Palast: STILL UNREPORTED: THE PAY-OFF IN BUSH AIR GUARD FIX

[Q]

STILL UNREPORTED: THE PAY-OFF IN BUSH AIR GUARD FIX
Wednesday Sep 15, 2004
by Greg Palast

In 1968, former Congressman George Herbert Walker Bush of Texas, fresh from voting to send other men’s sons to Vietnam, enlisted his own son in a very special affirmative action program, the ‘champagne’ unit of the Texas Air National Guard.  There, Top Gun fighter pilot George Dubya was assigned the dangerous job of protecting Houston from Vietcong air attack.

This week, former Lt. Governor Ben Barnes of Texas 'fessed up to pulling the strings to keep Little George out of the jungle. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas Air Guard - and I'm ashamed."

THE $23 MILLION PAY-BACK

 That’s far from the end of the story. In 1994, George W. Bush was elected governor of Texas by a whisker. By that time, Barnes had left office to become a big time corporate lobbyist. To an influence peddler like Barnes, having damning information on a sitting governor is worth its weight in gold – or, more precisely, there’s a value in keeping the info secret. 

Barnes appears to have made lucrative use of his knowledge of our President’s slithering out of the draft as a lever to protect a multi-billion dollar contract for a client.  That's the information in a confidential letter buried deep in the files of the US Justice Department that fell into my hands at BBC television.

Here's what happened. Just after Bush's election, Barnes' client GTech Corp., due to allegations of corruption, was about to lose its license to print money: its contract to run the Texas state lottery. Barnes, says the Justice Department document, made a call to the newly elected governor's office and saved GTech's state contract.

The letter said, "Governor Bush ... made a deal with Ben Barnes not to rebid because Barnes could confirm that Bush had lied during the '94 campaign."

http://www.gregpalast.com/

[Q]

1. General purpose...

...Kick.

[Karenina]

2. Kick!!

:kick:

[Q]

3. I guess Democrats are getting burnt out on this issue...

...and I don't blame them. Perhaps The Memo kind of turned them off to the idea that Bush* can be made accountable for his lies and horrible record.

- But on the other hand...real journalists like Palast are doing the research and are finding REAL documents that incriminate Bush* and his many cronies and dirty tricks operatives. We should at least give it a look and see where it goes. It's for sure the 'mainstream' media isn't going to publish anything damaging against their boy.