The Globe reports for duty

This morning’s Boston Globe bears the withered fruit of its continuing investigation into President Bush Air National Guard service: “Bush fell short on duty at Guard.” It briefly reviews the five-plus years of President Bush’s service in a manner that is not exactly calculated to elucidate how Bush acquired the skills necessary to fly an F-102. It also contains some impressively critical quotes from retired military officers asserting that President Bush fell short of fulfilling his Guard commitment when he moved to Cambridge to attend Harvard Business School.
Jim Geraghty of NRO’s Kerry Spot directs us to Byron York’s NR article reviewing the evidence this past March when the Guard story was in full frenzy: “Bush and the National Guard: Case Closed.” York quotes a Guard personnel officer who reviewed records at the request of the White House as stating that Bush in fact fulfilled his commitment during his last year of service. I can’t square the Globe story with York’s article, but trust that Geraghty will return with additional commentary today.
The Globe story today is the joint product of its Spotlight Team — reporters Stephen Kurkjian, Francie Latour, Sacha Pfeiffer, Michael Rezendes, and editor Walter V. Robinson, who actually wrote it. Is it possible that one of these folks could be troubled to ask Senator Kerry if he would be so kind as to sign a Standard Form 180 so that the team might review his military records as well?
Rocket Man’s favorite news service has also reported on the few additional records on the president’s service produced by the Defense Department in response to the AP’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit: “Lawsuit uncovers new Bush Guard records.” It seems to me that the reporter labors unsuccessfully to breathe some new life into an old story, although he does manage to bury Bush’s impressive flight test scores in the story’s penultimate paragraph — likely to be cut by many newspapers that run the story.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses