Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

Brad,
I think you meant "NY Times" edition...

Dont you mean the NY Times?

Another possible follow-up sentence could have that Bush had already contradicted Bartlett: "I was in Alabama and my physician was in Texas" (or words to that effect.

Bumiller is indeed NYT.

Ooopsie...

Also, his name is Dan Barlett.

Maybe you've got him mixed up with the Bill Burkett who said Bush's records were cleansed in 97.

Uh, I mean Dan Bartlett.

It's typomania!

We seem to be forgetting the testimony of Col. Campenni:

" If you check the 111th FIS records of 1970-72 and any other ANG squadron, you will find other pilots excused for career obligations and conflicts. The Bush excusal in 1972 was further facilitated by a change in the unit's mission, from an operational fighter squadron to a training squadron with a new airplane, the F-101, which required that more pilots be available for full-time instructor duty rather than part-time traditional reservists with outside employment.

" The winding down of the Vietnam War in 1971 provided a flood of exiting active-duty pilots for these instructor jobs, making part-timers like Lt. Bush and me somewhat superfluous. There was a huge glut of pilots in the Air Force in 1972, and with no cockpits available to put them in, many were shoved into nonflying desk jobs. "

One problem is that Campenni appears to be inconsistent with Maj. Gen. Bobby W Hodges:

'But the unit's records show, and its former commander, retired Major General Bobby W. Hodges, said that the F-102 was still being flown until the year after Bush left the Guard. Hodges, in a recent interview, echoed the recollection of one of his subordinates: that Bush did not return to the Houston unit, instead finishing his military commitment in Alabama.

'''If [Bush] had come back to Houston, I would have kept him flying the 102 until he got out,'' siad Hodges, a Bush admirer. ''But I don't recall him coming back at all.''

'Some records show Bush attended some drills in mid-1973, but his official discharge papers that summarize his truncated service in the Guard do not credit Bush with any drills after April 1972 - 18 months before his discharge.

'Deepening the mystery, Bush was removed from flight status in August 1972 for failing to take his annual flight physical. Bush's campaign aides have said he did not take the physical because he was in Alabama and his personal physician was in Houston. But flight physicals can be administered only by certified Air Force flight surgeons, and some were assigned at the time to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, where Bush was living..."

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news/1076755550203710.xml

-------------quote--------------
When Bush was with the 187th, he attended equivalent training drills in a non-flight section of the unit "because we didn't have the airplane he was checked out in," said Calhoun, who was the 187th's safety officer. "If you go to another (unit), all you have to do to make that is to be there, and you have to stay there on that base for eight hours. He did that," Calhoun said.

"He read safety reports, accident investigation reports, he studied his training manuals, things of that nature because that was all he could do. He had no assigned duties, because we didn't have anything to assign him to."

Calhoun said he and Bush would have a meal together "every now and then."

"I felt like he was a good fighter pilot," said Calhoun. "He was dedicated to the Guard, to what he was doing in the Guard. We talked about flying mostly ... . [snip]

When the issue of Bush's Air Guard service in Alabama came up in 2000, Calhoun said, he contacted Bush's campaign and he was told he would be contacted if they needed him. They never did, he said.

When the controversy broke a few days ago, Calhoun said, he sent e-mails to the White House and elsewhere, but got only automatic responses and no follow-up. His wife finally contacted Georgia Republican Party officials, who put him in touch with Bush's regional campaign, he said.

Calhoun said he had difficulty believing retired Gen. William Turnipseed's quoted remarks that he didn't remember Bush showing up at the 187th's headquarters in 1972, because it was Turnipseed who sent Bush to his office.

Turnipseed said Friday his memory just may be bad, and he would be inclined to believe Calhoun's report. He said he worked with Calhoun for years and believes him to be truthful.

"I have no reason to think that he would tell it any other way than like it is," Turnipseed said.

Initially, Turnipseed said he believed he would have remembered Bush if he'd shown up for training. But Friday he said, "The more I hear of this, the more I'm convinced that my statement that I would have remembered Bush is inaccurate. And that hurts me."

-----------endquote-------------

Campenni is not contradicted. In fact, there is a newspaper story someone dug up placing him in the Pennsylvania ANG flying F-102s in November '72. That indicates the Houston base didn't need F-102 pilots.

Further, we have documentation putting Bush in Montgomery Alabama in January 1973 (perhaps he preferred to meet his military obligations in a city where he had a girlfriend), so he would have been a very rusty fighter pilot having last flown in April '72. Probably needing some refresher training to resume flying. Why bother when you know you're going to be out of the ANG in September and attending Harvard Business School?

That's the simplest explanation for this from 1973 in the latest batch of documents:

"A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Ala.," wrote Lt. Col. William D. Harris Jr. "He cleared this base on 15 May 1972 and has been performing equivalent training in a non-flying status with the 187 Tac Recon Gp. Dannelly ANG Base, Alabama."

"I have no reason to think that he would tell it any other way than like it is," Turnipseed said.
The classic case of caving in to pressure, no?
"like it is" begs the question,no? I mean we have here, T retracting his own memories in favour of C's memories ("who would tell it ...like it is").
Don't you just want to run over to T's side and go through some of those old photos to reassure him that, no his memory is just fine and that George was just some place else?
Nah, just cripple his self-confidence. It's for a good cause.

What's the difference between New York Times and NY Times? I'm confused.

Please, please, please.

If there is one simple concept in economics we need to educate people on it is the difference between transactional counts (such as GDP) and measurements of quantity.

