May 8, 2003

Bush AWOL? The "Evidence" Proves

I've looked at the issue of President Bush allegedly being "AWOL" from his Texas Air National Guard duties in 1972 and applied a well-honed journalist's skepticism to the evidence pro and con. Is there hard proof Bush didn't show up when he was supposed to? The short answer is, no. The evidence, such as it is, is a lack of paperwork on certain matters. The anti-Bushies spin the lack of paperwork as proof positive that Bush was "AWOL." But a more benign explanation is easy to see: the paper clerks screwed up the paperwork. That's not unheard of in the military, is it?

In the end, the evidence against Bush is circumstantial, while the evidence in his favor is as follows:

1. He successfully completed flight training - indicating he was there sufficient amount of time during that phase.
2. He is remembered as a good pilot by those who flew with him.
3. He received an honorable discharge, indicating he fulfilled his service requirement.
4. The Guard had a high opinion of him in late 2000/early 2001, before the war earned him high respect among the military (as evidenced by an article in National Guard magazine in January 2001, referenced and linked to in my previous post on this matter.)

Those all indicate the "Bush was AWOL" story has little to no credibility with those in the best position to know.

More problematic is the recollection of one colonel who says he doesn't remember Bush ever being on the base in Alabama. But that's one man, looking back 31 years, and there's little reason he should have singled out Bush back then for special notice in his memory file. Bush back then was just a kid whose dad was sort of famous in Texas - not famous in Alabama. Bush's father had not yet been president, vice president or CIA director. In fact, in 1970, the senior Bush, a two-term congressman from Texas, lost a Senate race. He wasn't even that big in Texas!

A year later, the senior Bush was appointed U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Can you name our current UN ambassador? Perhaps you can, but you're part of a group of people interested in national politics or you wouldn't be following this story across the blogosphere. I doubt the typical National Guard colonel knows the name of the ambassador to the UN.

Those who claim the younger Bush got a cushy Guard appointment safely removed from the danger of Vietnam combat on account of his famous dad are just looking at the past through the filter of post-event history. George W. Bush applied to the Guard when his daddy was a one-term, back-bench, minority-party congressman - not years later when the senior Bush had been chairman of the Republican National Committee, CIA director, vice president and so on.

Would a colonel in Alabama know who George W. Bush's father was way back in 1972? It seems unlikely. So his inability to recall, 31 years later, that Bush was on base, is not all that surprising. I doubt that colonel today could name most of the people who were on that base in 1972. The anti-Bushies spin his lack of memory as proof Bush wasn't on the base, when all it merely proves is the colonel can't remember Bush being on the base.

Much of the "evidence" the anti-Bushies cite is like that. It doesn't prove what they claim, but it can be spun that way, so they spin. It still comes down to this: George W. Bush was a Texas Air National Guard pilot who flew sophisticated aircraft for a unit that very well could have gone to Vietnam (and indeed parts of it were deployed to Vietnam when Bush enlisted) and he was honorably discharged having fulfilled his service requirements.