Under The Same Sun: The Suspect Fell on My Knife, Your Honor. Backwards. Eight Times.

« Would my son still be here today if I had had my uprising then? | Main | Most Bang for Your Buck: Mass Media »

July 09, 2004

The Suspect Fell on My Knife, Your Honor. Backwards. Eight Times.

The records from those very months from 1972 that Bush claims he was with an Alabama Guard Unit have been ::drumrolls:: "inadvertently destroyed," according to the Pentagon. Nobody who was in Alabama remembers Bush, and he was suspended from flying because he did not turn up for a medical exam. Those suddenly lost records would have shed light on these questions.

::suspenseful music continues::

No back-up paper copies could be found. There was no explanation of why this loss for records that many news organizations have been demanding for months was not announced before:

Here's the NY Times story:

The disclosure that the payroll records had been destroyed came in a letter signed by C. Y. Talbott, chief of the Pentagon's Freedom of Information Office, who forwarded a CD-Rom of hundreds of records that Mr. Bush has previously released, along with images of punch-card records. Sixty pages of Mr. Bush's medical file and some other records were excluded on privacy grounds, Mr. Talbott wrote.
He said in the letter that he could not provide complete payroll records, explaining, "The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) has advised of the inadvertent destruction of microfilm containing certain National Guard payroll records."

He went on: "In 1996 and 1997, DFAS engaged with limited success in a project to salvage deteriorating microfilm. During this process the microfilm payroll records of numerous service members were damaged, including from the first quarter of 1969 (Jan. 1 to March 31) and the third quarter of 1972 (July 1 to Sept. 30). President Bush's payroll records for these two quarters were among the records destroyed. Searches for backup paper copies of the missing records were unsuccessful."

Mr. Talbott's office would not respond to questions, saying that further information could be provided only through another Freedom of Information application.

But Bryan Hubbard, a spokesman for Defense finance agency in Denver, said the destruction occurred as the office was trying to unspool 2,000-foot rolls of fragile microfilm. Mr. Hubbard said he did not know how many records were lost or why the loss had not been announced before.

Posted by zeynep at July 9, 2004 11:21 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.underthesamesun.org/mt-tb.cgi/101

Comments

George W. Bush wants to be known as the "war president." I think he should be known as the "convenient president." Convenient that he was born into a privileged and advantaged familiy, convenient that Daddy got him into Yale, convenient that Saudi money saved him in every dumb business venture he ever tried, convenient that 1 million black voters were disenfranchised in the 2000 presidential election, convenient that his brother was the governor of Florida where tens of thousands of black voters were illegally purged from the voter rolls, convenient that the Supremacist Court selected him to be the chief chickenhawk, convenient that 9-11 occurred when it did to save his flailing administration, convenient that congress abjurgated its role to declare war and gave him a blank check to illegally invade both Afghanistan and Iraq, and now convenient that the Pentagon is claiming that payroll records which would have verified him being AWOL for extended periods in 1972 and 1973 from his National Guard Unit have inadvertantly been destroyed and there are no back-up paper copies. Once again this is just too convenient to be believable to anyone who still has a functioning brain, although how many of us meet that definition is still largely unknown. I guess we will find out for sure on November 2, 2004. Hopefully come next January 26th. or thereabouts we will finally be rid of this completely criminal and fascist "convenient president." Not that Kerry will be much better, but could he possibly be any worse? I can't imagine that he could.

Sincerely,
Old & In The Way

Posted by: Phil Cicchi at July 9, 2004 08:37 PM

Posted by: online blackjack at January 24, 2005 03:24 AM

Under The Same Sun

reflections on a world where the sun never sets

July 09, 2004

The Suspect Fell on My Knife, Your Honor. Backwards. Eight Times.

Trackback Pings

Comments

Post a comment