Memos Show Bush Suspended From Flying

[Calif. Hunter]

The latest I heard on the radio was that the Democrats were blaming Carl Rove for "tricking them" into using forged documents. LMAO!

 

[wyomingtim]

HAHAAAAA. That is about the weakest cop out I have heard. Of course, if it is true, what suckers.

 

[feclnogn]

Were these documents the one's which were just released, the ones the pentagon just discovered?? There are folks in the pentagon who are political, who support the Dems and could they have forged these docs??? If this is the case I think you will see a huge blow back on Kerry.

I think Kerry needs to change his campaign theme song to
"I fell into a burning ring of fire"

 

[feclnogn]

How do you explain this gunner,

Authenticity of memo to 'sugar coat' Bush record is further questioned
By PETE SLOVER / The Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN – The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugar coat" President Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo was supposedly written, his own service record shows.

An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged on March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Col. Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of Mr. Bush's service was dated Aug. 18, 1973. That added to mounting questions about the authenticity of documents that seem to suggest Mr. Bush sought special favors and did not fulfill his service.

Col. Staudt, who lives in New Braunfels, did not return calls seeking comment. His discharge paper was among a packet of documents obtained by The News from official sources during 1999 research into Mr. Bush's Guard record. A CBS staffer stood by the story, suggesting that Col. Staudt could have continued to exert influence over Guard officials. But a former high-ranking Guard official disputed that, saying retirement would have left Col. Staudt powerless over remaining officials.

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Hey Fecl and Cali,

If these documents are true (which they appear), does it change your opinion of Dubya??? Do you support somebody who failed to show up to Duty?

I asked my dad about all of this stuff, missing from duty, flight physicals and such and he explained them over all and I think the left and a few members on this board are making a case where none really exists. I take the word of my father who has close to 7000 hours flying fighters and 38 years of service over your cut and paste slam jobs.

 

[feclnogn]

Here is another article that you don't have to register for.

More challenges about whether Bush documents are authentic

By Pete Slover
The Dallas Morning News


AP
George W. Bush sits in an F-102 fighter jet while he was serving in the Texas Air National Guard. The date of this file photo is unknown.

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AUSTIN, Texas — The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugarcoat" George W. Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo supposedly was written, his service record shows.
An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of the future president's service was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

That added to mounting questions about the authenticity of documents that seem to suggest Bush sought special treatment as a pilot, failed to carry out a superior's order to undergo a physical exam and was suspended from flying for failing to meet Air National Guard standards.

Staudt, who lives in New Braunfels, Texas, did not return calls seeking comment. His discharge paper was among documents obtained by The Morning News from official sources during 1999 research into Bush's Guard record.

A CBS staffer stood by the story, suggesting Staudt could have continued to exert influence over Guard officials. But a former high-ranking Guard official disputed that, saying retirement would have left Staudt powerless.

Authenticity of the memo and three others included in Wednesday's "60 Minutes" report came in for heavy criticism yesterday, prompting an unusual, on-air defense of the original work. Experts on typography said the memos appeared to have been computer-drafted on equipment not available at the time.

And the widow and son of the officer who supposedly wrote them, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who died in 1984, have said it wasn't his nature to keep detailed personal notes.

In its news broadcast yesterday, CBS said the documents were supported by both unnamed witnesses and others, including document examiners.

CBS anchor Dan Rather earlier told The Dallas Morning News that he had heard nothing to make him question the legitimacy of the memos. He attributed the backlash to partisan politics and competitive journalism.

"This story is true. The questions we raised about then-Lieutenant Bush's National Guard service are serious and legitimate," he said. "Until and unless someone shows me definitive proof that they are not, I don't see any reason to carry on a conversation with the professional rumor mill."

The Washington Post quoted Rather as saying CBS had talked to two people who worked with Killian — his superior, retired Maj. Gen. Bobby Hodges, and his administrative assistant Robert Strong — and both described the memos as consistent with what they knew of Killian. Hodges, who told CBS he was "familiar" with the documents, is an avid Bush supporter and "it took a lot for him to speak the truth," the Post quoted Rather as saying.





The Los Angeles Times, however, later quoted Hodges as saying that he believed the memos from Killian were not real. A CBS news executive confirmed that Hodges had changed his story.

Rather's interview with The Morning News concluded before the newspaper determined the date of Staudt's departure, but a CBS staffer with extensive knowledge of the story said later that the departure doesn't derail the story. "From what we've learned, Staudt remained very active after he retired," the staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He was a very bullying type, and that could have continued."

In the "60 Minutes" report, Rather said of the memo's contents: "Killian says Col. Buck Staudt, the man in charge of the Texas Air National Guard, is putting on pressure to 'sugarcoat' an evaluation of Lt. Bush."

Staudt was the person Bush initially contacted about Guard service, and he was the group commander at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston when Bush arrived there to fly an F-102 jet. He transferred later to Austin, where he served as chief of staff for the Air National Guard.

In the disputed memo, Killian supposedly wrote "(another officer) gave me a message today from group regarding Bush's (evaluation) and Staudt is pushing to sugarcoat it."

It continues: "Austin is not happy either."

The CBS staffer said the memo appears to recognize that Staudt has retired, since it differentiates between his displeasure and that of Austin, where he served his final Guard stint.

But another Texas Air National Guard official who served in that period said the memo appears to wrongly associate Staudt with his group command in Houston, and — based on that mistake — the memo distinguishes his views from that of the Austin Guard.

Retired Col. Earl Lively, director of Air National Guard operations for the state headquarters during 1972 and 1973, said Staudt "wasn't on the scene" after retirement, and that CBS' remote-bullying thesis makes no sense.

"He couldn't bully them. He wasn't in the Guard," Lively said. "He couldn't affect their promotions. Once you're gone from the Guard, you don't have any authority."

Bush has not commented publicly about the CBS report, and aides say his honorable discharge proves he fulfilled his obligations.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Fecl,

Why would there be "blow back" against Kerry? It was Karl Rove and company who claimed them to be forgeries, and are now finding out that the silly "experts" they found didn't even have databases of the many type writers in the '70s.

Authenticity backed on Bush documents
By Francie Latour and Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff | September 11, 2004

After CBS News on Wednesday trumpeted newly discovered documents that referred to a 1973 effort to ''sugar coat" President Bush's service record in the Texas Air National Guard, the network almost immediately faced charges that the documents were forgeries, with typography that was not available on typewriters used at that time.


But specialists interviewed by the Globe and some other news organizations say the specialized characters used in the documents, and the type format, were common to electric typewriters in wide use in the early 1970s, when Bush was a first lieutenant.

Philip D. Bouffard, a forensic document examiner in Ohio who has analyzed typewritten samples for 30 years, had expressed suspicions about the documents in an interview with the New York Times published Thursday, one in a wave of similar media reports. But Bouffard told the Globe yesterday that after further study, he now believes the documents could have been prepared on an IBM Selectric Composer typewriter available at the time.

Analysts who have examined the documents focus on several facets of their typography, among them the use of a curved apostrophe, a raised, or superscript, ''th," and the proportional spacing between the characters -- spacing which varies with the width of the letters. In older typewriters, each letter was alloted the same space.

Those who doubt the documents say those typographical elements would not have been commonly available at the time of Bush's service. But such characters were common features on electric typewriters of that era, the Globe determined through interviews with specialists and examination of documents from the period. In fact, one such raised ''th," used to describe a Guard unit, the 187th, appears in a document in Bush's official record that the White House made public earlier this year.

Meanwhile, ''CBS Evening News" last night explained how it sought to authenticate the documents, focusing primarily on its examiner's conclusion that two of the records were signed by Bush's guard commander, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. CBS also said it had other sources -- among Killian's friends and colleagues -- who verified that the content of the documents reflected Killian's views at the time.

One of them, Robert Strong, a Guard colleague, said the language in the documents was ''compatible with the way business was done at that time. They are compatible with the man I remember Jerry Killian being."

But William Flynn, a Phoenix document examiner cited in a Washington Post report Thursday, said he had not changed his mind because he does not believe that the proportional spacing between characters, and between lines, in the documents obtained by CBS was possible on typewriters used by the military at the time.

