SwiftVets.com

[lovetropicana]

"Kerry served, Bush pulled some strings to stay safe!"

GOD I get so tired of hearing that, I know it's not true but I need a FACT! ;x;
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"If you want to know what John Kerry is made of, just spend 3 minutes with the men who served with him." - John Edwards

[LewWaters]

Not that they will listen, but here is an article by the man who swore Bush into the Guard;

http://www4.thedailytimes.com/

I also tell them Bush may not have been sent to Vietnam, but he never went before Congress to lie and slander millions of veterans.
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Clark County Conservative

[Stevie]

[AC]

These may help.

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/guest/2004/jw_0920.shtml

http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=9259

http://www.al.com/search/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1093770964297240.xml?mobileregister?oinsight

http://nationalreview.com/owens/owens200402090833.asp

http://www.thehill.com/york/090904.aspx

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040210-082910-8424r.htm

http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/003277.html

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1185997/posts

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=140

[lovetropicana]

[katagious]

I keep reading that Bush issued an executive order to release all of his records, but I have never seen an actual reference to the executive order. Of course, whenever you use this as a reply to comments about Bush not releasing his records...the first thing they want to see is the "link" or reference soooo, can anyone supply that? I haven't found it myself and I think it goes back to credibility if I can't supply it.

[LewWaters]

A President's word is an executive order. If you read the mulitple articles from February 2004 about this, they all say Bush released some 400 pages of records. Compare that to Kerry's six.

Where we all get off track is when the left demands we prove his service was honorable. We don't need to prove anything. The onus is on them to prove it wasn't.

In the meantime, Kerry's service is just accepted by them and we get sidetracked trying to prove something that doesn't need proven.

The main thing there is adequate proof of is Kerry's actions in VVAW and the claims he made against veterans.
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Clark County Conservative

[katagious]

I don't want to be obnoxious about this...but I think it's important to clarify whether or not there is an official presidential executive order. I have not found one at the white house site that orders a release of his records. So, one might say he "verbally" released his records and be correct...I don't feel it's quite accurate to say he issued an "exectutive order". I think it undermines any legitimate response someone might make and impacts our credibility.
Personally I think that his guard records are irrelevent after four years of service in the white house, and that it's fairly poor campaign move to keep trying to make it an issue at this point.

[Navy_Navy_Navy]

Good heavens, surely you don't think that every executive order is posted on the White House web site? How would they even do that with a verbal order?

I don't know whether the President signed an official "Executive Order" or merely called DOD and said, "Please find all my records and disperse them to these ravening media hounds and let's get them out of our hair."

What I do know is that he has released hundreds of pages of documents from his service jacket and the White House continues to release everything that turns up as it's found, even if it turns out that it's a forged document from a word processor in Texas.

What I also know is that GWB conclusively attained an adequate number of drill points for every year he was in. (In total, a number far more than required, actually. He needed 300 points for six years - he attained nearly that number in his first year and over that number in his second!)

More important is the contrast between public documentation on Kerry vs. documentation on the President:

Nothing in the President's documents suggests that he EVER wrote himself up for medals.

Nothing in the President's documents suggests that he helped engineer and perpetuate the myth of the Vietnam soldier as a drug-crazed, hair-triggered rapist, torturer and murderer.

Nothing in his documents suggests that he met with the enemy and brought their propaganda home to disseminate among the anti-military crowd.

Nothing in his documents suggests that he fed KGB-scripted recommendations to Congress under the guise of sworn testimony.

Nothing in his documents suggests that he engaged in heated debates about whether or not to assassinate pro-war Senators and then did not report such debates to the authorities.

This is laughable, except that it's so painfully stupid - the media has spent a completely ridiculous amount of time and resources trying to create a story that makes one candidate look bad and after ten years, the most they have come up with is that he missed some drills and made them up. (BFD - so did I.)

In the meantime, we have repeated, documented, witnessed instances of the other candidate attempting to undermine our military, our soldiers, and even our government and the media finds nothing "newsworthy" in any of it, even though his treachery continues to this day.

THAT is of far more importance to me than the "how" of the President's records being released. (Though it's apparent that the DNC and the mainstream media would never agree with me on that point. )
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~ Echo Juliet ~
Altering course to starboard - On Fire, Keep Clear
Navy woman, Navy wife, Navy mother

[AC]

Here's a portion of the transcript from Meet the Press on February 8:

From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4179618/

Transcript for Feb. 8th
Guest: President George W. Bush

Russert: The Boston Globe and the Associated Press have gone through some of the records and said there’s no evidence that you reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972.

President Bush: Yeah, they’re — they're just wrong. There may be no evidence, but I did report; otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged. In other words, you don't just say "I did something" without there being verification. Military doesn't work that way. I got an honorable discharge, and I did show up in Alabama.

Russert: You did — were allowed to leave eight months before your term expired. Was there a reason?

President Bush: Right. Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military.

Russert: When allegations were made about John McCain or Wesley Clark on their military records, they opened up their entire files. Would you agree to do that?

President Bush: Yeah. Listen, these files — I mean, people have been looking for these files for a long period of time, trust me, and starting in the 1994 campaign for governor. And I can assure you in the year 2000 people were looking for those files as well. Probably you were. And — absolutely. I mean, I —

Russert: But you would allow pay stubs, tax records, anything to show that you were serving during that period?

President Bush: Yeah. If we still have them, but I — you know, the records are kept in Colorado, as I understand, and they scoured the records.

And I'm just telling you, I did my duty, and it's politics, you know, to kind of ascribe all kinds of motives to me. But I have been through it before. I'm used to it. What I don't like is when people say serving in the Guard is — is — may not be a true service.

Russert: But you authorize the release of everything to settle this?

President Bush: Yes, absolutely.

We did so in 2000, by the way.
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The proof that Bush has in fact authorized the release of all his records is that no agency has refused to release any of those records on the basis that it was NOT AUTHORIZED to release them. On the other hand, the Navy has refused to release some of Kerry's records specifically because Kerry HAS NOT AUTHORIZED THEIR RELEASE. Michael Dobbs of the Washington Post and others have reported that fact.