Spin, spin, spin. Dodge, dodge, dodge. Withhold, withhold, withhold.
Can you think of another verb? No? Me neither. So let’s get started.
On Meet the Press, the president was asked if he’d authorize the release of all his service records.
All of them.
And he said, “Yes, absolutely.”
He promised. But he keeps on not doing it. He’s sure trying to make it look like he is. But he sure ain’t.
For some reason he just can’t quite bring himself to sign off on the release.
The idea here is that the president waives his rights under the Privacy Act and tells the relevant authorities, ‘Release all my service records to whichever reporters or organizations want to see them.’
But he just refuses to do it.
The payment records out today do give some evidence of what the president was doing during the year in question. But to say they raise further questions is something of an understatement.
It’s long been known, for instance, that in the late spring of 1973, Bush’s commanding officers in Texas reported that they couldn’t write an evaluation of him because “he has not been observed” at the base in Houston. That didn’t raise any red flags because, though, because they believed he was then serving in Alabama.
Yet these new records seem to say that Bush actually was doing drills in Houston.
In fact, as the Washington Post notes, on the very day that his commanding officers were writing that he hadn’t been seen on base — May 2, 1973 — these new payment records say he was actually on base logging in hours.
Go figure.
The president could clear this up by just authorizing the release of all his service records like he said he would. Now we’re on to day three. But he still won’t do it.
Drip, drip, drip.
