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In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.
But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.
He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.
On July 30, 1973, shortly before he moved from Houston to Cambridge, Bush signed a document that declared, ''It is my responsibility to locate and be assigned to another Reserve forces unit or mobilization augmentation position. If I fail to do so, I am subject to involuntary order to active duty for up to 24 months. . . " Under Guard regulations, Bush had 60 days to locate a new unit.
But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. ''I must have misspoke," Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview.
Well, now that we've, you know, determined Bartlett is a goddamn liar we can place all of his statements in the "to be verified" column.
...John Byrne of the Raw Story writes in:
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Chalk another one up for the bloggers.
Finally the mainstream media gives weight to what RAW STORY reported Aug 1, that President George W. Bush failed to adequately perform his service to the National Guard and was effectively absent without leave. The Globe story, which quotes Reagan Asst. Defense secretary at length, was RAW STORY’s primary source in their original Aug. 1 story. I actually personally called the story into the Globe the first week of August, and the following week, the Globe reporter who wrote their new ‘exclusive’ stopped returning my calls.
Sadly, neither RAW STORY nor, more importantly, Paul Lukasiak, the Philadelphia researcher who invested five months of his life doing the research on which the Globe story is based, are not mentioned. But everyone who’s been paying attention to the story knows who reported it first. Just thought you might throw in a link to our original story if/when you post the Globe link.