Russ Me To You
The skeleton in W. 's Closet
Do you know the story behind the Kennedy assassination, Watergate behind, behind George W. Busha € ™ s rapid ascent to the most powerful office in the world? Â I thought. It was very simple, really. Oswald killed Kennedy, Nixon was an ogre, and W has triumphed through a combination of ruthless political tactics, the weakness of his opponent, timing and dumb luck.
Thata € ™ s what I thought € "I and many others. Then I started to question George W. What, really, lingerie his unlikely ascent and administration has caused it? When I considered the amazing array of controversy and deceit being execution across the company, my instinct tells me that there was more to the story. Beginning in 2004, and for the next five years I hit the road, interviewing hundreds of people (most of them had never been interviewed before) and getting and reviewing thousands of documents.
History leads me to places â € "both psychologically and physically â €" that I did not expect to go. I had to revise many of my most basic assumptions, not only to George W. Bush and his family, but more on the nature of power in America and how it has played in our recent history. This includes some of the most persistent disconcerting.
The result is my first book, Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the powerful forces that put it in the White House, and what are their means of influence for America. For more information about this book and the research behind it, please visit www.familyofsecrets.com.
The following is an excerpt, read it first on Huffington Post:
The skeleton in W. 's Closet: An excerpt from the Family Secrets by Russ Baker
Even before George W. Bush reached his first position, its managers were aware of skeletons rattling loudly in his office. This was one that undermined the legend of principle and duty – the history of man a man and a patriot. It should be eliminated.
At a televised debate in 1994 between incumbent Texas Governor Ann Richards and George W. challenger, Austin television reporter Jim Moore has asked Bush to explain how he had grown so quickly and easily in the National Guard pilot training as an alternative to serving in Vietnam. Candidate Bush had simply said that favoritism played no role and that he had served honorably. End of discussion. There were no questions monitoring.
But when the debate was over, Bush's communications director, Karen Hughes, came to the journalist. "Karen is simply a beeline for me and goes into my face and tried to separate myself from the crowd, "said Moore. "Then she began a tirade." What kind of question is that? Why have you asked this question? Who do you think you are? It is simply not relevant to be governor of Texas. It does not attempt to direct the federal government. It will run the state of Texas. What is his service in the National Guard have to do with anything? It was not an army to run here in Texas. Why would you ask such a question, Jim? "(Some years later, when Mr. Bush was in reality an army running, each time a journalist asked the same question, he or she learned she had been "asked and said "long ago.) In response to Hughes, Moore said:" It's about character, Karen. This is his generation and my adulthood, and how we dealt with what we all considered a wrong war. "
As the journalist turned to deposit its history, Chief Strategist for Bush, Karl Rove, came to him next. "What was the matter, Moore? And I said: "Well, you know what it was, Karl." I said it's a good question. And he said: "It was not fair. It has nothing to do with anything. Rant and was less excited than Karen, but it was the same thing – trying to say: "You're stupid. You 're a local yokel and you're stupid, you do not know what you do. "
Bush handlers thought they could get reporters off a history of intimidating. Often, they have proved right. It sometimes seems that the entire history of George W. Bush 's life has been rewritten by hired hands. Like every exaggeration, distortion or a factual error is discovered, Bush ducked and bobbed, has only rarely been forced to concede anything.
One hundred of these examples: In its submission to Congress unsuccessful in Midland 1978 W. 's campaign literature describes his service in wartime as "Air Force" – a claim also made for him in the autobiography Poppy. Probably the two men knew the difference between National Guard and Air Force. However, as demand remained in W. 's official biography until the 2000 presidential campaign, when the correction was done discreetly.
In no case were concerned Bush and his team more intransigent than the details of his military ser vice. One concern was cosmetic favoritism shown that young Bush in his assignment to the National Guard does not correspond to the legend Karl Rove was developing for him. It was hard, no bullshit, "mano a mano" kind of guy, the cocky kid who challenged his famous father to a fight, the self-made oil tycoon in flight jacket and boots cowboy, outspoken "Ranch Hand "with the arrogance of John Wayne (in Texas, we call that walking"). Even the name of his campaign plane (accountability One) was designed in the image. It could not be seen as someone who used family connections to get a cushy assignment home front while thousands of his peers went to die in Vietnam.
After Bush's election as governor in 1994, his political team has worked to immunize humans against their requests for additional information to his Guard service. Dan Bartlett, a personal attention while in their twenties, and no military service on his part, has been appointed liaison between the Governor and National Guard. And Bush has replaced Texas Adjutant General Sam Turk, Managing Director Guard, who had been appointed by the Governor Richards, General Daniel James.
Clean ORDS rec Guard of Texas have become much easier Once W. was the Commander in respect of units of the National Guard of the State. The effort started a few months after the inauguration Bush. On May 16, 1995, Joe Allbaugh, then chief of staff to Bush met with caregivers and asked to see the personnel files of Bush. Three days Later they were sent to the office of Governor Office of the Adjutant General in office. "I am enclosing copies of the Texas Air National Guard for records for Mr. Daniel O. Shelley and Governor George W. Bush, "says Turk. It is not clear why the files of Shelley were also requested, except that he was about to be appointed legislative director of Mr. Bush. In any case, require two documents rather than risk it is a form Guarantee – comparable to what happened in 1972 when George W. Bush failed to take his agent of the National Guard physical and was joined in the breach his friend Jim Bath. In each case, the special treatment accorded W. was made to appear more "routine" by the fact that at least one other person been included.
