Nice detailed expose:
Meanwhile, recent questions have surfaced not only about Bush's military service, but his official records. "I think some documents were taken out" of his military file, the Boston Globe's Robinson tells Salon. "And there's at least one document that appears to have been inserted into his record in early 2000." That document -- the aforementioned torn page that did not have Bush's full name on it -- plays a central role in the story.
"His records have clearly been cleaned up," says author James Moore, whose upcoming book, "Bush's War for Re-election," will examine the issue of Bush's military service in great detail. Moore says as far back as 1994, when Bush first ran for governor of Texas, his political aides "began contacting commanders and roommates and people who would spin and cover up his Guard record. And when my book comes out, people will be on the record testifying to that fact: witnesses who helped clean up Bush's military file."
....
While co-moderating the Democratic debate, ABC News' Jennings was sure he knew the facts about Bush's military record. But as the Daily Howler noted, a search of the LexisNexis electronic database indicates that ABC's "World News Tonight," hosted by Jennings, never once during the 2000 campaign ran a report about the questions surrounding Bush's military record. Asked if ignoring the story was a mistake, and whether ABC News planned to pursue it in 2004, a network spokeswoman told Salon, "We continue to examine the records of all the candidates running for president, including President Bush. If and when we have a story about one of the candidates, we'll report it to our audience."
ABC was not alone in turning away from the story in 2000. CBS News did the same thing, and so did NBC News. But it was the New York Times, and the way the paper of record avoided the issue of Bush's no-show military service, that stands out as the most unusual. To this day, the Times has never reported that in 1972 the Texas Air National Guard grounded Bush for failing to take a required physical exam. Nor has the paper ever reported that neither Bush nor his aides can point to a single person who saw Bush, the hard-to-miss son of a congressman and U.S. ambassador, perform any active duty requirements during the final 18 months of his service. Instead, the Times served up stories that failed to delve deep into the issue.
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more here:
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/02/05/national_guard/You have to click through some advertisement pages to get to the URL of the full story above.....
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