Flynn told the Globe he believes it is ''highly unlikely" that the documents CBS has obtained could have been produced in 1972 or 1973.

Flynn said his doubts were also based on his belief that the curved apostrophe was not available on electric typewriters at the time, although documents from the period reviewed by the Globe show it was. He acknowledged that the quality of the copies of the documents he examined was poor.

Also suspicious is Killian's son, Gary D. Killian of Houston. ''I still contend that my father would not have written these documents. I know the type of man he was -- if he felt he was being pressured, he'd confront it head on, not write a memo about it," Killian, 51, said in a telephone interview. His father died in 1984.

The controversy over the authenticity of the documents has all but blocked out discussion of their content. In the first document, dated May 4, 1972, Killian appears to order Bush to show up for a flight physical ''no later than 14 May, 1972." On Aug. 1, 1972, a document bearing Killian's signature notes that he had suspended Bush from flight status ''due to failure to perform to USAF/TexANG standards and failure to meet annual physical examination (flight) as ordered."

At the time of the memo, Bush had not flown since April. He moved to Alabama in May of that year to work on a political campaign, and had not attended drills for more than four months.

In a ''memo to file" dated May 1972, Killian appeared to write that he had counseled Bush about his commitment to the Guard. And the final memo obtained by CBS, dated Aug. 18, 1973, said that the group's commanding general had sought to have Killian ''sugar coat" Bush's annual fitness report -- even though Bush had apparently not trained at his Houston airbase during the year in question.

But reporters and political figures focused much of their attention yesterday on the suggestion that CBS might have been the victim of a hoax.

Bouffard, the Ohio document specialist, said that he had dismissed the Bush documents in an interview with The New York Times because the letters and formatting of the Bush memos did not match any of the 4,000 samples in his database. But Bouffard yesterday said that he had not considered one of the machines whose type is not logged in his database: the IBM Selectric Composer. Once he compared the Bush memos to Selectric Composer samples obtained from Interpol, the international police agency, Bouffard said his view shifted.

In the Times interview, Bouffard had also questioned whether the military would have used the Composer, a large machine. But Bouffard yesterday provided a document indicating that as early as April 1969 -- three years before the dates of the CBS memos -- the Air Force had completed service testing for the Composer, possibly in preparation for purchasing the typewriters.

As for the raised ''th" that appears in the Bush memos -- to refer, for example, to units such as the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron -- Bouffard said that custom characters on the Composer's metal typehead ball were available in the 1970s, and that the military could have ordered such custom balls from IBM.

''You can't just say that this is definitively the mark of a computer," Bouffard said.

Meanwhile, the political fray over the documents continued unabated. At a news conference yesterday, Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, again accused Bush of lying about his record.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan defended the president's service record, but offered no view on whether the CBS documents are authentic.

Hey Fecl and Cali,

If these documents are true (which they appear), does it change your opinion of Dubya??? Do you support somebody who failed to show up to Duty?

 

[JoseCuervo]

Fecl,

What is your dad's opinion (and I guess by default), yours on Dubya's service if the documents are true?

Is your dad (and by extension, you) good with somebody ignoring orders, not showing up for physicals, failing to report to duty, having strings pulled to get Guard slots??

 

[Calif. Hunter]

There is nothing I can think of that would convince me to vote for Kerry. His positions, at least the few that he has been consistent about, run counter to mine.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Quote from the Washington Post:
Whether or not Bush did the minimum necessary to remain in good standing with the guard, it is clear his performance fell well short of the depiction in his 2000 campaign biography, which stated that he flew with the 111th until his release in September 1973.

In a 1999 Washington Post interview, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett was quoted as saying that Bush's release from the 111th was appropriate because the unit had phased out the F-102s, and that Bush was transferred from Texas to a reserve unit in Boston. Both statements appear to be inaccurate.

Although F-102s were certainly being phased out by 1973, they were still being flown. There is no record of Bush signing up for reserve duty in Boston. Bartlett, now White House communications director, said last week through a representative that he must have either "misspoke" or been "misquoted."