Trolling for Truth

Bob Fertik
February 12, 2004
http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=330

On Tuesday, Scott McClellan was relentlessly challenged by the White House press corps over Bush's AWOL, as David Corn brilliantly documents. On Wednesday, McClellan launched a counter-offensive. According to FOX News, McClellan started the day by declaring:

"I think what you're seeing is gutter politics. The American people deserve better. There are some who are not interested in the facts. They are simply trolling for trash" for political gain.

The counter-attack was echoed at the Bush-Cheney campaign, where Terry Holt claimed the only people asking about this are "Socialist" Michael Moore and "Political Hack" Terry McAuliffe. McClellan insists that the White House was not getting into the politics of this issue, but it is directly coordinating its strategy with the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Amazingly, even FOX noted the contradiction between McClellan's Wednesday stonewalling, only days after George Bush's weekend promise to release "everything":

Bush said in a television interview over the weekend that he would be willing to open up his entire military file, and would "absolutely" be willing to authorize the release of anything that would settle the controversy over his service in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan appeared to step back from that pledge, telling reporters: "If there is new information that comes to our attention we will let you know - if it's relevant to this issue."

During McClellan's Wednesday afternoon briefing, the AWOL question came up again. And seven times, McClellan repeated his mantra-du-jour: "trolling for trash."

For McClellan, "this issue" is very narrow: was Bush AWOL or a Deserter?

But for the American people, "this issue" is whether Bush is telling the truth about his military service, or lying once again.

For McClellan, the answer to "this issue" begins and ends with the "pay" records he released on Tuesday - records that do not show Bush actually reported for duty in Alabama or Texas after April 1972, no matter how McClellan tries to spin them.

But for McClellan, any attempt to examine these documents in greater detail - or to find out what Bush actually did after April 1972 - is "trolling for trash."

By accident, McClellan may have revealed the "trash" that really scares the White House. A NY Daily News reporter named Elisabeth innocently asked McClellan about Bush's failed flight physical - which is at the heart of explanation for why Bush went AWOL in April 1972.

One of the questions that remain after the release of the documents yesterday involves the President's physical in 1972. Are you guys talking about what happened there and why he didn't take --

McClellan interrupted her repeatedly, refused to answer her question, and repeated his "trolling for trash" and "gutter politics" mantras five times.

Clearly, Elisabeth struck a raw nerve.

Hey Scott, let's get something straight: we are the taxpayers who pay your salary. You work for us, as you will quickly discover if you are handed a subpoena. And we, the taxpayers, are trolling for truth.

So when you accuse us of "gutter politics" and "trolling for trash," we're not going to be intimidated. In fact, you're just inspiring us to dig deeper into the facts you want to hide: lies, dirty tricks, drinking, drugs, arrests, coverups, and criminal conspiracy.

Lies

The central lie begins with George W. Bush's campaign biography, "A Charge to Keep," in which he said that after completing his flight training, ''I continued flying with my unit for the next several years."

The truth is, Bush only flew for 22 months before he walked away from his plane. And he never flew in a military jet again - until he landed on the deck of the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003 and declared the "end of major combat operations" in front of a massive sign that read "Mission Accomplished" that he insisted was not produced by a White House staffer.

In May 2000, Walter Robinson of the Boston Globe was the first reporter to discover that Bush's biography was a lie. And ever since, Robinson and the rest of us have been "trolling for truth."

Dirty Tricks

We know Bush wasn't flying in Alabama because he was grounded. So what was he doing?

Bush was working for Republican Senate candidate Winston Blount, who was challenging incumbent Democratic Senator John Sparkman. According to  Gynn Wilson,

Bush was recruited for the Blount campaign by another Texan and Bush family friend named Jimmy Allison.

In several documented accounts, Allison is described as the original Republican political pro who may have inspired Lee Atwater, Ronald Reagan's gung-ho political director, and Karl Rove, who is credited with orchestrating Bush's successful run for the White House in 2000.

