W stands for Wrong, part....oh who's counting anyway

Tonight, former TX Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes is going on 60 Minutes with fellow Texan Dan Rather to talk about how he got Dubya into the TX National Guard back in the 1970s to avoid the draft. The funny thing, as Josh Marshall points out, is that won't be the big news.

The real story is not why George W. Bush got into the TX National Guard ahead of hundreds of other deserving men in that era, but what he did once he got there. Or rather, what he didn't do. AP and others have requested the files that would prove Bush showed up in Alabama in 1972 (he requested and was granted a transfer so he could work on a Senate campaign of his father's friend) and what he did most of that year, why he failed to show up to his physical, etc. The Air Force claims it can't find anything else on the matter. Meanwhile there is a 527-group who are going to attack Bush on his apparant AWOL to the AL National Guard, called Texas for Truth (see sidebar under "WHO4 players;" see also the Edior's Note on this post for more details), with this ad.

This is the same man who uses surrogates to smear decorated war veterans (McCain, Cleland, and now Kerry) for his political advantage. Disgusting.

Kerry has a nice mantra he started up this week, perhaps thanks to Bill Clinton's hospital bed advice: "W stands for Wrong" The Democratic Nominee said today that Iraq was "the wrong war at the wrong time" with no post-war planning. Then he stupidly said he would have troops out of there in 4 years. Buddy, never over promise. Oh well. He went on to say that Bush's domestic policies were wrong too, manifesting themselves in millions more impoverished, unemployed, underemployed, uninsured, and as of today, a thousand dead soldiers in Iraq (thanks iCasualties.org) None of this Bush can dispute, they are facts.

Perhaps he can claim that we've "turned the corner" or his VP can claim that if Kerry is elected, the terrorists will win-- and attack the U.S. But reality will attest to these obvious falsehoods. 144,000 new jobs in a construction-rich month like August is hardly turning the corner. Bush has presided over more than a million jobs lost-- including the recent gains. Sure, he can blame Clinton, 9/11, corporate malfeasance, and the tooth fairy if he wants to, but (to paraphrase Harry Truman) the buck stops at the Oval Office ultimately, especially if its occupant is using his so-called accomplishments (see "Awarded for Attendance") in his attempt to be reelected.


EDITOR'S NOTE: I have added links to the following organizations: Swift Boat Veterans for Truth (the now famously Bush-connected Kerry smear group), Texans for Truth (a liberal group with ties to MoveOn, Million Mom March, and a Howard Dean-affiliated group called "Democracy for Texas" who is calling Bush AWOL), and MoveOnForAmerica.org (a deceptively titled neo-conservative group who aims for a new wave of Willie Horton ads bashing Kerry).