Tonight s Music After Hours: Women in Jaz concert at Calvary Episcopal Church features performances by Teresa Pate and Joyce Cobb. And tonight s Krewe of Harbor Mardi Gras Gala at the Radisson Hotel benefits the Church Health Center.
According to WREG-TV Channel 3, four people are now behind bars after police discovered an inactive methamphetamine lab in room 104 of the Best Value Inn on Airways. After carefully evaluating the available facts, Fly on the Wall s methamphetamine experts believe that, even if the lab had been functioning at full capacity, better values would still be available.
Plante: How It Looks
HOLY MATRIMONY, BATMAN!
They’re here, they’re married queers, get used to it. Plus: a Makeover in
the Whitehouse, “Why are Deaniacs so damn ignorant?” And More.
Presidential Makeover
Bush would rather be called “stupid” than called, “a liar”
Have you heard about the Republican think tank that invented a robot so
lifelike it even sweats like a pig? White House Press secretary Robo-Scott
McClellen took it in the mechanical keester last Wednesday when the press
hammered him about the President’s disavowal of the job-creation numbers in
his annual economic report.
The president originally predicted 2.6 million
new jobs by the end of 2004. Since growth in the American job market has
come to something like a grinding halt, that figure was pie-in-the-sky by
anyone’s estimation. But here’s the crazy thing about it: This is not an
administration given to backing away from an overly optimistic
interpretations of the facts. “Mission accomplished,” anyone?
When asked repeatedly why the president wouldn’t stand by his numbers
Secretary McClellan, the mouth without a conscious, eventually offered this
most revealing response yet, “Let me be very clear here,” he said. “This
President is focused on what we are doing to create as robust an environment
as possible for job creation — not in crunching numbers.”
The last time we checked, the “science” of economics was largely about
crunching numbers. In fact, even the “art” of economics which, thanks to the
ENRON debacle, has fallen out of favor, is STILL all about crunching
numbers, if creatively. So what is old weeble-headed Robo-Scott saying here?
Has the president totally abandoned all traditional avenues of economics and
begun to explore the divine possibilities of faith-based economics?
“[The President is] looking at the actual numbers that are coming in, the
actual numbers that are being created,” Robo-Scott elaborates. Not too
reassuring in light of this administration’s less-that-flattering
mathematical track record. You’ve got to know that is the same “Oops, I did
it again”-bunch that keeps forgetting to factor the cost of our WARS abroad
into the national budget.
And they sure don’t know diddly about predicting
job growth. Heck, in December of 2003 they predicted an increase of 150,000
to 200, 000 new jobs. Only 1000 jobs were created. Only 1000.
“[The President is] looking to make sure we’re doing everything we can to
keep our economy moving in the right direction and create more jobs,”
Robo-Scott concludes. He’s still given no answer to the big question: What
job growth numbers will the President stand by?
But his message comes through loud and clear. This is a brand new George W. Bush we are dealing with. Going into this new election cycle the now-unpopular President must address his growing credibility problems. He can not, and will not stand by numbers that are not accurate in his admittedly uneducated opinion. He is not a liar. America won’t reelect a liar. They might reelect an honest idiot, but not a goddamn liar.
The Queendom of FudgePackistan
Or
Queer Eye of the Tiger,
Or
Security Level: Pink
Or better still,
Middle America tells them damn gays, “Go the hell back to where you came
from!”
In every dive bar in America you can hear some variation on this theme. You
can hear it tonight. This afternoon. No matter where you live you can
probably find some drunk at a bar watching CNN with the sound turned down.
He’s just reading the ticker, looking at the pretty pictures, drinking and
thinking. “I ain’t against them gays,” he says, and he means it. He doesn’t
want anything to do with them gays, of course, and he just might have to
jack some gay-ass jaw if he ever caught one of them gay-ass-gays looking all
gay at his pecker and shit. But otherwise, he’s down.
“Still, you have got to draw the line some damn where,” the old rummy
continues. “Marriage is an institution that exists between a man and a
woman. That’s how it’s worked for centuries, and if it ain’t broke, don’t
fix it,” he says. Maybe he talks about the Bible. Maybe he doesn’t. “And if
they’ve got to have something that gives them the same rights as married
couples,” he declares at last, “that’s fine by me. But just don’t try to
call it marriage.”