It's no surprise to learn that Bush was involved with dirty tricks. Allison's counterpart, Lewis Odom, was running Sparkman's campaign. Odom, a veteran, had served as a JAG officer in Korea and as a member of the Alabama Air National Guard. And Odom remembers the dirty tricks. According to  Glynn Wilson,

Sparkman was forced to deny a series of false charges linking him with McGovern, the South Dakota presidential candidate who became the first in the modern era to be tainted and stomped as a "liberal." The pamphlet distributed to campaign workers and leaked to the press charged Sparkman with favoring drastic defense cuts, big federal spending, abandoning American POWs in Vietnam, a guaranteed wage for every American, relaxing drug laws, amnesty for draft dodgers and "forced busing."

The Birmingham News ran the transcript of the doctored radio tape on November 6, the day before the election, which made it appear Sparkman was in favor of busing black and white children miles across towns to "mix" the public schools. The literature of the campaign echoed the winning conservative Senate race of Ed Gurney in Florida, also dreamed up by Allison and company. Blount's campaign, awash in cash with twice the money of Sparkman's, paid for billboards across the state proclaiming: "A vote for Red Blount is a vote against forced busing . . . against coddling criminals . . . against welfare freeloaders."

That's pretty nasty stuff, if you ask us. Was Bush practicing "gutter politics"? We report, you decide.

Drinking and Drugs

When Bush wasn't engaging in dirty tricks, he was busy drinking - and allegedly doing illegal drugs too. According to Glynn Wilson,

Those who encountered Bush in Alabama remember him as an affable social drinker who acted younger than his 26 years. Referred to as George Bush, Jr. by newspapers in those days, sources say he also tended to show up late every day, around noon or one, at Blount's campaign headquarters in Montgomery. They say Bush would prop his cowboy boots on a desk and brag about how much he drank the night before.

They also remember Bush's stories about how the New Haven, Connecticut police always let him go, after he told them his name, when they stopped him "all the time" for driving drunk as a student at Yale in the late 1960s. Bush told this story to others working in the campaign "what seemed like a hundred times," says Red Blount's nephew C. Murphy Archibald, now an attorney in Charlotte, N.C., who also worked on the Blount campaign and said he had "vivid memories" of that time.

"He would laugh uproariously as though there was something funny about this. To me, that was pretty memorable, because here he is, a number of years out of college, talking about this to people he doesn't know," Archibald said. "He just struck me as a guy who really had an idea of himself as very much a child of privilege, that he wasn't operating by the same rules."

...

Many of those who came into close contact with Bush say he liked to drink beer and Jim Beam whiskey, and to eat fist-fulls of peanuts, and Executive burgers, at the Cloverdale Grill. They also say he liked to sneak out back for a joint of marijuana or into the head for a line of cocaine.

According to Cathy Donelson, a daughter of old Montgomery but one of the toughest investigative reporters to work for newspapers in Alabama over the years, the 1960s came to Old Cloverdale in the early 1970s about the time of Bush's arrival.

"We did a lot of drugs in those days," she said. "The 1970s are a blur."

...

 The gap in Bush's military records for 1972, and his lack of a full answer to the question about his drug use, generated stories during the 2000 campaign. Bush refused for months to say whether he had ever used illegal drugs. Then he changed his stance, according to the Boston Globe, saying he had not used illegal drugs "since 1974."

Does that mean he used drugs in 1974, 1973, 1972, and earlier?

For Lt. Bush, alcohol and drug abuse suddenly became a career-threatening problem in April 1972 - the exact month he stopped flying. That was the month when the National Guard announced the start of random drug tests.

It appears Lt. Bush faced a tough choice, possibly a defining choice for his life: partying or flying?

As the record makes clear, he did not choose flying.

In May 1972, Bush asked for a transfer to a non-flying ANG unit in Alabama. Was that just an accident? Or did Bush deliberately request a transfer to a non-flying unit so he could stop... flying? 

That transfer was approved by Bush's officer buddies in Houston, but rejected by officers in Washington who were trying to keep expensively trained pilots flying to defend America's borders.

Soon came July 6, 1972, when Bush should have reported to a military surgeon in Texas or Alabama for his annual flight physical. But something happened: either Bush took the physical and failed it, or he just didn't show up. Either way, he knew he would be grounded. He made his choice.

