One last thing about the non-story surrounding Kerry’s military records. An email tip from an alert reader, B.W., noticed that the Bush campaign prepared a bizarre attack on Kerry’s handling of the issue, culminating with this statement:
When Asked By Tim Russert On “Meet The Press” (2/8/04) To Release All His Records, The President Did So Immediately.
On Bush’s site, the sentence is bold and underlined, presumably to emphasize its significance.
I know the whole AWOL controversy is stale now, and I really had no intention of revisiting it, but this statement from Bush’s campaign is so breathtakingly false, I feel compelled to write about it.
After years of ignoring the story, the media started to express an interest in early February, starting with a Washington Post item on Feb. 3 that explained — in terribly polite terms — that Bush’s National Guard service is now “in question.”
That same week, Bush appeared on Meet the Press. After a lengthy exchange, Russert got Bush to commit:
Russert: Would you authorize the release of everything to settle this?
Bush: Yes, absolutely. We did so in 2000, by the way.
The idea that Bush released the documents in 2000 is a transparent lie, but let’s focus on the more recent falsehoods. The Bush campaign now says that the president acted “immediately” to release “all” of his records after this interview. This is resolutely untrue, even without a debate about the meaning of the word “immediately.”
Two days after Bush’s “yes, absolutely” promise, the White House took its first shot at complaince: It released some pay records, showing…that Bush got paid. This certainly wasn’t a full release of Bush’s records and they didn’t even bolster the president’s version of events. As Eric Boehlert explained at the time, “[T]he records, rather than providing definitive answers, only highlight clear, unexplained gaps in Bush’s service.”
Josh Marshall noted that Bush was clearly not keeping his word to release his service record.
The idea here is that the president waives his rights under the Privacy Act and tells the relevant authorities, ‘Release all my service records to whichever reporters or organizations want to see them.’
But he just refuses to do it.
The payment records out today do give some evidence of what the president was doing during the year in question. But to say they raise further questions is something of an understatement.
Three days after Bush’s “yes, absolutely” promise and under increasing pressure, the White House took its second shot: It released a few more pages of information, including a record of a dental exam in Alabama. At the same time, Bush aides effectively admitted that they were ignoring Bush’s nationally televised pledged. The Post reported, “Administration officials declined yesterday to commit to releasing further records, despite a statement Sunday by Bush on NBC that he would open his entire military file.”
Journalists asked why there were other medical records that were not released, but the White House refused comment. Reporters asked for an explanation for Bush’s missed physicals, but the White House refused comment. Everyone wondered why Bush’s failure to take a required physical didn’t prompt an investigation, but the White House refused comment.
Four days after Bush’s “yes, absolutely” promise, the Post said White House communications director Dan Bartlett “was emphatic that the White House had no immediate plans to open Bush’s entire file, which would include his Guard medical records.”
The evening of Feb. 13, almost a week after promising to release the full records, it was time for the White House’s third and final shot at helping Bush keep his promise. The White House released hundreds of documents to the press, including reports that Bush aides had claimed not to have a day earlier. Despite the document dump, the reports still showed several gaps in Bush’s alleged service and failed to provide any support to bolster Bush’s claim that he showed up for duty, as required, in Alabama in 1972.
That’s it. That’s where the story ends. There were plenty of unanswered questions, but the White House said they didn’t have any more documents to share, the press got bored, and the story died.
The Bush campaign looks at this series of events and wants the public to believe that Bush “released all his records…immediately.” Worse, they want us to believe that the two days it took Kerry’s campaign to review and release his records suggest some kind of dishonesty on Kerry’s part.
These people have no shame.