The long and short of it is that back then, Bush's ~deferment~ would have been a non-story. Who would have thought so much would have changed that it would have become a big enough issue that there would have been these kinds of shenanigans to keep the story under wraps? Sheesh., have times ever changed.
Well...He did have to learn to fly, although something evidently caused him to forget at the beginning of the '72-'73 period I'm interested in. But yes, it was the easy way to go, definitely. He was in what was known as the Champagne Unit, along with Lloyd Bentsen's kid and John Connally's kid, both of whom met their service obligations. When I said it was unheard of, what I meant was: According to a number people who had spent their careers working for the Texas Air National Guard, including during the late '60s and early '70s. They had literally never heard of anyone else who just walked off the base because he had better things to do. The military kind of frowns on that type of thing.
I didn't get far enough that I could responsibly say what got covered up. But I don't really have any doubt that something did, and that it was serious. Basically, I don't know what went down, although I did have one unproven hypothesis that was outperforming the others. If I had gotten closer, it might not have looked like what it did from the vantage-point at which I left it. But fwiw, from there what it looked like was: He was involved in some shenanigans nasty enough that they had the potential to fuck up Poppy's career. So arrangements were made to contain the information even at the time.
It also looked like it would still be a career-killer, whatever it was. For example, here are the first two paragraphs of a story Swiftboat-book author and all-around right-wing apparatchik Jermome Corsi wrote back in 2005 for WorldNetDaily, which
really didn't want Harriet Miers on the Supreme Court and wasn't too shy to issue veiled threats to keep her off it.
Except that when I first printed it out, the scandalous, Presidency-ending truth that the second paragraph predicts will be revealed was something to the effect of "the truth about George Bush's National Guard Service," And...I'm about 94.9 percent certain of that. Which is pretty sure. I mean, I do still have the hard copy. But I'd have to move a lot of boxes to get to it. And anyway, it also looked like a sinkhole that had swallowed more than one scandal over the years, including some hinky shit with the Lottery, as well as some dubious activities down Honduras way in the early '80s. So it's all just one great big sprawling, interrelated mass of shenanigans, at the end of the day. Or I should say: That's what it appeared to be. Since that's really all I know.
The headline, in which I am embedding the link is:
Larry Littwin: George Bush's John Dean
Before Larry Littwin is subpoenaed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Harriet Miers should withdraw her nomination. If she does not, the threat is that the Bush administration may unravel before one year is complete in the second term.
Larry Littwin sits at the center the Texas Lottery Commission scandals that Harriet Miers has helped keep covered up for nearly 10 years. The moment Larry Littwin begins to testify under oath, he is going to bring forward a volume of detail and possibly even documents that threaten to bring down the Bush presidency itself. Make no mistake about it – Larry Littwin is the John Dean of the George W. Bush presidency.
Those are strong words, which when they were fresh and new, emphasized his Guard service in the veiled threat (I'm almost positive; also, IIRC, there was a question mark in the headline, a la "Will Larry Littwin be...etc?")
But....whatever's under those wraps, it's more than featherbedding, imo, is my point.