Elisabeth wants to know why. But McClellan says "sorry Elisabeth, you're 'trolling for trash.'"

Arrests

Bush was no stranger to the inside of a jail room. He was arrested at least twice while at Yale - once for stealing a Christmas decoration in New Haven, and once for pulling down a goalpost at a Princeton game. He was also arrested in 1974 for DUI in Kennebunkport Maine, which triggered a media frenzy at the end of the 2000 campaign - and caused him to lose the popular vote nationally, after leading in all the pre-election polls.

When Bush entered the National Guard in 1968 he was not yet completely above the law, so he had to list his prior arrests. How many were there? We don't know yet, because these entries have been blacked out in response to every FOIA request. If Bush wants to honor his promise to Tim Russert to release "everything," he could easily waive his privacy protections so the military could release "unredacted" records.

Bush's pre-Guard arrest record is important. According to USA Today,

The nature of what was blacked out in Bush's records is important because certain legal problems, such as drug or alcohol violations, could have been a basis for denying an applicant entry into the Guard or pilot training. Admission to the Guard and to pilot school was highly competitive at that time, the height of the Vietnam War.
But the release of 1968 records will not answer the big mystery: whether Bush was arrested in 1972-3 in Alabama or Texas. According to Glynn Wilson,

Two books now contain the charge that Bush was arrested for possession of cocaine in 1972 in Texas, most likely in late November or December after his stint in Alabama. Bush was allowed to perform community service in 1973 by working for a minority children's program in Houston, Professionals United for Leadership League (PULL), chaired by his father. The record of that arrest was expunged, meaning he apparently received the equivalent of Youthful Offender status at the age of 26.

One of these books was J.H. Hatfield's 1999 biography "Fortunate Son," which claimed "Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972, but had his record expunged with help from his family's political connections." Hatfield cited sources close to Bush, specifically Karl Rove and Clay Johnson. Hatfield's shocking revelations led to a vicious counterattack by the Bush campaign, including the leaking of Hatfield's own criminal record, which persuaded St. Martin's press to destroy all copies of the book. ("Fortunate Son" was then reissued by Sander Hicks' Softskull Press, but the saga ended in tragedy with Hatfield's suicide in July 2001. The story was poignantly told in the documentary "Horns and Halos.")

Hatfield's claim was seconded by Toby Rogers in January 2000:

In an April 1998 interview with Houston Public News reporter Toby Rogers, former President George Bush's Chief of Staff Michael C. Dannenhauer2 admitted that G. W. Bush "was out of control since college. There was cocaine use, lots of women, but the drinking was the worst." According to Dannenhauer, Bush's use of cocaine started "sometime before 1977" and that former President Bush told him that George W. even experienced some "lost weekends in Mexico." 

The Dannenhauer admission was published in a Web magazine called The Greenwich Village Gazette on September 13, 1999. However, the story, which did not mention Dannenhauer by name, was pulled only hours after going up because of fear of lawsuits and the publisher's worry about there not being a second source for George W. Bush's cocaine use. 

In October 1999, Dannenhauer denied he had given the interview to Rogers, then called the charges attributed to him "a total lie."

Bush likes to brag about his work with these children, which is apparently the only community service work he ever performed. But Americans are prohibited from knowing the circumstances by which he ended up working in this program, and whether it was alternative service for an arrest. Of course there are no court records to look at, since the powerful Bush family could arrange for them to be sealed or purged. The only trace might have been recorded on his driver's license. But that trace disappeared when Bush issued himself a brand new driver's license when he became Texas governor in 1995.

Coverups

If Bush was indeed arrested - and had his records scrubbed - that would be consistent with events throughout his entire life. Bush has been linked to innumerable scandals - from his youthful arrests, to his insider trading at Harken (infinitely worse than Martha Stewart's alleged crime), to the warnings he received about September 11.

