Or there has been the last few days, at least. I wondered if Bush was thinking carefully about what he was doing last weekend when he promised Tim Russert on Meet the Press that he would release all his National Guard records.
The release of dental records from January 1973 is kind of weirding some folks in the blogosphere out. And probably lots of other people who saw the story, too. As Atrios notes, it just confuses the chronology more, because the story up until now had Bush back in Houston by then.
Kevin Drum continues to do original research. He's promising us more details from an interview he conducted with Bill Burkett, who is one of the key sources on the AWOL story at the moment.
And Dave Monitz and Jim Drinkard of USA Today posted a story late on 2/11 on the AWOL issue: Ex-officer: Bush file's details caused concern that relies on Burkett as a source.
A second former Texas Guard official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, was told by a participant that commanders and Bush advisers were particularly worried about mentions in the records of arrests of Bush before he joined the National Guard in 1968, the second official said.
Bill Burkett, then a top adviser to the state Guard commander, said he overheard conversations in which superiors discussed "cleansing" the file of damaging information. ...
Two forms in Bush's publicly released military files — his enlistment application and a background check — contain blacked-out entries in response to questions about arrests or convictions. ...
The nature of what was blacked out in Bush's records is important because certain legal problems, such as drug or alcohol violations, could have been a basis for denying an applicant entry into the Guard or pilot training. Admission to the Guard and to pilot school was highly competitive at that time, the height of the Vietnam War.
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