September 11, 2004

More Forgery Evidence: Staudt Discharged Prior to Memo Date

Seattle Times:

The man named in a disputed memo as exerting pressure to "sugarcoat" George W. Bush's military record left the Texas Air National Guard a year and a half before the memo supposedly was written, his service record shows.

An order obtained by The Dallas Morning News shows that Col. Walter "Buck" Staudt was honorably discharged March 1, 1972. CBS News reported this week that a memo in which Staudt was described as interfering with officers' negative evaluations of the future president's service was dated Aug. 18, 1973.

Unbelievabley, CBS tries to explain this little detail away by saying:
From what we've learned, Staudt remained very active after he retired," the staffer said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "He was a very bullying type, and that could have continued."
Could have? And the Lakers could have won the championship game last year, but they didn't.
In the disputed memo, Killian supposedly wrote "(another officer) gave me a message today from group regarding Bush's (evaluation) and Staudt is pushing to sugarcoat it."

It continues: "Austin is not happy either."

The CBS staffer said the memo appears to recognize that Staudt has retired, since it differentiates between his displeasure and that of Austin, where he served his final Guard stint.

But another Texas Air National Guard official who served in that period said the memo appears to wrongly associate Staudt with his group command in Houston, and — based on that mistake — the memo distinguishes his views from that of the Austin Guard.

Retired Col. Earl Lively, director of Air National Guard operations for the state headquarters during 1972 and 1973, said Staudt "wasn't on the scene" after retirement, and that CBS' remote-bullying thesis makes no sense.

"He couldn't bully them. He wasn't in the Guard," Lively said. "He couldn't affect their promotions. Once you're gone from the Guard, you don't have any authority."

Haven't checked other blog reaction to this yet or if this is news to people or not.

Mucho gracias Dr. Leopold Stotch who e-mailed me about it.

By Rusty Shackleford, Ph.D. at 02:42 PM | |