The story started innocently enough. In February, Tim Russert asked the president if he would release his full military record to settle the controversy over whether he fulfilled his obligations to the National Guard. Bush said, “Yes, absolutely. We did so in 2000, by the way.”
The second sentence was a transparent falsehood, and as it turns out, so was the first.
It’s been almost amusing to see records, which were allegedly released four years ago, trickle out of the White House at unusual times the last several months. And when I say “unusual,” I mean Friday afternoon document dumps in which Bush aides give reporters a ton of unorganized records that explain very little.
This past Friday was no exception.
The latest document dump came on — when else? — Friday night. The release of undesirable news late on a Friday had been a cliché even before the Bush administration, but now it’s downright tired and hackneyed.
The latest documents — the third of Bush Guard files since the White House said in February that all had been released — shed little light on the question of Bush’s service.
Of course not. At this point, however, the only thing less helpful than these carefully selected documents is the information coming from the White House press secretary.
Way back in late April, two months after Bush said he’d release his full record, which was allegedly already available, Scott McClellan wanted the world to know that this was a done deal. “[I]t’s been fully addressed,” McClellan said, “and all the records have been released.”
Once again, not even close to being true. This time, however, McClellan has a new scapegoat.
Though it sounds to some like stonewalling, the routine appearance of supposedly nonexistent documents is more likely the result of a less-than-enthusiastic search by Defense Department officials under orders from White House officials who are less than eager to have new documents discovered.
In his briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan expressed some irritation with the Pentagon, saying that “they didn’t do as comprehensive a search as we had requested” for files related to Bush’s Air National Guard service.
It’s not McClellan’s fault that he keeps saying things that aren’t true; it’s the Pentagon’s fault for searching in a way that isn’t “comprehensive” enough.
The “excuse presidency” theme is looking more apt all the time.