aWol* Worked "Inner-City Poverty Program" in 1973?

[leftchick]

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/consumer_news/9620322.htm

Timeline of Bush Service in National Guard


<snip>
_May-July 1973: Bush participates in non-flying drills at Ellington; works at inner-city poverty program earlier in the year.


.... Now I KNOW he did not do this out of the goodness of his black shriveled heart. Why was he required to do community service? Is there a record of this somewhere?

[catzies]

1. Scuttlebutt is comm. svc. mandated by a drug bust

IIRC, it was called Project PULL.

DUers will have lots of details and info because this has been talked about around here for the last few years.

[Joanne98]

2. Project PULL

He had to do community service for his cocaine bust. Or so goes the theory. Use DU search. Lot's of threads on this. :)

[leftchick]

5. I do remember reading about it....

but it all seemed to be speculation I thought. So he had community service but no one knows why he had to do it?

[Old and In the Way]

6. The service is a fact.

The reason for it is what's intriguing. I'll never believe he did it out of some desire to give back to the community. That's just not in his character.

[Bridget Burke]

3. He's spoken about (other people) volunteering....

One wonders why he hasn't given us moving details of this episode in his youth. Too bad no reporter has taken the chance to ask him about his own experience as a volunteer with disadvantaged youth.

[Lefty_the_Right]

4. That what Karl Rove told Jim Hatfield

The writer of "Fortunate Son".

One of the editors told High Times about what Jim told him after Jim was found dead of an "apparent" suicide.

This administration is worthy of so many good novels.
It's just a shame that most of it is true.

[Generic Other]

36. Jim spoke posthumously?

I wish he would.

[proud patriot]

7. This is what Jim Hatfield's " fortunate son " touched upon

Bush was busted for Cocaine possesion this is what I believe
in my heart of hearts .

[tkulesa]

10. But Jim Hatfield

was a known liar. He published stuff that is now pretty widely known to have been made up. It might still be true, but it wasn't sourced and documented.

He also claimed that Rove was his contact when Rove was half way across the country. His only proof of any contact with Rove was a single phone call made to Rove's home when Rove wasn't there. Hatfield claimed that Rove later returned that call and agreed to be a source.

As much as I would love to believe the stuff in Fortunate Son, I wouldn't trust it. I wouldn't site it. It doesn't pass the credibility test. It's as bad as the swift boat lies.

[Minstrel Boy]

12. Yet it's also true, isn't it?

Hatfield paid with his life for that book. I won't have him smeared.

[tkulesa]

13. It's not a smear if he really was a fraud.

He had a prior conviction for fraud and blackmail. He was a known con-artist according to former co-workers and associates.

Unknown to his wife and step-kids he was on parole for that prior conviction. He apparently told them that he was a covert CIA operative and so was the parole officer.

I've known pathological liars and the houses of cards they build. He fits the profile exactly. It doesn't matter if he was on our side. A pathological liar is still a pathological liar.

The fact that he committed suicide (which isn't contested by anyone who knew him as far as I know) when his lies started unraveling does mean that he paid with his life, as you said. But he wasn't paying for truth with his life. He was paying for years of lies.

He should have stayed with writing star trek novels. It was okay to make stuff up there.

[Minstrel Boy]

17. The question is not his character, it is the content of his work.

And Fortunate Son is a valuable work.

[tkulesa]

19. That's only partially true.

If you are claiming that someone is guilty of something, proof is required.

If we want the Swift Boat nutballs to be driven off the stage as liars then we can't expect a double standard when it's a nutball on our side.

It isn't character, but it is credibility that is the question. Hatfield had none. Regardless of the truth of his claims he was a pathological liar and a fraud. He manufactured sources and evidence that didn't exist.

He was the left's Swift Boat Veteran.

[proud patriot]

14. I dissagree

I was skeptical after reading it , and then I lived through
close to 4 years of bush . During that time I've spent close
to 40 hours a week researching everything he sited . Decided
that I wanted to be a homemaker/stay at home mom .

Low and behold I've found his accusations to be right on
the money . Because Hatfield had a felony in his past ,
doesn't make him a liar . It means he made a stupid
mistake when he was young . Too many people just brushed
his research aside when they learned he was a ex-felon.