“I ain’t against them gays,” he says, sucking down the dregs of his longneck
bottle. “I swear to god I ain’t got no business in anybodies bedroom but my
own. But you just got to draw the line some damn where. You’ve got to draw
the goddamn line.”
This is not the voice of winger. It’s Joe Democrat. A blue-collar guy, most
likely, but maybe not. He sure doesn’t read The New Yorker, or Vanity Fair.
He’s a little more progressive than his neighbor, but that guy paints
himself up like an American flag and goes out screaming obscenities at
foreign cars with an “Anybody but Bush” bumper sticker. So that doesn’t mean
a whole helluva lot.
His, I am sad to report, is the general sentiment of
Middle America as supported by various national polls. Even as gays are
finally making their big break into mainstream culture, the new Jim Crowe
laws are being constructed. If gay marriage is banned by way of an amendment
to the United States Constitution, homosexuals will thereafter be recognized
by our legal system as a class of people who are separate, but equal. And
perhaps not even equal. The public record will show that a significant
majority of the American people, Democrat and Republican alike thought that
this was a pretty good thing, in the be-all. But don’t start folding up that
Rainbow flag just yet.
A Gallup poll from 1958 shows that 94 to 96% of all white people were
opposed to interracial marriage. The poll was conducted the same year
Richard Loving, a honky, was arrested for marrying the no-account darkie
Mildred Jeter. The felony charge carried a five-year sentence, and the
Virginia court found that Loving and Jeeter’s marriage was indeed a crime,
not only against the state, but also against nature.
“Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red,” the verdict read. “He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his
arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The facts that he
separated the races show that he did not intend for the races to mix.”
According to the Gallup poll, the American people thought this was probably
a good thing. Is any of this starting to sound familiar?
Nine years after their arrest, the Supreme Court ruled in Loving vs.
Virginia, that laws against interracial marriage were unconstitutional. The
world didn’t end. Civilization didn’t crumble. God didn’t visit plagues down
on his chosen white people. And everybody who wasn’t certifiably nuts to
begin with got over it. Eventually, anyway.
Now we are looking at 1958 all over again. Only this year, 2004, is an
election year. Gay marriage, which strikes a sour chord with not only the
religious Right, but also the religious Center, is shaping up to be a big
campaign issue in the Presidential election. No doubt the G.O.P. hopes it
will become a wedge issue, shifting the focus off of Bush’s problems in
Iraq, and away from the sluggish American economy. They hope it will fire up
the President’s conservative base, and win over Soccer moms and
swing-voters. Liberals are wringing their hands because they know there are
plenty of Democrats who balk at the combination of the words, “gay,” and
“marriage.” The libs fear that this issue could blow up in their face, erode
their base, and give George W. Bush four more years in the White House. Both
groups are wrong.
The only Americans who really care what is going on in their neighbor’s
bedrooms are going to vote for the party of John Ashcroft no matter what.
And since that giant creep even gives a lot of old-school Republicans the
heebie-jeebies, you can pretty much assume that this aforementioned group,
while sizeable, is not the majority. Most folks know, or at least senses
that that gay marriage will have no real impact on the way they live their
lives. It may impact the way they vote, but they aren’t sure.
They know that the availability of jobs in America, does impact their lives. They know that not getting a raise for four years, while watching bills soar affects their
lives. They know that underfunded education programs affect their children’s
lives far more than the marriage of Adam and Steve. If anything, the gay
marriage movement is a big burst of love and sunshine in an otherwise gloomy
world where old AWOL soldiers send young men to die for no good reasons at
all. Gay marriage is not a losing issue for the Democrats. And, in the end,
everybody loves a wedding. I said, “in the end.”
Quick Hit
Are the Deaniacs losing their freaking minds?
When he bowed out of the Democratic primary net-roots candidate Howard Dean
encouraged his base to throw their support behind the eventual nominee.
Since then, a number of his loyal followers have written in to various
websites claiming that they couldn’t “stomach” the idea of voting for Kerry.
Because, you know, when you compare Bush to Kerry, there’s really not much
of a difference, right?
