It just never stops....Bush has CLEARLY lied to the American people.
What really gets me, is that average Joe Republican thinks it's quite
all right...

Memos state Bush failed to meet standards, refused direct order

PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Thursday, September 9, 2004


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



(09-09) 08:05 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

Addressing questions that have lingered for years, newly unearthed
memos state that George W. Bush failed to meet standards of the Texas
Air National Guard during the Vietnam war, that he refused a direct
order and that his superiors were in a state of turmoil over how to
evaluate his performance after he was suspended from flying.

One military official "is pushing to sugar coat it," one memo says of
a proposed evaluation of Bush.

"On this date I ordered that 1st Lt. Bush be suspended from flight
status due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure
to meet annual physical examination ... as ordered," says an Aug. 1,
1972 memo by a superior officer, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who is now
dead. Killian said in the memo that he wanted a formal inquiry into
the circumstances surrounding the flight suspension. No records have
surfaced that one was ever conducted.

"I conveyed my verbal orders to commander," Killian's memo stated.

The same memo notes that Bush was trying to transfer to non-flying
status out of state and recommends that the Texas unit fill his flying
slot "with a more seasoned pilot from the list of qualified Vietnam
pilots that have rotated."

The Vietnam-era documents add details to the bare-bones explanation of
Bush's aides over the years that he was suspended simply because he
decided to skip his flight physical.

The White House said in February that it had released all records of
Bush's service, but one of Killian's memos stated it was "for record"
and another directing Bush to take the physical exam stated that it
was "for 1st Lt. George W. Bush."

"I can't explain why that wouldn't be in his record, but they were
found in Jerry Killian's personal records," White House communications
director Dan Bartlett told CBS's "60 Minutes II," which first obtained
the memos.

Bartlett said Bush's superiors granted permission to train in Alabama
in a non-flying status and that "many of the documents you have here
affirm just that."

A memo dated May 19, 1972, five days after Bush was supposed to have
completed his physical, summarizes a telephone discussion with Bush
about how he "can get out of coming to drill from now through
November." It says Bush was "told he could do ET for three months or
transfer." ET referred to equivalent training, a procedure for meeting
training requirements without attending regularly scheduled drills.

The same memo says "we talked abut him getting his flight physical
situation fixed" and quotes Bush as saying he would "do that in
Alabama if he stays in a flight status." It also says, "I advised him
of our investment in him and his commitment."

Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe said, "George W. Bush's
cover story on his National Guard service is rapidly unraveling. ...
George W. Bush needs to answer why he regularly misled the American
people about his time in the Guard and who applied political pressure
on his behalf to have his performance reviews 'sugarcoated"'

Bartlett told CBS, "As it says in your own documents, President Bush
talked to the commanders about the fact that he'd be transferring to a
unit ... in Alabama that didn't fly that plane," the F-102, the type
Bush was trained in.

Using only last names, one of the newly disclosed documents points to
sharp disagreement among Bush's superiors in Texas over how to
evaluate his performance for the period from mid-1972 through
mid-1973.

"Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush," Killian wrote
on Aug. 18, 1973. "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 comments from 187th in Alabama. I
will not rate." Grp refers to a military unit and OETR stands for
officer efficiency training report.

The memo concludes: "Harris took the call from Grp today. I'll
backdate but won't rate. Harris agrees."

At the time, Walter B. Staudt was commander of the Texas National
Guard; Lt. Col. Bobby Hodges was one of Bush's superiors in Texas who
two years earlier had rated Bush an outstanding young pilot; and Lt.
Col. William D. Harris Jr. was another superior of Bush's.

Records released this year when Bush's military service re-emerged as
a campaign issue contain no evidence that he showed up for duty at all
for five months in mid-1972 and document only a few occasions later
that year.

NOYB wrote:

Wouldn't it be something if it were discovered that those memos were faked?

Uh-oh...well, looky-he
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics....20040909d.html

'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) -


CNS is the "Christian News Service."

Try to find a news source that isn't sucking Bush's dick, or vice versa, eh?


--
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
And don't forget to pay your taxes so the rich don't have to!

"basskisser" wrote in message
om...
It just never stops....Bush has CLEARLY lied to the American people.
What really gets me, is that average Joe Republican thinks it's quite
all right...

Memos state Bush failed to meet standards, refused direct order

Wouldn't it be something if it were discovered that those memos were faked?

Uh-oh...well, looky-he
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics....20040909d.html

'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) - The 32-year-old documents produced Wednesday by the CBS News
program "60 Minutes," shedding a negative light on President Bush's service
in the Texas Air National Guard, may have been forged using a current word
processing program, according to typography experts.