But each time the records were scrubbed so no traces could be found. Indeed, record scrubbing is an integral part of the Bush family history, including grandfather Prescott Bush's dealing with the Nazi's during World War II and George Herbert Walker Bush's role in numerous scandals, including the sale of WMD's to Saddam Hussein during the Reagan and Bush administrations (Iraqgate), and the Iran-Contra scandal.

That is why reporters are having so much trouble "trolling for the truth" about Bush's military record - and why the story won't go away until the truth is found.

At the moment, reporters around the country are looking for hard evidence. While McClellan believes his "pay" records answer all questions, pay records prove nothing. As Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen made clear, Guardsmen were getting paid for service they did not perform.

Moreover, Bush's records are contradictory, since he received retirement points and possibly pay for "duty" in his 5th and 6th years, but that "duty" never appeared on his service record - and no one saw him perform it.

The definitive records would be the sign-in sheets that every Guardsman must sign for every half-day of duty. Where are these?

Criminal Conspiracy

According to two witnesses, Bush's records were scrubbed while Bush was Governor of Texas, in preparation for his run for President. Today the Dallas Morning News reported:

Retired National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett said Tuesday that in 1997, then-Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, told the National Guard chief to get the Bush file and make certain "there's not anything there that will embarrass the governor."

Col. Burkett said that a few days later at Camp Mabry in Austin, he saw Mr. Bush's file and documents from it discarded in a trash can. He said he recognized the documents as retirement point summaries and pay forms.

This is an extremely serious charge - a conspiracy to alter federal records. And it brought a firm rebuttal from each of the accused:

Bush aides denied any destruction of records in Mr. Bush's personnel file. "The charges are just flat-out not true," said Dan Bartlett, White House communications director.

Mr. Allbaugh, now a Washington lobbyist, called Col. Burkett's assertions "hogwash."

"The alleged discussion never happened," said James, who appointed by the president in 2002 to lead the Air National Guard. "I have never been involved in, nor would I condone any discussion or any action to falsify any record in any circumstance for anyone."

Later in the story, Burkett provided more details:

Col. Burkett, who has voted in both GOP and Democratic primaries in the past, said he was disturbed over how the Bush file was handled. He initially made his assertions on a Web site two years ago, and they are reported in detail in a forthcoming book, Bush's War for Re-Election, by James Moore.

"I would like it that everybody sees the honest and fair picture here," he said.

According to Col. Burkett, he was at headquarters in the summer 1997 when he heard the conversation between Gen. James and Mr. Allbaugh. He said the Guard commander had the conversation about eliminating "embarrassments" on a speakerphone.

About 10 days later, he said, he saw Texas Gen. John Scribner going through the Bush file.

"I looked down and saw files on the table and of that sort of stuff, and in the wastecan there is a retirement points document that has the name Bush, George W. lLt on it," he said. "There were both originals and Xerox copies in the stack."

Gen. Scribner, now retired, denied the episode. "I sure don't know anything about what he's talking about," he said.

Burkett provided more details to USA Today, which contacted the participants for more details, and ran into a buzzsaw:

In an interview, Burkett said he recalled Allbaugh's words: "We certainly don't want anything that is embarrassing in there." Burkett said he immediately told two other officers about the conversation and noted it in a daily journal he kept. The two officers, George Conn and Dennis Adams, confirmed to USA TODAY in 2002 that Burkett told them of the conversation within days.

Soon afterward, there was a series of meetings of top commanders at Texas Guard headquarters at Camp Mabry. Bush's records were carried between the base archives and the headquarters building, according to Burkett and the second Guard official, who was there.

The meetings were confirmed in a 2002 interview by USA TODAY with William Leon, who was the state Guard's freedom-of-information officer in the 1990s. He was involved in discussions about what to release. Leon declined to comment on the substance of the meetings except to say, "We were making sure we released it properly and made sure we did it in a timely manner."

Contacted at home Wednesday night, he refused to talk to a reporter. He said: "Don't ever call me again at home. I'll call your publisher and sue you."

Burkett's story is also confirmed by Warrant Officer Harvey Gough (ret.), who says Dan Bartlett and Danny James scrubbed "quite a bit. I think all his time in Alabama."

