The AWOL Project's conclusions are bound to give Dan Bartlett concern. The White House director of communications has served as Bush's point person over the last five years regarding inquiries about National Guard service. Dating back to the 2000 campaign and right up to this day, Bartlett has routinely changed his stories regarding Bush's service depending on what information was available to the public. As more and more documents trickle out and it becomes increasingly obvious Bush received wildly favorable treatment during his Guard days while doing his best to skirt his duties, Bartlett is left trying to stake out explanations that haven't already been discredited. And those options are shrinking.

Bartlett's latest flip-flop surrounds Bush's failure to locate a new Guard unit and fulfill his duty while attending Harvard Business School. In 1999, Bartlett said Bush had reported for duty at a Massachusetts Guard unit as required. This week Bartlett conceded to the Boston Globe he must have "misspoke," because it's clear Bush made no effort whatsoever to serve out his term while living in Boston. That answer is reminiscent of Bartlett's response during the 2000 campaign when asked about Bush's failure to take a required military physical in 1972: "As he was not flying, there was no reason for him to take a flight physical exam." But that response is directly contradicted by the Air Force Specialty Code, which required a physical regardless of flight status.

On Wednesday, Bartlett told CBS News, in response to Jerry Killian's memos, "It's impossible to read the mind of a dead man." He then reverted to his usual refrain: "The official files tell the facts," Bartlett said. "And the facts are President Bush served. He served honorably. And that's why he was honorably discharged."

The shifting explanations and obfuscations coming from the White House are one reason why the Guard story remains dangerous for Bush. The controversy, after all, is not merely about how he received a million dollars' worth of free pilot training and then stiffed the government when it came time to pay it back in service. It's also about how, for the last decade, Bush and his advisors have done everything possible to distort, if not erase, the truth about Bush's service record in order to advance his political career.

The detailed research from Lukasiak, a Philadelphia caterer, deals strictly with the contents of Bush's military service documents, particularly those after April 1972, when Bush decided -- on his own -- to stop flying. But what's fascinating is that when recent news reports from Salon, the Associated Press, CBS and the Boston Globe are layered on top of the AWOL Project research, they fit together almost seamlessly, revealing a vivid portrait of Bush as a young man who evaded his military service.

  • Last week Salon reported that in late 1972 George H.W. Bush phoned a longtime Bush family confidant in Alabama, Jimmy Allison, to ask if there was room on the local campaign he was managing for Bush's troublesome son George, or "Georgie" as he was called. "The impression I had was that Georgie was raising a lot of hell in Houston, getting in trouble and embarrassing the family, and they just really wanted to get him out of Houston and under Jimmy's wing," Linda Allison, his widow, told Salon. "After about a month I asked Jimmy what was Georgie's job, because I couldn't figure it out. I never saw him do anything," said Allison. Asked if she'd ever seen Bush in a uniform, Allison said: "Good lord, no. I had no idea that the National Guard was involved in his life in any way."

  • This week a new advocacy group calling itself Texans for Truth announced that it will air a television commercial featuring a former Alabama National Guard pilot who insists he never saw Bush in 1972 at the small Guard unit at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery, where the president claims he served. The pilot, Bob Mintz, has told a consistent tale. In February, he told the Memphis Flyer newspaper: "There's no way we wouldn't have noticed a strange rooster in the henhouse, especially since we were looking for him." Mintz was referring to the news on the base that somebody from Texas with political influence was coming to train with the unit. "I was looking for him," Mintz said.

  • On Wednesday night, on CBS's "60 Minutes," in an interview with Dan Rather, former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes went public for the first time about how he pulled strings to get the young Bush a coveted slot, at the height of the Vietnam War, in the Texas Air National Guard. "I've thought about it an awful lot and you walk through the Vietnam memorial, particularly at night like I did a few months ago and, I tell you, ... reflecting back, I'm very sorry about it, but you know, it happened and it was because of my ambition, my youth and my lack of understanding. But it happened and it's not ... something I'm necessarily proud of."

    CBS also reported on four documents from the personal files of Col. Jerry Killian, Bush's squadron commander. One memo ordered Bush to take "an annual physical examination" -- an order he refused. CBS reports: "On August 1, 1972, Col. Killian grounded Lt. Bush for failure to perform to U.S. Air Force/Texas Air National Guard standards and for failure to take his annual physical as ordered. A year after Lt. Bush's suspension from flying, Killian was asked to write another assessment. Killian's memo, titled 'CYA,' reads he is being pressured by higher-ups to give the young pilot a favorable yearly evaluation; to, in effect, sugarcoat his review. He refuses, saying, 'I'm having trouble running interference and doing my job.'"

  • This week, the A.P. reported that a thorough analysis of Bush's military documents indicates obvious gaps in his service along with equally gratuitous gaps in his paperwork. Specifically missing are: "A report from the Texas Air National Guard to Bush's local draft board certifying that Bush remained in good standing." "Records of a required investigation into why Bush lost flight status." "A written acknowledgment from Bush that he had received the orders grounding him." "Reports of formal counseling sessions Bush was required to have after missing more than three training sessions." "A signed statement from Bush acknowledging he could be called to active duty if he did not promptly transfer to another guard unit after leaving Texas."

  • In February of this year, Salon interviewed Bill Burkett, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Texas National Guard, who claims he observed aides to Bush going through his military file in 1997 to remove any embarrassing information, tossing documents in the trash, allegedly the types of documents that might help answer many of the unanswered questions surrounding Bush's Guard service. "Activities occurred in order to, in my opinion, inappropriately build a false image of the governor's military service," Burkett told Salon. Burkett first went public with his accusations in 1998 and has told the same story consistently for six years.

  • Also last February, Salon reported that Bush's mysterious decision in the spring of 1972 to stop flying and subsequently refuse to take a physical exam came at the same time the Air Force announced its Medical Service Drug Abuse Testing Program, which meant random drug testing for pilots, including Guardsmen.

    Meanwhile, the White House has not been able to produce anything or anybody with any credibility to contradict the growing body of evidence that suggests Bush deliberately walked away from his duties and that Bush and his handlers continue to lie about his military service. Retired Lt. Col. John Calhoun was the one witness who was brought forward this year to back up Bush's story that he actually showed up in Alabama. He recalled seeing Bush at training sessions between "eight to ten times from May to October 1972." Yet not even Bush's own payroll records suggest he did drills in Alabama at the time Calhoun allegedly spotted him. (Amazingly, ABC News on Wednesday used Calhoun as a credible witness to bolster Bush's account, despite the fact that the dates Calhoun cites don't even match up with Bush's.)

    There's also no paper trail to support Bush's claim that he completed any service after 1972. As Lukasiak notes, each substitute training Bush completed, and there were many, should have generated authorized AF Form 40a's: "All told, Bush performed 'substitute training' on at least 20 days. Thus there should be, at the very least, 20 AF Form 40a's with the name of the officer who authorized the training in advance, the name and signature of the officer who supervised the training, and Bush's own signature." But not one such form exists.

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