He had paid his price to society for his crime and turned
his life around by becoming a writer .

That may make him a "liar" to you , but it doesn't to me .

[tkulesa]

21. The felony doesn't make his claims false.

I'm not claiming that his conclusions were wrong. His claims were almost certainly dead on.

Making up sources and evidence that didn't exist makes him a fraud. He claimed that Rove was his source, at a time when Rove was across the country making public appearance, at a resort that showed he was there alone for three days drinking.

(Edit for clarity: Hatfield was a resort alone drinking. Not Rove. Rove was on the campaign trail with Bush. Whether or not they were drinking on the campaign trail is unknown.)

The felony conviction simply shows that it wasn't his first time committing fraud. Anything he said should have been fact-checked by his publisher and it wasn't. As a matter of fact, that's why the publisher took the very costly step of recalling the entire print run.

[David Zephyr]

42. Much of What Hatfield Revealed 4 Years Ago Has Now Proven True

Buy the book. Read it.

[tkulesa]

44. I did.

Do you think I would be posting about a book and author I haven't read?

My point isn't (in any of my posts) that Hatfield wasn't right. Only that he made up fake proof about it.

[Stephanie]

16. How can you say "widely known to be made up" and "might still be true"

Which is it?

[tkulesa]

18. You can make something up and still have it be true.

I could say that I know first hand that Bush went AWOL. I would be making it up because I have no first hand evidence. But it would still be true that Bush went AWOL.

The issue isn't whether or not the accusations are true. We all believe they are. Hatfield wrote about what he believed to be true.

The issue is that he pretended to have evidence and sources, and didn't have any of it.

His book did a lot to discredit the left's investigation of Bush during the last presidential election. It gave the major media someone to point at and say "see, there are no credible accusations against Bush." The same way they only show the 'violent anarchists' at protests as a way of discrediting the half a million other people who are there.

[Stephanie]

20. I don't recall that he had no evidence or sources

I recall that he was discredited when they brought out his criminal record just as the book was published.

[tkulesa]

22. He was discredited

When his main source, Karl Rove, denied being a source and showed that he couldn't have been the source. The news of the conviction came out shortly thereafter.

The drug claim was the only really explosive thing in the book, and he stated that Rove told him it was true. Other than htis one claim, the book was a rehash of other previously published stuff.

If Hatfield had left out the charge of drug use, or stated that this was believed but not yet proven then there would not have been a problem. Hatfield would be a highly paid pundit right now. But he included that charge and made up a source to 'prove' it when he didn't really have any proof.

[Minstrel Boy]

23. "He was discredited when...Karl Rove, denied being a source"

Well, there ya go. :eyes:

Too bad Hatfield was only "accidently" right about Bush's cocaine use.

[tkulesa]

26. I usually give credit to conspiracy theories for being partially right

But this idea that Karl or Bush had Hatfield killed is really unfounded and out there.

After they got the publisher to recall the book they effectively killed it's ability to do any damage. After Hatfield's fraud conviction came out Hatfield couldn't even get his star trek fiction published anymore. He had no career and no money. There was no motive or benefit to anyone to kill him.

In fact, if he had not committed suicide Fortunate Son probably would not have been picked up an reprinted by the new publisher.

[Minstrel Boy]

27. When did this become a dispute about cause of death?

I'm still talking about the merits of his book. Which, to you, is as good as debunked by nothing more than the word of Karl Rove, even though Hatfield was right about Bush's cocaine use.

[tkulesa]

29. It's not Karl Rove's word that I'm basing my judgement on.

Go back and reread my posts. It's the fact that the man had no sources. He had no proof.

Hatfield's claim that Rove was his source is the only support he had for this claim. But there is no evidence that he ever met Rove, much less interviewed him. There is no evidence that he met with anyone the entire weekend he claimed to get that interview.

I could claim that Barbara Bush told me that Junior is a cokehead. But if I did you would probably expect me to prove that she really said it. Regardless of whether or not Junior is a cokehead, did I ever meet Barbara? Did she talk to me? Do I have a tape or a credible transcript? Was she anywhere within 400 miles of me when I claim we were talking?