Bush's files were tampered with in 1999 by Col. Albert Lloyd Jr. (ret.), who wrote a memo analyzing Bush's new "pay" documents.

Bush's files were altered in 2000, when Democrats.com received an "untorn" version of the "torn" document. As Democrats.com wrote in AWOL-Gate on 2-10-2004,

It is also possible that Bush's records were tampered with in 1972-73 - and that Bush was illegally given credit for duty he never performed.

After reviewing the powerful positions of those implicated in this conspiracy, Democrats.com called upon George W. Bush to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate tampering with his official military documents from 1972 until the present.

Fending off the Press

Faced with a demanding press corps, the White House is desperately searching for any shred of evidence it can find.

Early Wednesday, the Moonie-owned Washington Times found an old girlfriend from the Alabama campaign, Emily Marks Curtis:

After that election, she said, Mr. Bush returned to Texas. A few weeks later, he telephoned to say he was returning to Montgomery to complete drilling days at an Alabama squadron to which he had been transferred that year.
It has been standard procedure for many years for National Guard units to excuse members from scheduled drills for employment reasons, with the stipulation that missed drill time be made up.
"He called to tell me he was coming back to finish up his National Guard duty," said Mrs. Curtis, who now lives in New Orleans. "I can say categorically he was there, and that's why he came back."
She said that he rented an apartment for a two-week stay and that she met him for dinner several times.
"I didn't see him go to work. I didn't see him come home from work," she said. "He told me that was why he was in Montgomery. There is no other reason why he would come back to Montgomery."

Of course this is just hearsay - not evidence - but it's a nice try. But the alibi doesn't work: why would Bush rent an apartment for two weeks and then serve only 4 days from Nov. 11-14? It's just as likely that Bush had another girlfriend from the campaign, and didn't tell Emily about her.

Late Wednesday, McClellan announced the discovery of records of a dental exam record in Alabama on Jan. 6, 1973. This raised a new set of questions:

• Did Bush go back to Alabama after the Christmas holidays, when he got drunk with his 16-year-old brother Marvin and challenged his father to go "mano a mano"? If so, this is the first time that trip has ever been mentioned. According to the Washington Post, Bush was in Houston "shortly after Christmas" working for Project P.U.L.L. (see above).
• January duty in Alabama would conflict with the permission he sought and received for Alabama service, which was only for Sept-Nov. After that period, he was expected to return to his home base in Houston.
• According to former ANG pilot Robert A. Rogers, National Guard personnel are not entitled to dental services by military doctors. "For the ordinary Guardsman, this would be illegal and subject to disciplinary action." Was Bush punished for this? This is one more reason why we need to see Bush's disciplinary records.
• If the "pay" records are accurate and Bush got paid for Guard duty on Jan. 6, did his actual duty consist of getting a dental exam? The media wants to know what Bush did after he stopped flying - this could be a perfect symbol of Bush's last two years.

• We know he was grounded by verbal orders on August 1, 1972, for not taking his flight physical. On September 29, 1972, official written orders issued by a major general confirmed the grounding, and, most important,  ordered him to take a flight physical: "Off[icer] will comply with para[graph] 2-10, AFM 35-13." There is no evidence he ever complied with the order.  Did he have time to go for a dental exam but no time to carry out a lawful order?  In fact, there is no evidence that he ever complied with this order, even after he returned to Texas sometime in the winter 1972, after the candidate he was working for lost the election.

Still, there is a useful aspect to the dental records story: it was part of Bush's medical records, which are clearly now in the hands of the White House. These records could help answer the persistent questions about Bush's failed physical and his alcohol and drug abuse. Of course, there's one catch: the White House refuses to release them. Instead, they had Bush's current doctor declare Bush was "fit" for service. Sure he was - when he was sober!

Conclusion

The researchers who are "trolling for truth" have exposed a trail of lies, dirty tricks, drinking, drugs, arrests, coverups, and criminal conspiracy.

As we get closer and closer to the truth - especially the truth about Bush's failed physical and his grounding from flight - Scott McClellan will attack us even harder.

We will find the truth soon. Whether Bush will remain in office afterwards remains to be seen.