Faulty (Environmental) Intelligence
The Bush Administration dirties North Dakota skies, George Tenant
unavailable for comment
Wow, the state of North Dakota, which has been battling the EPA since
1999 over the poor air quality around Theodore Roosevelt National has
reduced its pollution levels significantly. Well, they have reduced levels
enough that The E.P.A. under the Bush Administration has given the go-ahead
to build a new coal burning electrical plant just spitting distance from the
park where President Roosevelt, stunned by the majestic, unspoiled landscape
dedicated himself to a life to conservationism. And how exactly has North
Dakota worked this air cleaning miracle? Have they developed new
coal-burning technologies that reduce toxic emissions? No, they have not.
Have they developed filters that catch the toxins before they can
contaminate the environment? No again. In fact, being quite unable to reduce
the level of pollution in any measurable way, North Dakota was given the
go-ahead by the EPA to change the way in which they estimate the level of
air pollution in the park. Genius!
This is a classic example of how the Bush Administration works on all
fronts. If you don t like the intelligence you are presented with change it.
And if you can t change the intelligence, change the way you read it. Create
formulas after-the-fact that validate your results. That s how America got
into Iraq. That s how America got saddled with its biggest national debt in
history. That s how North Dakota got a new coal burning electrical facility.
In related news, President George W. Bush plans to market a new ruler
designed specifically for measuring the penis. It is said that this new
ruler is guaranteed to add inches without the aid of pills, creams, or
exercise. The administration does not promise that the increased inches will
make your package look better in a flight suit. That is, of course, between
you and the flight suit.
Break In 2: Electric Boogaloo
Remember memogate, that little tempest-in-a-teacup wherein Senate
Republicans hacked Democratic computers and gained access to thousands of
files, perhaps illegally? Well it’s about to bloom into a Watergate-sized
scandal.
The bi-partisan Senate judiciary committee is in agreement: it appears a
crime or two has been committed and a broader investigation should commence.
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) made his point clear: “Conservatives who
offer justification for this based on politics have missed the boat.”
“As a conservative,” Graham added, referring to the theft of Democratic
documents, “it runs against my philosophy of what the law is all about.”
Last week, Republican Senators who had received a special briefing from
Senate Sergeant at Arms Bill Pickle held an intense meeting with various
conservative groups. The abbreviated message: Don’t attack the Senate
investigation; you’ll regret your position when the results of the probe are
public. That’s coming from the REPUBLICANS.
Here’s what we know: Democratic computers were hacked by GOP staffers. We
know that thousands of documents, some containing information on judicial
nominees was stolen. We know that Republican staffers leaked the contents of
some memos to the conservative press. We may assume from the Senate
Judiciary Committee’s actions that at least some of the hacked information
was openly shared, and used for political advantage. The obvious question:
Who knew what, and when did they know it?
Depending on how the stolen information was attained, disseminated and used
this could end up being the kind of crime you have to map with a flowchart,
just to keep all the players straight.
The Memphis Grizzlies are back at it again tonight playing Denver. And back at First Congo, there s a screening of Robert Greenwald s Uncovered: The Whole Truth about the Iraq War. And The Circus Bears are at the Blue Monkey Midtown.
The grand old flag of the grand old South is once again under fire in Tennessee. A house bill sponsored by Rep. Ulysses Jones (D-Memphis) and an identical Senate bill sponsored by Senator Roscoe Dixon (D-Memphis) have been introduced to the Tennessee General Assembly. The bills seek to ban all symbolic references to the Confederacy from license plates and would also keep the relatively new Sons of Confederate Veterans specialty license plate, which features the Confederate battle flag, from being renewed. Certain that this bill will stir up a whole mess of trouble, the Pesky Fly would like to suggest a noble compromise. Anyone who wishes to buy a specialty license plate featuring the Confederate battle flag should be allowed to exercise their First Amendment right to do so. Such tags should also be amended to include the word LOSER.
Plante: How It Looks
TEN FOR THE TOMB
Frank Murtaugh After 13 years of Penny-highs and Price-lows, the University of Memphis Tigers will likely play their final game in The Pyramid a week from Wednesday, against the Horned Frogs of TCU. (Despite the penny-wise, pound-foolish shenanigans of the Memphis City Council, the deal sending the U of M to FedExForum will get done. Too many reasons in favor.)
