Hardball had an interview with a former Colonel (I think in the Texas Air National Guard--I am fuzzy on the details) who claims that in 1997 he was ordered to retrieve Bush's file and that he overheard the persons who obtained the file saying that they wanted to remove anything that would embarass the Governor, and this fellow claimed he saw them throw portions (if not the whole file) in the trash.
I have no idea what to make of the story at this point, but if you missed the interview, you can catch the re-run. I expect more on the story tomorrow.
Posted by Steven Taylor at February 12, 2024 08:49 PM | TrackBackWas his name Colonel Kevin Drum?
Posted by: Paul at February 12, 2024 09:51 PMAnonomous persons? Overheard? Dems are getting REALLY desperate to keep this story alive.
Posted by: Director Mitch at February 12, 2024 10:32 PMHis official records are almost certainly at ARPC in Denver, Colorado or the records repository in the St Louis area where they tell you to go for old records of service. What the Texas Air National Guard still had left on-site about some lieutenant who honorably ended his service 25 years before probably wouldn't be enough for a fourth grader to write a school report on.
Posted by: Jem at February 13, 2024 06:47 AMIndeed-I know that there are allegedly at least 4 copies of everything that would go into such a file, so I was thinking last night that destroyed one file would hardly be sufficient.
Posted by: Steven at February 13, 2024 07:02 AMYes, yes. The military is so great that the SURELY wouldn't have granted him an honorable discharge. SURELY.
----
It materializes that during the Vietnam years, Guardsmen could acquire honorable discharges for breathing. Two excellent journalists, Lois Romano of the Washington Post and Walter Robinson of the Boston Globe, filed extended reports casting doubts on the White House account. (Robinson quoted Bush’s ostensible commanding officer from 1972 to the effect that he doesn’t remember Bush showing up.) Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote a column describing his own successful adventures in achieving National Guard honors for minimal effort.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/articles/ViewPopUpArticle.jsp?id=3&articleId=1730
Posted by: Stephen at February 13, 2024 12:06 PM