The fact that Karl claims he wasn't the source is more or less irrelevant because he clearly couldn't have been the source.

The fact that a writer claimed someone as a source who then claimed never to have met with or spoken to the writer simply reinforces the doubt.

So please don't assume that I'm trusting Rove. I simply distrust Hatfield just as much.

Hatfield had a burden of proof, any proof, no matter how scant it might be. He had none. Nothing. Nada. He then lied and claimed he had a source that he almost certainly did not and could not have had.

Because he resorted to publishing unsupported accusations, and because he was caught doing it, everyone who started asking questions about Junior's illegal history has had to overcome the stain Hatfield left on the subject. We could have pushed for an investigation Hatfield hadn't innoculated the right against this charge. It's only now that drug use has been mentioned by an ex-inlaw who was there that it's back in the news.

[Stephanie]

28. That's if you believe Rove

And if you believe Rove didn't set him up for the double-cross. Of course Rove would never do something like that.

[tkulesa]

31. I don't believe or trust Rove

But I do believe in supporting evidence. If Rove was across the country at rallies when the interview took place, if there's no evidence that the meeting ever happened, if there is nothing, literally nothing, to support even the idea that Hatfield ever met with Rove then he probably didn't.

Besides, if Rove, the master of leaks and third-hand gosip campaigns wanted to leak information about Bush, would he really have turned to a 3rd rate sci-fi writer who didn't yet even have an agreement to get his book published?

If Hatfield had a history of integrity then that in itself would be proof of his word. But unfortunately, Hatfield's history showed he was a dishonest guy. His word needs supporting evidence.

I personally think the charges are true. I'm pretty sure we all do. But that doesn't mean that anyone can lie about proof and then blame it on Rove or anyone else. Proof is proof. Either you have it or you don't. It's two independent questions. Was Bush a cokehead, and was Hatfield telling the truth about this sources? Yes, and no.

So I'll push the evidence that Bush is a cokehead until my friends are almost sick of hearing about it, but Hatfield's book isn't part of that proof. It doesn't have the credibility to stand up as proof. The argument that Bush is a cokehead needs to be made to the public with real evidence, not with imaginary interviews that never happened. Bush is a cokehead, but Hatfield was also a liar.

I can't support a liar or support lowering the standards of proof simply because the liar is on our side.

[Stephanie]

30. Here is Mark Crispin Miller's preface to the third edition

http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/2002/12/18_Fortunate.html

Preface to the 3rd Edition of "Fortunate Son"

by Mark Crispin Miller, Author of "The Bush Dyslexicon" and America's Foremost Expert on the Unique Dialect of the Man Occupying the White House

When Jim Hatfield started to work on Fortunate Son, he had no idea what he was up against. At no point had he planned to do a hatchet job on the anointed one. Jim’s attitude to Bush, while critical, was not unsympathetic (as anyone who reads the book can see). It was as if Jim knew that he was drawn to this biography in part because he saw Bush as another version of himself: someone who had attained success despite an iffy background. His aim was to be thorough, not destructive; and so he went to some of Bush’s closest aides—Karl Rove and Clay Johnson—for guidance and for information, which was surely not the m.o. of a character assassin. Assuming that the whole truth, laid out fairly and impartially, would justify whatever he might find in Bush’s background, Jim forged ahead unmindful of the terminal ordeal that was awaiting him.

The details of his public punishment—the irrelevant news about his prison record, his maladroit response, the eager pile-on by the media—are known to anyone familiar with Jim’s story. Less well-known is the Bush team’s later private message to the pesky author, who, not long before the publication of the first Soft Skull edition, ill-advisedly called up Clay Johnson, to gloat about the book’s new incarnation. He was at his mother-in-law’s house, Jim told the filmmakers Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, "and I got a little cocky."

