosen the rich over the poor, unilateral preemptive war over a strong nation united with others for peace, lies and obfuscation over the truth, and the political technique of personal character assassination as a way to win elections or to garner a few moments of applause. These are not the characteristics of great Democrats whose legacy you and I have inherited.
I contacted President Carter's office for comment and his press spokesperson Deanna Congileo told me that the letter was a private communication and that President Carter would not be issuing further comment.
--Josh Marshall
The lede of this AP article reads: "Democrat John Kerry accused President Bush on Monday of sending U.S. troops to the “wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time” and said he’d try to bring them all home in four years. Bush rebuked him for taking “yet another new position” on the war."
Simple advice for the Kerry campaign: keep the fire concentrated and tightly focused. The Democrats message on this is simple: the president lied the country into the war and then he screwed it up.
One, two. Two points. Simple as that. Everything else obscures the message. Both on principle and for tactical reasons, I don't think one presidential candidate should call the other a liar (call me old-fashioned). But the point can be made with appropriate language and surrogates can be more direct.
And as long as the president keeps misrepresenting Kerry's position on the war, starting him on flipflops. Which ones? Wanting to make Chalabi president of Iraq, now accusing him of being an Iranian spy. Wanting to have Halliburton run Iraq, now pulling their contracts. The list is truly endless.
These are sweeteners to be added for variety and entertainment. The two points above are the keys -- to be hit on again and again and again. They're effective because they're true and any look at the polls shows the public knows it.
--Josh Marshall
I'd be very curious to hear the backstory on this article in the Times. It's a follow-on piece on the Franklin investigation at the Pentagon, entitled 'Spy Case Renews Debate Over Pro-Israel Lobby's Ties to Pentagon.'
It might have been better titled -- All Neocons Get to Place Quotes Saying They Were Framed By CIA, FBI, Other Establishment Wusses.
Whenever the neocons come under investigative scrutiny their defense is always that the investigations are a put-up by their bureaucratic enemies. And this piece seems almost entirely devoted to their unsubstantiated claims of the same.
Bureaucratic infighting happens of course. But these investigations are far more frequently the result of their recklessness, indifference to procedure and simple bad-acts.
On a deeper level, the defense is related to a mindset we often see in their analysis of intelligence. Just as they tend to discount the idea of disinterested intelligence analysis -- i.e., analysis that is not simply a cover for ideologically-driven opinion -- they are similarly unable or unwilling to see investigations such as these as anything other than a manifestation of ideological turf wars inside the executive branch.
Needless to say, I don't impute such views to all who could be classed as having 'neo-conservative' ideas or foreign policy views. But it is very much the case with this particular crew of neoconservative national security street-fighters who circulate in and out of government.
Along those lines, there is also a veritable smorgasbord of schadenfreude contained in this Times article on Richard Perle's latest troubles in the multiple investigations into Hollinger Inc.
Last we left this story, the report into the looting of the corporation had found that Hollinger was "an entity in which ethical corruption was a defining characteristic." And having found the management of the company to be such a model of integrity, the report went on to reserve its harshest criticisms for Perle, accusing him or "putting his own interests about those of Hollinger's shareholders" and "repeatedly breach[ing] his fiducicary duties."
Some passages seem worth quoting in their entirety ...
With the notable exception of Perle, none of Hollinger’s non-Black Group directors derived any financial or other improper personal benefits from their service on Hollinger’s Board. Unlike Black and Radler, Hollinger’s independent directors did not enrich themselves at the Company’s expense, did not misappropriate corporate opportunities belonging to Hollinger, and did not in any other way engage in self-dealing ... It is, of course, possible for a conflicted board member to act at least somewhat responsibly. As a conflicted executive committee member, however, Perle did not. Rather, his executive committee performance falls squarely into the 'head-in-the-sand' behavior that breaches a director's duty of good faith and renders him liable for damages.
In the latest turn of events, Perle has turned on Conrad Black. In a statement Perle released from his redoubt in the south of France, he now says that the conniving Black pulled the wool over his eyes. Perle of course was duped and given millions of dollars in the process, unlike the shareholders in the company who were duped and fleeced of their assets. So it seems things could be worse for him.
Along the lines noted at the head of this post, when I first heard about this, I was almost tempted to wonder when we'd hear that the Breedon Report -- the one which points such a finger of blame at Perle -- was actually a put up job by the Arabists at the CIA. But apparently this is a case where humor can't outrun sorry reality. In the words of the Times, "Mr. Perle's friends say that he is the victim of unjustified attacks that are motivated more by policy vendettas than substance."
And one other passage from the Times article that is worth noting ...
But others who have known Mr. Perle over the years say that he has been a consummate risk taker in both his business dealings and in some of the foreign policies he advocated, and that he ultimately may have been lured by millions of dollars in compensation and benefits to put aside ethical considerations, as the Breeden report concluded."Richard has always been willing to take the highest risks, playing for the highest stakes on policy issues over the years and often winning, but this is also really a story of being seduced by money," said Mr. Gelb, a former official at the State and Defense departments and a former columnist at The New York Times. "People in the foreign policy world do not make a lot of money. They go to think tanks, government, academe, and generally get $125,000 to $150,000 a year. When you are touched by lightning and manage to get into the inner sanctum to make money, the opportunities are delicious."
High-risk gamesmanship on other people's dime, cutting ethical and legal corners, blaming it on someone else when the racket goes south ... Sound like anything else Mr. Perle's been associated with recently?
--Josh Marshall
A number of readers have written in to ask why the interview with Ben Barnes did not appear this evening on 60 Minutes.
I've done no new reporting on this (nor heard anything new on this) since I wrote about it last Thursday. But my understand was always that the interview was slated to run on Sunday, September 12th. And I assume that's still the case.
--Josh Marshall
Send President Clinton a 'get well' note via the Clinton Foundation website.
Click here to see a message from the Clinton family.
--Josh Marshall
A note on polls: as of the day after the convention I'm told by what I believe to be reliable sources that the internal polls of both campaigns had President Bush up roughly four points on John Kerry.
Getting straight-up info on what each campaigns' own polls are telling them is inherently difficult. And I want to make clear that I have not seen the data with my own eyes. But I have heard this from sources (for each side) which I believe to be reliable. And I'm passing the information on on that caveat-ed basis.
--Josh Marshall