Memphis has sent five teams from the Pointed Place to the NCAA tournament and one to an NIT championship. Four head coaches have looked up at the retired jerseys of Finch, Robinson, and Lee, and three players left The Pyramid to become top-10 picks in the NBA draft. So excuse me if I side-step the U o M’s imminent jump to a new arena and do a little mourning this week. What follows is one man’s list of the 10 biggest Tiger games in the Tomb of (Pending) Doom.
10) November 29, 1991 — The Mid-South Coliseum never saw this kind of attendance. Nearly 20,000 Tiger faithful packed the new arena for its basketball debut. With a national TV audience tuning in on ESPN, Anfernee Hardaway made his long-awaited debut as well. The combination of Penny, Tony Madlock, Anthony Douglas, and Billy Smith wasn’t quite enough against 20th-ranked DePaul, the Blue Demons christening the Tomb with a 92-89 overtime win.
9) November 17, 2000 — Keep in mind there was no day-dreaming about a new arena when John Calipari decided Memphis was the job for him. The Pyramid was among the primary reasons Coach Cal offered for making the leap from his native northeast. For his coming-out party, Calipari invited his former Atlantic 10 nemesis, John Chaney, to town. Not so far removed from an infamous press-conference confrontation in which Chaney threatened Calipari’s life, Temple buried the hatchet by beating the Tigers, 67-62, on national television.
8) December 12, 1998 — Probably the only significant win of the otherwise forgettable Tic Price era. Memphis hadn’t played Ole Miss in 13 years, so the 78-72 overtime victory was a nice statement for the U of M program and reminded local recruits that they didn’t need the SEC to find big-time college basketball.
7) December 4, 1999 — Hardaway’s single-game career high was 37 points, Dajuan Wagner’s 32. Lorenzen Wright? 36. But on this night, Harlem Globetrotter-to-be Keiron Shine lived up to his surname, lighting up Miami for 39 points, to this day a single-game record for The Pyramid. The Tigers whipped the Hurricanes, 82-72.
6) February 20, 1996 — The 91-66 win over Southern Miss was coach Larry Finch’s 200th on the Tiger sideline. He remains the only Memphis coach to attain this lofty plateau. The 1995-96 squad — led by Lorenzen Wright, Mingo Johnson, and Chris Garner — was Finch’s last to reach the NCAA tournament.
5) March 1, 2003 — What had been Conference USA’s top rivalry — Memphis and Cincinnati — grew decidedly uneven in the late Nineties, as the Bearcats began a six-game winning streak at the expense of the Tigers. With both Calipari and Bob Huggins opening the game in bow ties to honor retiring Mount St. Mary’s coach Jim Phelan, Memphis dominated the second half, more than doubling the Bearcats on the scoreboard (40-19). Led by 23 points from Chris Massie, Memphis won, 67-48, handing Cincinnati its worst defeat in eight years of C-USA play.
4) March 1, 1997 — Goodbyes are never easy, particularly when it comes to family. After the turmoil of a lengthy buyout negotiation with athletic director R.C. Johnson, Larry Finch wrapped up his career on the Tiger sidelines in scripted fashion, beating ninth-ranked Cincinnati, 75-63. Alas, these Tigers — despite the efforts of seniors Chris Garner and Cedric Henderson — had to settle for an NIT bid, finishing Coach Finch’s final campaign at a pedestrian 16-15.
3) February 4, 2004 — As if Memphis-Louisville needed any more spice. With another high-profile, nattily dressed Yankee on the sidelines — the Cardinals’ Rick Pitino — Calipari led a young squad against the sixth-ranked team in the country, one that had already reeled off a 16-game winning streak. Despite a pair of Louisville stars (Taquan Dean and Francisco Garcia) absent with injuries, the Cardinals shot better than 60 percent in the first half and appeared to have Memphis cornered. Those same shooters, however, were held to 29 percent in the second half, and the Tigers beat their arch-rivals, 62-58.
2) February 6, 1993 — Cincinnati had beaten the Tigers not once, not twice . . . but four times during the 1991-92 season, including a blowout in the regional finals of the NCAA tournament. So when the fourth-ranked Bearcats and their infuriatingly talented point guard Nick Van Exel came to town, Tiger Nation was frothing for blood. With Hardaway filling a highlight tape all by himself, Memphis won, 68-66. This was the 1,000th win in U of M history.
