Bush faces pressure over drugs and draft

[bigtree]

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
08 September 2004

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=559273

After weeks in which John Kerry's military record has been picked to pieces, President George Bush now faces a double blast of scrutiny over his own past, raising new questions over his avoidance of the Vietnam draft and his alleged use of drugs.

The first salvo is due to be fired on CBS tonight, when Ben Barnes, a Democrat and the lieutenant governor of Texas in 1968, will explain his role in securing for the 22-year-old Yale graduate Bush a coveted place in the state's Air National Guard - a unit so full of the sons of Texas's rich and powerful that it was known as the "Champagne Unit".

The saga of the future President's failure to go to Vietnam has inevitably returned to the headlines here as counterpoint to the controversy over his opponent's war record, amid accusations by a group of veterans that Mr Kerry has lied over his service in Vietnam, for which he received five decorations.

In recent months Mr Barnes has said he feels "very ashamed" about helping Mr Bush and the sons of other prominent Texans, and is said to have told friends that he did it to "collect chits" from powerful families. In the interview he is expected to expand on these comments.

[cthrumatrix]

1. again .... provda america won't touch the story...

[Catfight]

2. What can we do to get the story out there? n/t

[Qutzupalotl]

3. 60 Minutes

either I or II, Wednesday or Sunday, will run this story (TANG). Last I heard it was 60 Minutes II tomorrow.