The story about Bush not fulfilling his National Guard responsibilities is hitting the news in a big way right now. I just don’t know how much it matters.
At this point, several things Bush has said about his service and related service files have either been proven false or brought into serious question. It’d take too long to report on everything that’s come out over the last week or so, but here are some highlights.
* The Boston Globe reported today, in one of the more definitive reports any outlet has done in four years, that Bush simply “fell well short of meeting his military obligations,” despite claims to the contrary.
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.
* The New York Times and the AP note that Bush has insisted that “all relevant documents” about his service have been available for years, but that these claims are now seen as obviously false.
* Former Texas House Speaker and Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes will appear on 60 Minutes tonight to explain how he pulled strings to get Bush into the Texas Guard in the first place, contradicting Bush’s version of events.
* A new group, Texans for Truth, will announce a TV ad campaign today reprising charges that Bush “failed to perform” his guard service.
* The New York Times’ Nick Kristoff talked to another one of Bush’s alleged former Guard colleagues who knows Bush is lying about showing up in Alabama in 1972.
President Bush claims that in the fall of 1972, he fulfilled his Air National Guard duties at a base in Alabama. But Bob Mintz was there – and he is sure Mr. Bush wasn’t.
Plenty of other officers have said they also don’t recall that Mr. Bush ever showed up for drills at the base. What’s different about Mr. Mintz is that he remembers actively looking for Mr. Bush and never finding him.
Mr. Mintz says he had heard that Mr. Bush – described as a young Texas pilot with political influence – had transferred to the base. He heard that Mr. Bush was also a bachelor, so he was looking forward to partying together. He’s confident that he’d remember if Mr. Bush had shown up.
“I’m sure I would have seen him,” Mr. Mintz said yesterday. “It’s a small unit, and you couldn’t go in or out without being seen. It was too close a space.” There were only 25 to 30 pilots there, and Mr. Bush – a U.N. ambassador’s son who had dated Tricia Nixon – would have been particularly memorable.
* There are also several questions Bush has refused to answer, misstatements that appear to be lies, documents about his service that have mysteriously gone missing, and people in Alabama who believe Bush is even lying about his transfer to Alabama in 1972 in order to work on a Senate campaign.
And so on. This is the kind of work the media should have done four years ago, when Bush’s claims about military service were just as dubious and Democrats were begging anyone with press credentials to explore a record riddled with holes, half-truths, and demonstrable deceptions. Four years later, reporters are catching up. I’m glad, but it’s a little late.
It’s amusing, at a certain level, how Bush’s controversy is the polar opposite of Kerry’s. Kerry had partisan hacks making things up. His attackers’ charges were literally baseless and had no foundation in fact and yet they dogged him for weeks, dominated political discourse, caused a drop in the polls, and threw the campaign off track, despite the fact that the public record and direct eye witnesses argued vehemently in support of Kerry.
The charges against Bush, meanwhile, are deeply rooted in fact. Public documents point to a man who didn’t fulfill his duties in a time of war. Direct eye witnesses offer reports that strongly suggest Bush is lying. Countless Bush statements about his service have been undercut by a military record that completely contradicts the man’s rhetoric. People who would have seen him performing his duties never saw him. Bush and his supporters can offer no proof, documents, photographs, or anything else to bolster the president’s shaky claims.
The president, in short, simply hasn’t told the truth about his service. He had an obligation to the National Guard and he chose not to fulfill it. It’s as simple as that.
I guess the biggest question for me at this point is whether any of this is going to have an impact on the presidential race. Do voters care that the commander in chief has misled the public about his military service? I guess we’re about to find out.