1) February 8, 1992 — There was a time when the Tiger-Hog rivalry had more Memphis flavor than a dry rack at the Rendezvous. Led by All-America candidate Todd Day (a graduate of Hamilton High School), fifth-ranked Arkansas marched into The Pyramid to take on the Tigers and their All-America candidate, Penny Hardaway (a graduate of Treadwell High School). The Tigers prevailed, 92-88, and went on to upset Arkansas a month later in the second round of the NCAA tournament on their way to the Midwest Regional finals.
Today s Youth Villages Soup Sunday at The Pyramid is one of the best fund-raisers of the year in Memphis, with soups, desserts, and special recipes from some 70 local restaurants judged by celebrity judges, along with activities for the kiddies and live music. And if you re a cat lover, don t miss this afternoon s Wine and Whiskers Auction at McEwen s on Monroe, a fund-raiser for the Mewtopia Cat Rescue group with wine tastings and a silent auction.
The U of M Men s Tiger Basketball Team plays UAB tonight at The Pyramid. Love Force Axis featuring Grunt and Jonathan Ciaramitaro are at the Full Moon Club. And if you haven t checked out the new, vastly expanded tapas menu in the M Bar at Melange, you re going to be very pleasantly surprised.
We Get Mail A hand-written note scrawled on stationery and adorned with hearts, flowers, and stars recently at the Flyer s sister publication, Memphis magazine. It reads: Dear friend, one of my hobbies is collecting statehood quarters. So as friend I am giving these 4 quarters to you as a gift to you. I love you always, Your friend always, Al. From my heart with true friendship and love. The letter contained four quarters, two honoring Georgia, one honoring Arkansas, and one honoring South Carolina. Thanks, Al, we love you too. Well, as long as you keep sending us money.
Plante: How It Looks
Two members of the Air National Guard unit that President George W. Bush allegedly served with as a young Guard flyer in 1972 had been told to expect him late in that year and were on the lookout for him. He never showed, however; of that both Bob Mintz and Paul Bishop are certain.
The question of Bush’s presence in 1972 at Dannelly Air National Guard base in Montgomery, Alabama — or the lack of it — has become an issue in the 2004 presidential campaign. And that issue, which picked up steam last week, continues to rage.
Recalls Memphian Mintz, now 62: “I remember that I heard someone was coming to drill with us from Texas. And it was implied that it was somebody with political influence. I was a young bachelor then. I was looking for somebody to prowl around with.” But, says Mintz, that “somebody” — better known to the world now as the president of the United States — never showed up at Dannelly in 1972. Nor in 1973, nor at any time that Mintz, a FedEx pilot now and an Eastern Airlines pilot then, when he was a reserve first lieutenant at Dannelly, can remember.
“And I was looking for him,” repeated Mintz, who said that he assumed that Bush “changed his mind and went somewhere else” to do his substitute drill. It was not “somewhere else,” however, but the 187th Air National Guard Tactical squadron at Dannelly to which the young Texas flyer had requested transfer from his regular Texas unit — the reason being Bush’s wish to work in Alabama on the ultimately unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of family friend Winton “Red” Blount.
It is the 187th, Mintz’s unit, which was cited, during the 2000 presidential campaign, as the place where Bush completed his military obligation. And it is the 187th that the White House continues to contend that Bush belonged to — as recently as last week, when presidential spokesman Scott McClellan released payroll records and, later, evidence suggesting that Bush’s dental records might be on file at Dannelly.
Late last weekend, the White House made available what it said was the entirety of Bush’s service record. Even so, the mystery of the young lieutenant’s whereabouts in late 1972 remains.
“There’s no way I wouldn’t have noticed a strange rooster in the henhouse, especially since we were looking for him,” insists Mintz, who has begun poring over documents relating to the matter that are now making their way around the Internet. One of these is a piece of correspondence addressed to the 187th’s commanding officer, then Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, concerning Bush’s redeployment.
Mintz remembers a good deal of base scuttlebutt at the time about the letter, which clearly identifies Bush as the transferring party. “It couldn’t be anybody else. No one ever did that again, as far as I know.” In any case, he is certain that nobody else in that time frame, 1972-73, requested such a transfer into Dannelly.
