Going AWOL: Why did the media wait 7 months to reveal ‘truth’ about Bush’s National Guard service?

[UCmeNdc]

new movie starring Robert Redford and Cate Blanchett resurrects an incident the Bush family wishes would disappear for good — the scandal surrounding George W. Bush going AWOL.

“Truth” examines the controversial report 60 Minutes II aired in September 2004 that detailed George W. Bush’s failure to report for duty while serving as a pilot in the National Guard. “Truth” is also the story of how Dan Rather’s career ended at CBS.

Rachel Maddow detailed part of that story in a lengthy segment aired on MSNBC on Wednesday evening, which you should watch below:


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/10/going-awol-why-did-the-media-wait-7-months-to-reveal-truth-about-bushs-national-guard-service/

[katmondoo]

1. I am seeing the movie tomorrow

[randys1]

2. I will wait to see movie, I wish we could find the person who planted that doc on

Rather, or was it legit in the first place?

If this is answered in movie, dont tell me please.

Does America know that it was proven ABSOLUTELY to both Bush and Cheney 3 weeks before they invaded that their WMD intel source was lying to them? So they KNEW their main source for this intel was lying to them...

Invaded anyway.

Do you all know that?

[TexasProgresive]

4. I believe it was a copy of the real doc

This is the epitome of Rovian misdirection. Put the truth out in a way that can be discredited. That way everyone says, "Oh! There's nothing to it." Bush in my mind is still AWOL and a deserter to boot.

[Stardust]

13. I read that perhaps the original document was scanned and the OCR reproduced it in modern type.

Makes sense to me, but I've never heard that scenario confirmed. I will definitely go see that movie, it looks great. Redford and Blachett--my dream team.

[REPUguy]

5. If I'm not mistaken...

There was a lot of discussion about that around here at the time. I could be wrong but was their source named Curveball?

I was a lurker for a very long time around here before signing up.

[Brother Buzz]

8. If I'm not mistaken...

ginned up bogus WMD intel was Curveball's bailiwick.

[REPUguy]

9. That's what I thought

I was replying to this question from randys1.

"Does America know that it was proven ABSOLUTELY to both Bush and Cheney 3 weeks before they invaded that their WMD intel source was lying to them? So they KNEW their main source for this intel was lying to them... "

[Brother Buzz]

10. If I'm not mistaken...

My reading comprehension is questionable.

It's all good.

[pinboy3niner]

17. :)

[drray23]

3. the media did not wait

This was the top story in 2004. Back then, the exact same allegations were asserted by Dan Rather. AS Rachel explained yesterday, this went on for several months until it was derailed by deflecting the story towards whether or not a set of document shown by Rather was forged or not.

The media attention turned to that instead of the more substantive question of whether or not Bush breached his contract with the national guard. Classic textbook case on how politicians manipulate the media to redirect the narrative away from them.

[deathrind]

6. One of the best points,

Made by Dan Rather in TRMS segment lastnight was the fact that bush's team during this episode about his being awol never attacked the facts of his absence only the so called "forged" documents. The same goes for M. Moores film about bush. The facts were never challenged not in the news or in the courts over that film all they did was attack Moore. You would think that if Rather or Moore had made up things out of thin air about bush lawsuits would have ensued and proof of there being any lies would have been produced but niether happened.

[beac]

16. Agreed.

Here's the link to that interview for anyone else who would like t see it: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/rather-hits-faithless-cbs-on-bush-scandal-554415683914

[spanone]

7. K&R...

[Brother Buzz]

11. Is the mystery man, James Bath mentioned in the film?

http://www.salon.com/2004/04/28/james_bath/

[mnhtnbb]

12. I hope the movie plays in a theater near us. I'd love to see it.

[Vincardog]

14. It seems to me that they waited at least 16 YEARS too long

[UTUSN]

15. Bingo!1 To this day it's buried by the distraction of the "documents".

*********QUOTE********

http://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/truth-or-consequences/

[font size=5]Truth or Consequences[/font]

May 2012 By Joehagan

.... And that (1996) is when a mysterious document began circulating in Austin that would serve as the Rosetta stone of the Bush National Guard controversy. The document, a single-page letter written by an anonymous author and addressed to a U. S. attorney, described an alleged secret deal struck between George W. Bush and Ben Barnes in which Barnes agreed to withhold the story of getting the governor into the Guard in exchange for Bush’s securing the GTECH contract against competing bidders.

The memo fingered a Bush aide named Reggie Bashur as the one who brokered the alleged quid pro quo: “Bashur was sent to talk to Barnes who agreed never to confirm the story and the Governor talked to (Miers) two days later and she then agreed to support letting GTech keep the contract without a bid.” And indeed, the previous summer, Miers had renewed the GTECH contract without a bid, against the wishes of state Republicans. ....

... One year after the fateful 60 Minutes segment aired, two FBI agents paid a visit to the Manhattan apartment of Larry Littwin, the former Lottery Commission executive director. If he were cleared to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the agents asked, what might he say about (Harriett) Miers’s invovement with GTECH during her time as chair of the commission? According to Jerome Corsi, who had resurfaced, post-Kerry, as one of Miers’s fiercest critics, what Littwin proposed to allege was quite a lot: that more than $160,000 in legal fees Miers collected from Bush in the nineties were a de facto payoff for maintaining the quid pro quo agreement with Ben Barnes and GTECH.

Regardless of the legitimacy of these allegations, White House officials were paying attention, in part because they were coming from the right. Miers’s nomination was already in deep trouble by the time Littwin emerged. But Corsi remains convinced to this day that the threat of Littwin’s testimony was the last straw for Miers. According to him, it was the GTECH deal, and not the CBS memos, that could have been the real smoking gun against Bush. “The day after they validated that Littwin was going to be called to the Senate Judiciary Committee, that’s when she pulled her nomination,” Corsi told me. ....

*************UNQUOTE*************

[Atman]

18. The Occum's Razor part...

Why on Earth would a respected news organization (at least up until this fiasco), and respected journalists, go out of their way to fabricate such a story? Why involve so many top journalists in their scam? What did they have to gain? Why was it so important to them to make up so-called phony documents and take the risk of this all blowing up in their faces -- for what?

Occum's Razor; the simplest explanation is likely true. "

Among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected.

The explanation with the fewest assumptions is that the son of a Senator/former CIA director Bush was allowed to go AWOL during the nasty, terrible, icky Vietnam war, when rich kids of privilege were doing this all the time. It's far more plausible than that an entire news organization conspired to create a bogus document to air on its Sunday news show.