I was pacing outside on the cellphone and I called one of the sources from the afterword, and just let him know that, hey, the book's coming back out—kinda like, "Ha ha ha, you tried to stop it, but it's coming back out." And he was just kinda... well, pissed-off is the best way to put it. But he was cool about it, though. He said, "Look, Number One, we're gonna continue to discredit you every chance we get. We'll make the comments about you being an ex-convict and everything else—and write your science fiction or whatever"—just the same thing they've always said—"and we'll slam you every chance we get." I said, "Well, the difference is, this time I'm gonna put everything out on the table. I'm gonna come right back at ya!" I said, "If Bush says that kinda stuff in the press this time, then I'm gonna say, ‘Well, maybe it takes one to know one, and maybe if my dad was rich, I wouldn't have been down there hoeing cotton in Texas either on a prison farm, and—"

I had all my little sound bites ready. And he says, "Well, the second thing we're gonna do is, you need to really think about the safety of your wife and newborn child"—which, he called her {i.e., his daughter} Haley—he called them by their names.

Jim panicked, and immediately asked his lawyer to stop the book from coming out, but it was too late for that. So he tried to put the threat out of his mind, although he never did get over it.

<snip> On July 17, 2001—a day that the vice president was politicking for more oil and nuclear production, while Bush was in the White House, bestowing the Medal of Honor on a chopper pilot who had saved some fellow troops in Vietnam—Jim checked in to room 312 at the Days Inn in Springdale, Arkansas, and took a handful of antidepressants, washing them down with lots of fruit juice and vodka. The paramedics found him the next day (when Bush was on his way to Europe, for the bloody G-8 summit in Genoa). <more>

[tkulesa]

32. The foreward

Easy enough to prove. Have his lawyer confirm that he tried to stop the book from being republished.

Also, who is the source who gave him information and then didn't want it published? Rove again? If he'll lie once about talking to Rove he'll lie about it repeatedly, but here he doesn't even say who he supposedly spoke to.

Sorry, this is just Mark Crispin confirming that Jim Hatfield liked to say that people were out to get him (which his history confirms). There is also the notion that a previous conviction for fraud is irrelevant but no explanation why it would be irrelevant. There's nothing here but Mark Crispin repeating what Hatfield said. It is, by definition, heresay repeated second hand.

One thing you learn about anyone who is a pathological liar is that everything they say has to be verified. Nothing here is verified. The fact that someone believed him doesn't suddenly make him honest, even if it is someone who is normally credible. Reporting more things Hatfield said doesn't make prior lies suddenly true.

Believe Hatfield is you want. But if you have such low standards of proof then be careful about being taken in. You're looking for arguments you like, not ones that are supported.

I have yet to see even the slightest evidence that Hatfield actually had any sources. I think he was writing about the generally known rumors about Bush from down in Texas and made up a source so he could publish it as 'fact' instead of rumor.

[tkulesa]

33. Support for doubts

Check out www.Bushwatch.com and read the section titled, Is Hatfield The Real McCoy.
http://www.bushwatch.com/hatfield.htm

Check out a Salon article. They checked his references and found out that Hatfield lied repeatedly on his resume.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/21/hatfield/

Hatfield wasn't a guy who made a youthful mistake. His 72 conviction was for hiring someone to murder a former boss.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/10/22/bush.book/

Edit to add stuff.

There's doubt that Bush actually did CS at PULL as Hatfield claimed. I didn't know this claim came from Hatfield. I hoped it was true.
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread3351.shtml

Also, check out an article in Killed: Great Journalism Too Hot To Print. There is a very good article in there about Hatfield.
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=8-1560255811-0

[bobbyboucher]

34. Take a breather, water is heavy.

How far do you have to carry it?

[tkulesa]

37. Accusations of being a water carrier

are an easy way to criticize someone. Are you implying that bieng honest and having actual sources aren't important?

Are we as bad as the republicans, pushing rumor and inuendo instead of actual information?

We all complain about the bias in the right-wing media. It certainly not going to get any less-biased if we don't push for standards.

[JDPriestly]

35. What does "known liar" mean?

Hatfield was also a "known truthteller." That Bush used his privileged status to get into the Guard is an example of a "known truth" written by Hatfield.

Bush lied about a number of things. Does that make him a "known liar"? Could you honestly say that you have never lied about anything?