Mintz, who at one time was a registered Republican and in recent years has cast votes in presidential elections for independent Ross Perot and Democrat Al Gore, confesses to “a negative reaction” to what he sees as out-and-out dissembling on President Bush’s part. “You don’t do that as an officer, you don’t do that as a pilot, you don’t do it as an important person, and you don’t do it as a citizen. This guy’s got a lot of nerve.”
Though some accounts reckon the total personnel component of the 187th as consisting of several hundred, the actual flying squadron — that to which Bush was reassigned — numbered only “25 to 30 pilots,” Mintz says. “There’s no doubt. I would have heard of him, seen him, whatever.”
Even if Bush, who was trained on a slightly different aircraft than the F4 Phantom jets flown by the squadron, opted not to fly with the unit, he would have had to encounter the rest of the flying personnel at some point, in nonflying formations or drills. “And if he did any flying at all, on whatever kind of craft, that would have involved a great number of supportive personnel. It takes a lot of people to get a plane into the air. But nobody I can think of remembers him.
“I talked to one of my buddies the other day and asked if he could remember Bush at drill at any time, and he said, ‘Naw, ol’ George wasn’t there. And he wasn’t at the Pit, either.'”
The “Pit” was the Snake Pit, a nearby bistro where the squadron’s pilots would gather for frequent after-hours revelry. And the buddy was Bishop, then a lieutenant at Dannelly and now a pilot for Kalitta, a charter airline that in recent months has been flying war materiel into the Iraq Theater of Operations.
“I never saw hide nor hair of Mr. Bush,” confirms Bishop. “In fact,” he quips, mindful of the current political frame of reference, “I saw more of Al Sharpton at the base than I did of George W. Bush.”
In Air National Guard circles, Bishop, who now lives in Goldsboro, N.C., is something of a legendary figure. Known to his mates as “Papa Whiskey” (for “P.W.”) Bishop, he is a veteran of Gulf War I, a conflict in which he was the ranking reservist. During the current conflict, on behalf of Kalitta, Bishop has flown frequent supply missions into military facilities at Kuwait.
Some years ago, he flew a Kalitta aircraft, painted over with Air Force One markings, in the movie Air Force One starring Harrison Ford. Bishop did the rolls, tumbles, and other stunt maneuvers that looked in the movie like stressful motions afflicting the hijacked and embattled plane.
Bishop voted for Bush in 2000 and believes that the Iraq war has served some useful purposes — citing, as the White House does, disarmament actions since pursued by Libyan president Moammar Khadaffi — but he is disgruntled both about aspects of the war and about what he sees as Bush’s lack of truthfulness about his military record.
“I think a commander in chief who sends his men off to war ought to be a veteran who has seen the sting of battle,” Bishop says. “In Iraq, we have a bunch of great soldiers but they are not policemen. I don’t think he [the president] was well advised. Right now it’s costing us an American life a day. I’m not a peacenik, but what really bothers me is that of the 500 or so that we’ve lost almost 80 of them were reservists. We’ve got an overextended Guard and reserve.”
Part of the problem, Bishop thinks, is a disconnect resulting from the president’s own inexperience with combat operations. And he is well beyond annoyed at the White House’s persistent claims that Bush did indeed serve time at Dannelly. Bishop didn’t pay much attention to the claim when candidate Bush first offered it in 2000. But he did after the second Iraq war started and the issue came front and center:
“It bothered me that he wouldn’t fess up and say, Okay, guys, I cut out when the rest of you did your time. He shouldn’t have tried to dance around the subject. I take great exception to that. I spent 39 years defending my country.”
Like his old comrade Mintz, Bishop, now 65, was a pilot for Eastern Airlines during their reserve service in 1972 at Dannelly. Mintz then lived in Montgomery; Bishop commuted from Atlanta, a two-hour drive away. Mintz and Bishop retired from the Guard with the ranks of lieutenant colonel and colonel, respectively.
Both men knew John “Bill” Calhoun, the Atlanta businessman who was flight safety officer for the 187th in 1972 and who subsequently retired as a lieutenant colonel. Calhoun created something of a sensation late last week when he came forward at the apparent prompting of the administration to claim that he did in fact remember Lt. Bush, that the young officer had met with him during drill weekends, largely spending his time reading safety manuals in the 187th’s safety office.
