Sunday, October 16, 2005

A Little More on Bush, the National Guard, and Harriet Miers

Forgetting the forged documents that got Dan Rather fired, there is still good evidence that Bush did not meet his National Guard service requirements.

Moreover, the forged documents drowned out other aspects of the case, such as the Ben Barnes angle, mentioned at WorldNetDaily by Jerome Corsi.

Now, I don't really care a whole lot; if Bush dodged the draft, that is A-OK with me. I think that the draft is a form of slavery, so I wouldn't blame anyone who tries to get out of it.

On the other hand, however justified draft-dodging may be, I cannot excuse negative consequences from the fallout of that decision. There is the question of whether this issue played a role in a scandal involving the Texas Sate lottery. Ben Barnes was apparently a consultant to GTECH, the company running the lottery, and there was a scandal involving possible corruption and kickbacks on his part, and involving the fact that the company was picked despite it not being the lowest bidder.

Apparently Harriet Miers, the head of the lottery commission at the time, was involved in the decision not to look at the lower bids.

I previously mentioned this back on October 5, but I didn't get around to reading teh details until today.

I can excuse draft-dodging. I cannot excuse the nomination of an unqualified crony as a quid pro quo for engaging in corruption as a quid pro quo for getting someone out of the draft, if that is what happened. Particularly as I doubt that there was any possible criminal liability for any of the Bushes for anything that happened during the Vietnam era, and as the only reason to cover up anything about Bush's National Guard service would be to protect his image and political career.

More on this as it develops.

That is all.

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