For example, in today's New York Times, the loss of 500,000 programming jobs was pooh poohed - after all, the US economy has 130, million jobs and creates and destroys millions of jobs. Right.

Umm no. When one company goes bankrupt to a competitor, and the competitor hires some of the people from the bankrupt company - jobs have been "created" and "destroyed" - but the real number is the number of positions, and this number is what the 500,000 outsourced represents. A person quitting and then getting hired represents no net change in the number of positions in the economy. This is 500,000 people going, and not coming back someplace else - that's by definition of a job moved overseas. This also means all the people who would otherwise have been paid by these people are also out of luck as well. This means this represents not merely 500,000 jobs out of 130 million - but 500,000 positions plus their multiplier effect.

Now, I'm again going to underline that India and China becoming more and more capitalist, entrepreneurial and free market is a very good thing - the newly created middle class jobs over there are going to be the engine of political and social reform. That is, assuming that political turmoil does not lead to demands for, well, military expansion in search of resources.

But - the outsourced number represents the number of new jobs that have to be created, largely by government action - in order to maintain merely our current level of employment - because the price advantages (lower prices) will largely washout against the growth of US population, we don't need to create more than we are losing.

So far we are doing zero that is in any way effective to offset these job loses. If we want the benefits of free trade - one of which is lowering the cost of older technology and older skills sets, and thus broadening the accessibility of the goods that those technologies and skill sets produce - then we have to pay the cost, which is socializing the labor market risk.

Otherwise, the people who are at risk are going to demand, politically, that the game be shut down. Not workers. Bond holders, because if the US economy isn't growing, they are going to want higher rates of interest to compensate their risk of the US falling into a deflationary spiral and stagnation - the way say, Japan has.

But one of the first steps would be to get journalists to start comparing apples to apples.

Having watched Bumiller's tortured explication on PBS' Washington Week, I think it's safe to say that she loathes this story with every fiber of her being. She sighed heavily before answering each question, whined that the documents were hard to read and interpret and quipped that Bush critics were overreacting to technicalities.

Her conclusion, essentially, was that the matter has been examined since Bush first ran for office in Texas, and that if there was anything worth discovering it would have been found by now.

The Progressive Southerner describes Bush's "missing year":

http://www.southerner.net/blog/awolbush.html

Bush was required to take a flight physical. His juggement as to whether it was a waste of time is irrelevant. It wasn't his call.

On the "explanation" there is another point. Bush had no right to assume that he would be released from regular (all) duties early to go to HBS. The total time he owed to Houston (with f-102s) and didn't show up ungrounded is on the order of 22 months (transferred to Alabama for electoral reasons starting October 72 ending November 72 and 6 years up May 74). He had no right to assume that he would be released early any more than he had any reason to doubt that he would get any special treatment he wanted.

At the time he was grounded, Bush was assigned to the same Texas ANG squadron where he had flown F-102s. His request to transfer to the 9921st in Alabama had been denied because they did not have planes.

Campenni claims to have flown in Texas. He also claims to have been ordered to stand by ready to fire on a hijacked civilian airliner in 73 when based in Pennsylvania and to have just left graduate school at the time. Campenni is either a liar, totally delusional or both

Calhoun claimed that Bush spent 8 to 10 8 hour days in his office from May to Oct 1972 even though Bush was transferred to his base starting Oct 7 and definitely did not show up that day. The written record shows a total of 2 days of ANG service in the period during which Calhoun claimed to have witnessed 8 to 10 full days of Bush. Calhoun is obviously lying.

" On the 'explanation' there is another point. Bush had no right to assume that he would be released from regular (all) duties early to go to HBS."

Actually, he probably did. I remember getting a letter from a friend who was in the Marine Corps, stationed in Japan in 1971, asking me to get an application from the admissions office of the college I was attending and to send it to him so he could fill it out. He knew he could get an early out if he was accepted at a college. And he did.

You need to remember the context, in 1972 the Vietnam War was winding down, it was a completely different situation than in '68 when Bush joined up. The military was overstaffed by '72, so they were letting people out early, even from active duty.

"A civilian occupation made it necessary for him to move to Montgomery, Ala.," wrote Lt. Col. William D. Harris Jr. "He cleared this base on 15 May 1972...."

Meaning he had permission to be away from Houston. That was written in 1973. It's evidence corroborating Bush's story.

Further there is nothing about flying in Pennsylvania in November 1972 that contradicts Campenni's testimony. In fact, it supports it, they obviously didn't need him in Texas. And, you can be in grad school and fly in the ANG on week-ends.

" Calhoun claimed that Bush spent 8 to 10 8 hour days in his office from May to Oct 1972 even though Bush was transferred to his base starting Oct 7 and definitely did not show up that day. The written record shows a total of 2 days of ANG service in the period during which Calhoun claimed to have witnessed 8 to 10 full days of Bush. Calhoun is obviously lying."

This is inaccurate. Calhoun is not QUOTED as saying the above. Those are some reporter's words. Another quotes Calhoun as saying he remembered at least six instances of Bush being on base, not "8 to 10". And Bush was paid for 6 days in Oct-Nov.

Patrick, You have stamina.
No matter how convincing the evidence, no matter how damning the case, you persevere.
Your story needs to be told outside of blog land. There is someone in this country who needs your energy and support. Now.
Ask for Stu's job. I think he's burned-out answering a mere fraction of what you've been handling here.