What people around the governor was involved was apparent when Dan Bartlett went to Denver to personally examine copy on microfiche of documents in the folder Bush Center Air Reserve Personnel. Although Bartlett had little or no knowledge of the army, he reveals be a good man for the job. As was the case with most of those named by Bush's primary qualification was loyalty. Bartlett went to work for Business Consulting politics Karl Rove in 1992, right out of college, and therefore, by the 2000 presidential campaign, his whole life had been in service at Rove and Bush.
In 1996, the new Adjutant General Daniel James, used the Lieutenant-Colonel Bill Burkett, a guard Yugoslavia and rancher who doubled in the last privately AS con sul, to lead a task force to assess the state of the organization. Even senior officers said he had become lax and ineffective Burkett mission was to create a strategic plan to bring the guardrail in fighting Qtr. Burkett returned several months later with a devastating report, documenting how outdated, ineffective, unprepared, and even the service was corrupted. The report suggested radical reforms.
What Burkett and his team discovered went beyond unjustified promotions agents of political relations, as bad as those who were. (An officer whose promotion has been deemed inappropriate, but added to the head a unit that was sent to Iraq in 2004.) They also discovered that the rolls of the Guard in Texas was full of "ghost soldiers" military personnel remain on the list after leaving the unit to justify the continued flow of money allocated to pay them. Equally important, numbers of phantom units seem to be made to staffing levels allowed when examined by state and federal authorities.
Burkett and his team believe that their results were so important and so sensitive that they should take them straight up. Not knowing who was responsible for fraud, "we decided we should go to the boss", said Burkett. But Jacques, Governor Bush had hand-picked man Guard to perform, seemed very much disturbed by this breach of military procedure to cover the news of corruption and malfeasance in the new itself. According to Burkett, James replied: "Now, boys, I want to know what I'm supposed to tell the Chief of Staff, Colonel Goodwin, when He wants to have a pattern of your head "you have violated the chain of command and came here on his head. "
When Burkett requested – and received – A promise to finance the Clinton-Gore administration to begin to repair holes in the guard, the angry Governor Bush declined the assistance. According to Burkett, chief of staff to Bush, Joe Allbaugh, told General James that, now, his primary function was to ensure that Bill Burkett be as far as possible media.
Meanwhile, according to Burkett, we discussed the next presidential candidate Bush and he could become a priority for state officials. One day in 1997, Burkett said he was close to James's general office when a call has was launched in. James took the loudspeaker. It was Joe Allbaugh, with Bush's Guard Liaison Dan Bartlett on the line. According to Burkett, Allbaugh told James that Karen Hughes and Bartlett be released at Camp Mabry, who was on the outskirts of Austin, to comb through files in preparation for a book on Bush and he ordered the general to have the rec ORDS preselected. According to Burkett, Allbaugh said, "It's getting rid of the embarrassment."
About ten days after call Allbaugh, Burkett claims he came to Guard officers through the records of Bush and was a bin included proximity between twenty and forty pages of Bush military records. Burkett had a few moments to see what they contained. Another officer of the Guard and friend of Burkett, George Conn, would corroborate much more advanced the story, but then withdraw confirmation, while maintaining resolutely that Burkett was an honest and truthful. Obviously, Conn was in a difficult position, working for the army in a civil contract, while his wife served as head of the secretarial pool for a large law firm who was a leader Bundler campaign contributions to the Bush campaign.
"I there. I know what I saw in the trash. I know what I saw action in progress, "Burkett told me during one of several conversations long. One of the documents were missing from the files released, Burkett claims is a "hint" declaration of a high Officer Bush, explaining why he was grounded and the changes in allocations, niches, and pay rates. Burkett said he had glimpsed statement counseling Bush to the top of the discard pile, but he did not have time to read through. "In a perfect world, I guess I should have stepped up and seized records and made a federal case of it right there, "he said." In retrospect, I probably would. It would have been simpler to have faced a mess right then and there. "
Copyright  © 2008 Russ Baker
The above is an excerpt from the book of family secrets: the Bush dynasty, the powerful forces that put it in the White House and what is their influence Means for America by Russ Baker (Published by Bloomsbury Press  January 2009; 978-1596915572).  This excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction text from printing. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the digitization process. Please refer to the finished work for accuracy.
Author Bio
Russ Baker is the author of Family Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, forces powerful place in the White House and what are their means of influence to America. For more information about his book and research behind it, please visit www.familyofsecrets.com. As award-winning investigative journalist, Baker has proven to give meaning to issues complex and poorly understood. He wrote for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, the Nation, the New York Times, Washington Post, the Village Voice and Esquire. He also served as a contributing editor to Columbia Journalism Review. Baker was sentenced Club 2005 deadline for its exclusive reports on George W. Busha € ™ s past military. He is the founder of WhoWhatWhy / The Real News Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service investigations, fueled whowhatwhy.com.
About the Author
Please visit htp://www.familyofsecrets.com and http://www.whowhatwhy.com for more information.
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