Reply #17: link - Interview With Terry McAuliffe [View All]

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http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0402/20/nfcnn.03.html

<snip>BLITZER: Button up the whole AWOL issue for us. You made a strong accusation the President was AWOL when he was in the Texas Air National Guard during the period of months when he was serving in Alabama.

MCAULIFFE: Right.

BLITZER: We've now gotten all these documents, hundreds of pages released by the White House. Everybody has gone through it, all the major news organizations. We see no smoking gun evidence that he was AWOL at all. So the question is, was it a mistake for you to make that accusation against the President?

MCAULIFFE: Absolutely not. And as I remind you, that was a response to an attack on Senator Kerry, where I answered that question that we will not stand around and let these people attack our potential nominee or any of our candidates. They released hundreds of documents. None of them showed that he was in Alabama when he should have been in Alabama. snip

MCAULIFFE: If he showed up for a weekend to get free dental care, you know, big deal. He was there for seven months. Wolf, it goes to the credibility.

BLITZER: Well, wait a minute. The whole issue is that there's a colonel who was there who says he remembers seeing him, having lunch with him at least half a dozen times when he was serving in the Air National Guard in Alabama. Is that eyewitness testimony not enough?

MCAULIFFE: The New York Times last week had 10 people who were in his unit who said he wasn't there. His own commanding officers, both commanding officers, one in Texas, who was a family friend, guess what? He said, "I never saw him." This was a family friend.

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