Three independent typography experts told CNSNews.com they were suspicious
of the documents from 1972 and 1973 because they were typed using a
proportional font, not common at that time, and they used a superscript font
feature found in today's Microsoft Word program.

Harry Krause wrote:
NOYB wrote:

Wouldn't it be something if it were discovered that those memos were faked?

Uh-oh...well, looky-he
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics....20040909d.html

'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) -


CNS is the "Christian News Service."

Try to find a news source that isn't sucking Bush's dick, or vice versa, eh?



Excuse me, the right-wing-extremist Media Research Center, which sucks
Bush's dick and that of right-wing Christian extremists, and vice versa.



--
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
And don't forget to pay your taxes so the rich don't have to!

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Wouldn't it be something if it were discovered that those memos were
faked?

Uh-oh...well, looky-he

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics....20040909d.html

'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) -


CNS is the "Christian News Service."

Try to find a news source that isn't sucking Bush's dick, or vice versa,
eh?

Give it time, Harry. The liberal left eventually, but reluctantly starts
reporting on the truth once it hits the airwaves...or, in this case, the
internet.

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 19:23:36 +0000, NOYB wrote:


Wouldn't it be something if it were discovered that those memos were
faked?

This is not a comment on the authenticity of those documents, I'm not
making a judgment on them, just this election. There is so much
contradictory information out there, that everybody can select their
"truth". While it is not a surprise, we all knew this would be a hard
fought, dirty, campaign. Throw some mud, maybe it will stick. Cloud the
waters with disinformation. The Truth is absolute, but not in this
devolved election system.

"thunder" wrote in message
...
There is so much
contradictory information out there, that everybody can select their
"truth".


Which is precisely why Bush would rather make this election about each
candidate's actions or voting records as elected officials...not about
sketchy recollections and hearsay (and potentially forged documents) from 30
years ago.

For this reason, the Swiftboat guys were wrong to air the "John Kerry lied"
ads. It's their word against Kerry's and his supporters. However, the
Swifties are certainly entitled to replay Kerry's derogatory comments about
our troops. That's something that is part of the public record, and they
simply stated that he was wrong in making such comments.

"NOYB" wrote in message
link.net...

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Wouldn't it be something if it were discovered that those memos were
faked?

Uh-oh...well, looky-he


http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics....20040909d.html

'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) -


CNS is the "Christian News Service."

Try to find a news source that isn't sucking Bush's dick, or vice versa,
eh?

Give it time, Harry. The liberal left eventually, but reluctantly starts
reporting on the truth once it hits the airwaves...or, in this case, the
internet.


And right on cue, here is a report from ABC News:


False Documentation?
Questions Arise About Authenticity of Newly Found Memos on Bush's Guard
Service



http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Polit..._040909-1.html

"NOYB" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
link.net...

"Harry Krause" wrote in message
...
NOYB wrote:

Wouldn't it be something if it were discovered that those memos were
faked?

Uh-oh...well, looky-he



http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics....20040909d.html

'60 Minutes' Documents on Bush Might Be Fake
By Robert B. Bluey
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
September 09, 2004

(CNSNews.com) -


CNS is the "Christian News Service."

Try to find a news source that isn't sucking Bush's dick, or vice
versa,
eh?

Give it time, Harry. The liberal left eventually, but reluctantly
starts
reporting on the truth once it hits the airwaves...or, in this case, the
internet.


And right on cue, here is a report from ABC News:


False Documentation?
Questions Arise About Authenticity of Newly Found Memos on Bush's Guard
Service




http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Polit..._040909-1.html


Wow! And another "mainstream" non-Bush-dick-sucking news source has picked
up on the possibility that the memos were forged.
Page A1 of Friday's Washington Post!!!


Some Question Authenticity of Papers on Bush

By Michael Dobbs and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 10, 2004; Page A01


Documents unearthed by CBS News that raise doubts about whether President
Bush fulfilled his obligations to the Texas Air National Guard include
several features suggesting that they were generated by a computer or word
processor rather than a Vietnam War-era typewriter, experts said yesterday.

Experts consulted by a range of news organizations pointed out typographical
and formatting questions about four documents as they considered the
possibility that they were forged. The widow of the National Guard officer
whose signature is on the bottom of the documents also disputed their
authenticity.

The documents, which were shown Wednesday night on "60 Minutes II," bear
dates from 1972 and 1973 and include an order for Bush to report for his
annual physical exam and a discussion of how he could get out of "coming to
drill."

The dispute over the documents' authenticity came as Democrats stepped up
their criticism of Bush's service with the National Guard between 1968 and
1973. The Democratic National Committee sought to fuel the controversy
yesterday by holding a news conference at which Sen. Tom Harkin (Iowa)
pointed to the documents as a fresh indictment of Bush's credibility.

