Posted on 09/12/2004 11:15:43 AM PDT by ambrose
President Bush's Former Commander: "He was an asset"
NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas (AP) - The story goes that Col. Walter Staudt was so happy to have George W. Bush in his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1968 that he staged a pair of welcoming ceremonies to have his picture taken with the aspiring fighter pilot.
But these days, Staudt, a retired air guard commander, isn't talking about any role he may have played in getting the future president a coveted pilot slot in Houston, far from the war in Vietnam.
"I don't give interviews," Staudt gruffly told The Associated Press this week while peeking through a narrowly opened door of his home in an upscale subdivision in this city near San Antonio. "Goodbye. You're bothering me."
Other attempts to contact him over a three-day period were also unsuccessful.
Over the past 16 years, however, Staudt has been quoted on the subject in a number of major newspapers and at least one book. He has been consistent and often colorful in his basic messages: George W. Bush was a fine pilot and no strings were pulled to get him into the Texas guard.
In March, the 81-year-old ex-general had this to say to the Spokane Spokesman-Review about the president: "I love the guy. I'm so tired of this negative crap about him."
Six years ago, the Washington Post attributed these words to Staudt regarding Bush and his route into the air guard: "I'll tell you, he was an asset. ... Anyone who suggests there was family influence to get him in is a damn liar."
Staudt's part in the long-playing issue of Bush and his air guard service resurfaced in a recent report on CBS' "60 Minutes II."
The news segment that aired Wednesday was based on four memos, the authenticity of which have since been questioned. The memos attributed to Jerry Killian, a now-deceased officer who in the early 1970s commanded Bush's squadron at Ellington Air Force Base in Houston.
"Staudt has obviously pressured Hodges more about Bush," read in part a memo dated Aug. 18, 1973. "I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job. Harris gave me a message today from Grp regarding Bush's OETR and Staudt is pushing to sugar coat it. Bush wasn't here during rating period and I don't have any feedback from 187th in Alabama. I will not rate."
Bobby Hodges and William Harris were lieutenant colonels at Ellington in the early 1970s. OETR, or officer efficiency training report, is a performance evaluation and Grp refers to a military unit, possibly the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group that Staudt once commanded and in which Bush served.
Hodges could not be reached for comment Saturday. Harris is deceased.
Also mentioned in the memo is the 187th Tactical Reconnaisance Group, the Alabama air guard unit to which Bush was assigned in 1972 while working on a Senate campaign in that state. Questions persist as to whether Bush fulfilled his guard duties in Alabama.
Doubts have been raised about the validity memos, with at least one document expert suggesting that they may have been produced by computer programs that hadn't been invented at that time. And The Dallas Morning News reported Saturday that Staudt retired from the air guard more than a year before the relevant memo was reportedly written.
Robert Strong, who knew Killian and served in the air guard at the same time as Bush, called Staudt "the quintessential macho fighter pilot" who used to brag about having Bush and other prominent Texans under his command.
"He would show them off - they were almost like trophies," Strong, now a college professor in Austin, said in a Friday interview.
Going back to at least 1988, when George H.W. Bush was running for president, Staudt has been fielding the calls asking whether George W. Bush and other Texas sons of privilege were given preferential treatment.
"There wasn't any hanky-panky that went on there," Staudt told the Los Angeles Times during the summer of 1988.
Eleven years later, when Bush was Texas governor, the Times got a snarlier answer to the same question: "Nobody did anything for him. ... Neither his daddy nor anybody else got him into the guard."
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I expect to see the headline:
President Bush's Former Commander: "He was an ass...Continued on page D24.
Oh, well played. When someone points out that there are many, many document experts saying that they're probable fakes, AP can say, "Well we said 'at least one.'"
Heheh!
Dan Rather is squirming right now.
And the AP conveniently fails to mention that their very own document expert has said they were forged.
A good companion piece could be title, "Former Kerry
Commander States Kerry was an A*S*S".
Meaning, of course, a donkey. Just like the Dem logo.
No they didn't... they said "at least one". :/
The AP's idea of balance is to mix lies with truth. Pravda is rapidly becoming more trustworthy by comparison.
The day before yesterday I started looking at AP pictures. There were over 500 of them, I believe I started at Yahoo -their news... I swear I could have been at Al Jazeera. F*CK AP.
He's STILL an asset! Kerry OTOH, is a liability.
And you can bet that any written document regarding insubbordination would find its way into the Bush ANG file.
They'll probably print it like this:
President Bush's Former Commander: "He was an asset.
The MSM have a lot of experience with superscripts.
I want to see the headline: "Dan Rather stands behind forgeries."
I've noticed the MO of the MSM is to make a statement that although is "technically acurate", implies a lie. Their are masters of inuendo. And it works, because most people don't think analytically. All they ever take away from a report is overall inuendo.
BTTT
Rather claims that he's a real asset, but he's only half-right.
Was ANYTHING in the 60 minutes piece true?
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