Ben Barnes to break silence on "60 Minutes"

[quaoar]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/01/barnes60minutes/index.html

The campaign battle over Vietnam War records is still raging, but President Bush may soon be the one answering uncomfortable questions about his past service. Ben Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Texas, will finally break his silence and talk to the press about what role he played in helping Bush get a coveted slot in the Texas Air National Guard in 1968. Sources say Barnes has already sat down for a "60 Minutes" interview that will air a week from Sunday. A "60 Minutes" spokesperson declined to comment, saying the program does not discuss reports that are in progress.

Barnes made headlines last week when his videotaped comments that he was "very ashamed" of getting Bush into the National Guard began circulating on the Web. He said the remorse was prompted by a recent visit to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, where he saw the names of thousands of other young men who did not enjoy the connections of the Bush family. Barnes made his comments in May and the video was posted on a pro-Kerry Web site in June, but word of it only began to spread widely last Friday.

Over the weekend, the national press, which for weeks has been amplifying factually challenged allegations against John Kerry by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, gave Barnes' stunning remarks only cursory coverage. The Washington Post, for instance, ran a brief wire story on Saturday, the same day it printed yet another exhaustive piece about allegations surrounding Kerry's war past. In a subsequent WashingtonPost.com online chat, the Post reporter covering the Swift boat story suggested Barnes' comments didn't qualify as "fresh information," and consequently he wasn't interested in "simply regurgitating old controversies." The New York Times ran a brief item on Barnes' statements deep inside its Saturday news section, next to yet another lengthy profile of Kerry's longtime Swift boat nemesis, John O'Neill.

With Barnes now being featured in a sit-down interview with "60 Minutes," the highly rated CBS news magazine, reporters may finally be forced to address the consistent curiosities of Bush's National Guard record.

[Mojambo]

1. This will make it more difficult

for the media to ignore this story.

They still will, but it will be harder.

[buycitgo]

2. which big name is going to die this time, to keep him off the air,

like they did with Sibel Edmonds (Reagan's death kept her off)?

will Poppy take the pipe?

that would be worth it, yes?

[swag]

3. Obv. WP prefers "fresh" disinformation, eh Dana?

[klook]

4. Wonder if they'll ask him about the GTech lottery payoff

Still Unreported: The Pay-off in Bush Air Guard Fix
by Greg Palast
...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."
more: http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=365&row=0

[MoonRiver]

5. MUST SEE TV!

:kick:

[xchrom]

6. a visit to the viet nam war memorial?

running for prez in 00 didn't do a thing for your conscience, eh barnes?
well. i'll take what i can get -- it's late -- but maybe the fates are playing a hand here and it's right on time.

[newsguyatl]

7. excellent!

i'm currently working on an ad using some of his sound from last month. this is great!

keep awol abuzz!!

[LTR]

8. NFL season opener is the same day

This will be watched heavily.

60 Minutes is often the most-watched show of the weekin the fall.

Interesting...

[Rageneau]

9. The Freepers Are Already Saying 'No Big Deal'

While most Freepers still seem to be in denial mode about Smirk's shady history in the Air Guard, some of them are already preparing a fallback position to defend him from when the truth finally comes out.

It will be interesting to see if they all move to it after 60 minuutes on Sunday. My guess is that they will.

That position -- which they will adapt when they can no longer deny that Smirk got preferential treatment -- is (incredibly): "So what if he got preferential treatment? So what?"

It's the same position they adopted when Cheney got caught using the "F" word. The prudish Freepers would have roiled like a ball of snakes if it had been a Dem who used that word, but since Cheney used it, their response was, "So what if Cheney used the F word? So what?"