What was the exact nature of Hatfield's "known lies"? Please be more explicit. People lie for various reasons, in various ways, under various circumstances. That a person lies about one thing does not mean that the person will lie about other things. What were the lies, the circumstances in which the lies occurred, etc? Do you know or are you just accepting someone else's judgment about Hatfield without having researched what happened in his case?

I read Hatfield's book. Most of the facts in it are probably true. He talks names, numbers, times and places. I had the impression he was purposely trying to confuse the reader about his source for the cocaine/public service story in order to protect his source. I do not necessarily believe that story, but I don't disbelieve it either. Most of what Hatfield wrote was well documented and true. Contrast that with the Swift Boat Liars' book. Would you describe the author of the Swift Boat Liars' book as a "known liar"?

[tkulesa]

38. Check out the above links.

Claimed to be a journalist for publications that never heard of him.

Claimed repeatedly to be a CIA operative when he wasn't.

Hid his conviction and parole from his wife and family until the publicity around his book outed him.

Was being investigated for credit card scams.

Convicted of trying to hire people to kill a former boss and coworker. They claim he tried to kill him because they caught onto his habitual lies.

It's crazy that people are jumping through hoops to defend this guy. Use credible sources, people.

[Junkdrawer]

40. I think most people here disagree...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x778499

[tkulesa]

43. That's okay too.

People are allowed to have faith in whomever or whatever they want.

I didn't intend this to turn into as big a discussion as it did. I figured I was posting a simple 'heads up' for people who didn't know anything about him yet. I didn't figure people at DU bought into Hatfield.

Talk about Hatfield is just minutia anyway. We all agree that Bush is a cokehead. And this time it's being reported with an actual witness.

[Junkdrawer]

45. And, by "most people", I mean 43 -> 1....

I saw "Horns and Halos". The documentary made no effort to hide Hatfield's many flaws. And you know what? On the main points, I believe Hatfield - his story just strikes me as true.

[Zero Gravitas]

8. Community Service

for getting busted for cocaine. They won't deny it. When Helen Thomas asked if the Poo-Flinger-in-Chief ever had to do Community Service, the spokes-creep refused to answer the question.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

9. bush* was court ordered community service at P.U.S.H. /his cocaine arrest

[BrotherBuzz]

11. I think it's PULL

Professional United Leadership League. ;)

[Catherine Vincent]

15. P.U.L.L. , P.U.S.H or Martin Luther King Center...it doesn't matter.

They are all located in Third Ward (Houston) and I know where it is.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

41. thanks , that's what i meant>>>>>P.U.L.L.

[Jim__]

24. If that cocaine bust can be proven - Kerry wins - n/t

[Jim__]

25. Dupe

[pinto]

39. Salon article re: Hatfields book, Bush, cocaine and PULL

To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

salon.com > News Oct. 18, 1999
URL: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/1999/10/18/cocaine

Book: Bush was arrested for cocaine in 1972

Texas author J.H. Hatfield claims the Republican front-runner did community service at a Houston center.

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Salon Staff

A new book by Texas author J.H. Hatfield claims that George W. Bush was arrested for cocaine possession in 1972, but had his record expunged with help from his family's political connections. In an afterword to his book "Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President" (St. Martin's), Hatfield says he took a second look at the Bush cocaine allegations after a story in Salon reporting allegations that Bush did community service for the crime at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Houston's Third Ward.

The center's executive director, Madgelean Bush (no relation to George W. Bush), had told Salon News and others that Bush did not do community service there, and the Bush campaign likewise denied the allegation. But the Texas governor had admitted to working at Houston's Project P.U.L.L. in 1972, and Hatfield says he began to wonder if that was actually the community service sentence. Hatfield says he confirmed those suspicions with three sources close to the Bush family he had cultivated while writing his biography, which publishes Wednesday.


Bush's campaign denied Hatfield's allegation Monday.

By contrast, "First Son: George W. Bush and the Family Dynasty," by Dallas Morning News reporter Bill Minutaglio, says George Bush Sr. referred his son to Project P.U.L.L. after an incident in which George W. drove drunk with his younger brother Marvin in the car.