CBS News released a statement yesterday standing by its reporting, saying
that each of the documents "was thoroughly vetted by independent experts and
we are convinced of their authenticity." The statement added that CBS
reporters had verified the documents by talking to unidentified people who
saw them "at the time they were written."

CBS spokeswoman Kelli Edwards declined to respond to questions raised by
experts who examined copies of the papers at the request of The Washington
Post, or to provide the names of the experts CBS consulted. Experts
interviewed by The Post pointed to a series of telltale signs suggesting
that the documents were generated by a computer or word processor rather
than the typewriters in widespread use by Bush's National Guard unit.

A senior CBS official, who asked not to be named because CBS managers did
not want to go beyond their official statement, named one of the network's
sources as retired Maj. Gen. Bobby W. Hodges, the immediate superior of the
documents' alleged author, Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian. He said a CBS reporter
read the documents to Hodges over the phone and Hodges replied that "these
are the things that Killian had expressed to me at the time."

"These documents represent what Killian not only was putting in memoranda,
but was telling other people," the CBS News official said.
"Journalistically, we've gone several extra miles."

The official said the network regarded Hodges's comments as "the trump card"
on the question of authenticity, as he is a Republican who acknowledged that
he did not want to hurt Bush. Hodges, who declined to grant an on-camera
interview to CBS, did not respond to messages left on his home answering
machine in Texas.

In a telephone interview from her Texas home, Killian's widow, Marjorie
Connell, described the records as "a farce," saying she was with her husband
until the day he died in 1984 and he did not "keep files." She said her
husband considered Bush "an excellent pilot."

"I don't think there were any documents. He was not a paper person," she
said, adding that she was "livid" at CBS. A CBS reporter contacted her
briefly before Wednesday night's broadcasts, she said, but did not ask her
to authenticate the records.

If demonstrated to be authentic, the documents would contradict several
long-standing claims by the White House about an episode in Bush's National
Guard service in 1972, when he abruptly gave up flying and moved from Texas
to Alabama to take part in a political campaign. The CBS documents purport
to show that Killian, who was Bush's squadron commander, was unhappy with
Bush for his performance toward meeting his National Guard commitments and
resisted pressure from his superiors to "sugarcoat" the record.

After their initial airing on the "CBS Evening News" and "60 Minutes II"
programs Wednesday night, the documents were picked up by other news
organizations, including The Post. A front-page story in The Post yesterday
noted that CBS declined to provide details about the source of the
documents, the authenticity of which could not be independently confirmed.

On Wednesday evening, the White House e-mailed reporters copies of the
documents, as supplied by CBS, as well as the transcript of a CBS interview
with White House communications director Dan Bartlett rebutting allegations
that Bush had shirked his military duties. While Bartlett described the
emergence of the documents as "dirty politics," he did not dispute their
authenticity.

After doubts about the documents began circulating on the Internet yesterday
morning, 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.

CBS officials insisted that the network had done due diligence in checking
out the authenticity of the documents with independent experts over six
weeks. The senior CBS official said the network had talked to four
typewriting and handwriting experts "who put our concerns to rest" and
confirmed the authenticity of Killian's signature.

The doubts about the documents left the White House and the Bush campaign in
a state of suspended animation, with Bush aides encouraging doubts about the
documents but conceding that the possibility that they were forged seemed
too good to be true. White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said that
officials there had not attempted to authenticate the documents but simply
released copies "provided to us by CBS in the interests of openness."

The Bush administration's strategy yesterday was to let news organizations
raise doubts and conduct forensic examinations, without taking an official
position on whether the documents were genuine.

"It's clear in reviewing the documents that they do nothing to change the
fact that the president served honorably, and was proud of his service in
the Air National Guard," Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said.

Staff writer Howard Kurtz and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to
this report.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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----------------------------------

How delicious! Hehehe. And to think...a "right-wing" news source reported it
first.

On Thu, 09 Sep 2004 20:52:31 -0400, NOYB wrote:


Which is precisely why Bush would rather make this election about each
candidate's actions or voting records as elected officials...not about
sketchy recollections and hearsay (and potentially forged documents) from
30 years ago.

I don't believe it. IMO the Swiftboat's for Truth were a stalking horse
for Bush.

http://www.vendio.com/mesg/read.html...&thread=225375

For this reason, the Swiftboat guys were wrong to air the "John Kerry
lied" ads. It's their word against Kerry's and his supporters. However,
the Swifties are certainly entitled to replay Kerry's derogatory comments
about our troops. That's something that is part of the public record, and
they simply stated that he was wrong in making such comments.

I agree with McCain on this, *both* candidates did what their country
asked of them. The Swiftboat episode is an example of what I was
referring to. One could almost predict which "truth" each of us would
select.