Inside Politics

Conspiracy theory

White House spokesman Scott McClellan yesterday responded to a report in USA Today detailing how in the late 1990s, as Mr. Bush prepared to run for president, top-ranking Texas National Guard officers and Bush advisers discussed ways to limit the release of potentially embarrassing details in his military records.

The article included a photocopy of a document that was blacked out after Mr. Bush answered the question: “Have you ever been arrested, indicted or convicted for any violation of civil or military law?”

The USA Today story said that “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.”

The future president’s rap sheet, as read to reporters by Mr. McClellan from the unedited document: a misdemeanor charge for stealing a Christmas wreath as a college prank at Yale in 1966, two speeding tickets in the summer of 1964, and two minor traffic accidents.

“I’m just amazed by the kinds of conspiracy theories that some have chosen to pursue,” Mr. McClellan said. “The American people deserve better.”

Presumed guilty

“The media obsession with advancing the liberal Democratic campaign quest, to make President Bush’s National Guard record an issue, continued on Wednesday morning,” the Media Research Center reports.

“Just as occurred on Tuesday night, instead of castigating those leveling unsubstantiated ‘AWOL’ charges, and demanding that the accusers provide proof, the network morning shows presumed Bush is guilty until proven innocent,” the media watchdog’s Brent Baker writes at www.mediaresearch.org.

“ABC’s ‘Good Morning America,’ for instance, devoted half of its first half hour — a news story and three (!) interview segments all totaling a bit more than 10 minutes of air time — to the subject as co-host Charges Gibson adopted Terry McAuliffe’s spin. With ‘Was He AWOL?’ plastered on screen over video of present-day Bush next to a black-and-white still shot of Bush in uniform during his National Guard days, Gibson asserted: ‘President Bush still in the hot seat after releasing his military records. Was he AWOL as his critics charge?’ And showing no self-awareness of how it is the media which are making it a story, Gibson claimed: ‘The questions about the president’s National Guard service just won’t stop.’ ”

Clinton and Clark

“As a political talent scout, Bill Clinton looks like a bit of a dud right now — and that’s just one reason wife Hillary’s presidential prospects suddenly look dimmer,” the New York Post’s Deborah Orin writes.

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