October Surprise... Against Bush?

I've previously mentioned how it has been long believed that Bush's 1973 community service was the result of a cocaine bust or earlier drunken driving arrest, and Daddie Bush made a deal with prosecutors to wipe clean his prodigal son's record in exchange for Bush doing community service. Supposedly, that story was been looked into by a number of reporters this season, and apparently one of them has broken through a little bit.

You'll remember that Bush "wrote" a 1999 autobiography (actually ghostwritten by Nurse Ratchet, Karen Hughes), and that book suffers from some serious accuracy problems. It's been widely reported (although not in the mainstream media) how Bush's statement in that book that, after 1972, he "continued flying with my [National Guard] unit for several years," is untrue, as his records clearly show that he was grounded for failing to take a physical and never flew again.

Bush also apparently discussed his community service in that book as well. Here's what he said:

"I was working full-time for an inner-city poverty program known as Project
PULL," he said in his 1999 autobiography, A Charge to Keep. "My friend John
White... asked me to come help him run the program... . I was intrigued by
John's offer... . Now I had a chance to help people."

Well, it turns out that John White is dead, having passed away in 1988, but other employees who worked in PULL in 1973 are still alive and kickin', and guess what, they dispute Bush's account:

Some former associates of White, who died in 1988, speaking on the record
for the first time, say that Bush wasn't helping to run the program but was
instead a volunteer, and that White hadn't asked Bush to come aboard. Instead,
the associates said, White told them he agreed to take Bush on as a favor to
Bush's father, who was honorary cochairman of the program at the time. They say
White, a tight end for the Houston Oilers in the '60s, told them Bush had gotten
into some kind of trouble, but White never gave them specifics.

While they question how he came to the group, they also praise his work
and agree that he connected well with the youths. "We didn't know what
kind of trouble he'd been in, only that he'd done something that required him to
put in the time," said Althia Turner, White's administrative assistant.
"He didn't help run the program. I was in charge of him and I wouldn't say I
helped run the program, either," said David Anderson, a recreational director at
PULL....

Turner, who said she had avoided reporters for years, agreed to be
interviewed only after phoning her pastor. "George had to sign in and out
- I remember his signature was a hurried cursive - but he wasn't an employee. He
was not a volunteer either," she said. "John said he had to keep track of
George's hours because George had to put in a lot of hours because he was in
trouble."

Four years ago, it was the news of the DWI arrest on the eve of the election that hurt Bush. Could this story be this year's version?

- posted by Joshua @ 5:43 PM