From today’s press gaggle with Scott McClellan:

Q This was a direct order he defied, right? I mean, he did have a direct order that he defied?*
MR. McCLELLAN: John, these issues have come up every year. This was all part of the records — that he was seeking to transfer to a unit in Alabama because he was going there to work in a civilian capacity. And he was granted permission to do so. And he was proud of his service and he was honorably discharged in October ’73, after meeting his obligations.
*The memos that were released, in fact, show the President was working with his commanders to comply with the order.

Yes, that is lifted directly from the transcript of the press briefing. The White House added an asterisk to “clarify” a reporter’s question.
I thought it was bad enough when the White House added footnotes to clarify their answers. Now they apparently must clarify what the reporters ask–i.e., they inform the readers what reporters should have asked.
When will the spin end?

President Bush
“Meet The Press”
February 7, 2004:

Russert: But you authorize the release of everything [National Guard records] to settle this?
President Bush: Yes, absolutely.
We did so in 2000, by the way.

Yet magically, the White House found more documents to release last night:

After the broadcast, the White House, without comment, released to the news media two of the memos, one ordering Bush to report for his physical exam and the other suspending him from flight status.

In the MTP interview Bush also stated he had cleared his move to Harvard:

Russert: You did � were allowed to leave eight months before your term expired. Was there a reason?
President Bush: Right. Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military.

Yet as Salon’s Eric Boehlert points out, Bush fulfilled no such arrangement; to the contrary, Bush again relied on his ties to get out of the military:

On Oct. 1, 1973, Bush received an honorable discharge from the Texas Air National Guard in order to move to Boston and attend Harvard Business School, where he was still obligated to find a unit in Massachusetts to fulfill his remaining nine months of duty, or face being placed on active duty. Once again, Bush made no such effort. But the Air Force in Denver, acting retroactively, in effect overturned Bush’s honorable discharge and placed him on “Inactive Status” effective Sept. 15, 1973. When Bush left Texas, his personnel file was sent to Denver for review. The ARPC quickly realized Bush had failed to take a required physical exam, his Texas superior could not account for his whereabouts covering nearly a 12-month period, and because of absenteeism Bush had failed to “satisfactorily participate” as a member of the Texas Air National Guard. Bush’s “Inactive Status” meant his relationship with the Air Force (and the Guard) was severed and he was therefore eligible for the draft.
Soon afterward, large gaps began appearing in Bush’s paper trail. Lukasiak concludes that only last-minute intervention, likely from Bush’s local Houston draft board, saved him from active duty, as well as finally securing his honorable discharge, removing his “Inactive Status.” Ironically, that means strings were pulled to get Bush out of the Guard in 1973, just as they were pulled to get him enrolled in 1968.

Undoubtedly, there’s more to this story–depending on which documents the Bush machine failed to scrub the media uncovers.

This week we witnessed the 1,000th American military death in Iraq, not to mention the 7,000 + wounded and 12,000+ Iraqi civilians killed. That’s a large number to put your head around.
Fortunately, we have the administration to put it in context. Here’s Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld:

It should be noted that the civilized world passed the thousandth casualty mark a long time ago. Hundreds were killed in Russia last week to be sure. And this week, of course, on September 11th, 2004, we remember the 3,000 citizens of dozens of countries who were killed on September 11th in 2001. And September 11th, 2001 was not the beginning of terrorism, and the war in Iraq has not created terrorism. International terrorists declared war on the civilized nations of the world some time back, and over the decades, they have killed many thousands of Americans and citizens of other countries as well.
And as we commemorate the third anniversary of the attacks of September 11th, it’s appropriate to honor the fallen and to reflect on how far we have come and to determine what more might be done.

Ahh, yes–September 11. You remember that, don’t you? Of course the administration has never said Iraq was responsible for 9/11, they just keep happen to keep talking about the two at the same time; it’s a freakish coincidence, really. And when you think about all the people who died on 9/11, the hundreds of Americans who have died in the 16 months since President Bush declared major combat over in Iraq really isn’t that big of a deal.
See, that’s the problem with today’s liberal media–they don’t put such things in a proper perspective. You have to focus on the big picture. It’s hard to see the progress of the Iraqi soccer team when you’re bean-counting returning coffins. Thankfully, we still have voices to keep us focused away from this “ghoulish” media celebration of American casualties.

Time to break out the chicken suit?

President Bush may skip one of the three debates that have been proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates and accepted by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), Republican officials said yesterday.
The officials said Bush’s negotiating team plans to resist the middle debate, which was to be Oct. 8 in a town meeting format in the crucial state of Missouri.
. . .
The audience for the second debate, to be at Washington University in St. Louis, was to be picked by the Gallup Organization. The commission said participants should be undecided voters from the St. Louis area.
A presidential adviser said campaign officials were concerned that people could pose as undecided when they actually are partisans.

We’re supposed to believe that Bush is a tough leader with the fortitude to make life or death decisions in combating terrorists, yet he’s afraid to take questions from partisan voters posing as undecideds? That’s lame.

More documents found. Apparently they reveal that Bush wasn’t the model reservist. This isn’t a great surprise to many people, but it does refute the recent Bush line about fulfilling all his duties.
It’s also interesting what a difficult time investigative reporters have had in digging up these records, isn’t it?