The Truth Slowly Drips Out

I've posted information here before about Bush's 1999 "autobiography," A Charge To Keep, which was ghost-written by Karen Hughes. As I've mentioned, this book has some serious accuracy problems, particularly when discussing Bush's life in 1970s, including his National Guard service.

What I didn't know until now was that Hughes wasn't the initial author. That honor goes to Mickey Herskowitz, an author and journalist from Houston. Herskowitz was signed up to write "A Charge to Keep" in 1999 and met with Bush extensively to prepare for writing the book. However, after Herskowitz submitted his initial chapters, he was fired because the material he submitted was too, well, true, and relied on quoting Bush's frank statements verbatim without the requisite polishing that we've seen over the past four years. For example, Herskowitz quoted Bush as saying the businesses he started were "floundering" and Bush's advisors took issue with that. Hughes took over and rewrote the material, which apparently involved making stuff up. Herskowitz still retains somewhat of a favored status among the Bush family, as Bush Sr. asked him to write a book about his grandfather.

A reporter caught up with Herskowitz recently, and talked about his experiences with Bush. The article's got some good tidbits about Bush's plans for invading Iraq pre-9/11 and his view that, without a war, a president couldn't build up enough political capital to get things done.

But the most interesting section is on Bush's National Guard service, or lack thereof. Apparently Bush spoke very frankly about his time in the Guard and about the disputed Alabama service as well:

According to Herskowitz, Bush was reluctant to discuss his time in the Texas Air
National Guard – and inconsistent when he did so. Bush, he said, provided
conflicting explanations of how he came to bypass a waiting list and obtain a
coveted Guard slot as a domestic alternative to being sent to Vietnam.
Herskowitz also said that Bush told him that after transferring from his Texas
Guard unit two-thirds through his six-year military obligation to work on an
Alabama political campaign, he did not attend any Alabama National Guard
drills at all, because he was “excused.”

What a liar. Please, America. End this November 2.

- posted by Joshua @ 3:30 PM