Even in media venues sympathetic to the president, doubt was cast almost immediately on aspects of Calhoun’s statement — particularly his claim that Lt. Bush was at the 187th during spring and early summer of 1972, periods when the White House itself does not claim the young lieutenant had yet arrived at Dannelly.
Mintz and Bishop are both skeptical, as well.
“I’m not saying it wasn’t possible, but I can’t imagine Bill not introducing him around,” Mintz says. “Unless he [Bush] was an introvert back then, which I don’t think he was, he’d have spent some time out in the mainstream, in the dining hall or wherever. He’d have spent some time with us. Unless he was trying to avoid publicity. But he wasn’t well known at all then. It all seems a bit unusual.”
Bishop was even more explicit: “I’m glad he [Calhoun] remembered being with Lt. Bush and Lt. Bush’s eating sandwiches and looking at manuals. It seems a little strange that one man saw an individual, and all the rest of them did not. Because it was such a small organization. Usually, we all had lunch together.
“Maybe we’re all getting old and senile,” Bishop says with obvious sarcasm. “I don’t want to second-guess Mr. Calhoun’s memory and I would hate to impugn the integrity of a fellow officer, but I know the rest of us didn’t see Lt. Bush.” As Bishop (corroborated by Mintz) described the physical environment, the safety office where the meetings between Major Calhoun and Lt. Bush allegedly took place was on the second floor of the unit’s hangar, a relatively small structure itself. It was a very close-quarters situation. “It would have been “virtually impossible,” says Bishop, for an officer to go in and out of the safety office for eight hours a month several months in a row and be unseen by anybody except then-Major Calhoun.
As Bishop notes, “Fighter pilots, and that’s what we were, have situational awareness. They know everything about their environment — whether it’s an enemy plane creeping up or a stranger in their hangar.”
In any case, says Bishop, “If what he [Calhoun] says is true, there would be documentation of the fact in point summaries and pay documents.”
And that’s another mystery.
Yet another veteran of the 187th is Wayne Rambo of Montgomery, Alabama, who as a lieutenant served as the unit’s chief administrative officer until April of 1972. That was a few months prior to Bush’s alleged service, which Rambo, who continued to drill with the 187th, also cannot remember.
Rambo was, however, able to shed some light on the Guard practice, then and now, of assigning annual service “points” to members, based on their record of attendance and participation. The bare minimum number is 50, and reservists meeting standard are said to have had “a good year,” Rambo says. Less than that amounts to an “unsatisfactory” year — one calling for penalties assessed against the reservist’s retirement fund and, more immediately, for disciplinary or other corrective action. Such deficits can be written off only on the basis of a “commander’s call,” Rambo says — and only then because of certifiable illness or some other clearly plausible reason.
“The 50-point minimum has always been taken very seriously, especially for pilots,” says Rambo. “The reason is that it takes a lot of taxpayer money to train a pilot, and you don’t want to see it wasted.”
For whatever reason, the elusive Lt. Bush was awarded 41 actual points for his service in both Texas and Alabama during 1972, though he apparently was given 15 “gratuitous” points — presumably by his original Texas command — enough to bring him up from substandard. That would have been a decided violation of the norm, according to Rambo, who stresses that the awarding of gratuitous points was clearly meant only as a reward to reservists for meeting their bottom line.
“You had to get to 50 to get the gratuitous points, which applied toward your retirement benefits,” the former chief administrative officer recalls. “If you were 49, you stayed at 49; if you were 50, you got up to 65.”
Bishop raises yet another issue about Bush’s Guard tenure — the cancellation after 1972 of the final year of his six-year obligation — ostensibly to pursue a post-graduate business degree at Harvard.
That didn’t sit well with the veteran pilot. “When you accept a flying slot with the Air National Guard, you’re obligated for six years,” Bishop says. “Even if you grant him credit for that missing year in Alabama which none of us remember, he still failed to serve his full commitment. Even graduate school, for which he was supposedly released, is attended during the week usually. It wouldn’t have conflicted with drill weekends, whether he was in Connecticut or Massachusetts or wherever. There would have been no need for an early release.”
Bishop pauses. “Maybe they do things differently in Texas. I don’t want to malign the commander in chief, but this is an issue of duty, honor, country. You must have integrity.”
Bishop, especially, is bitter about the fate of Eastern Airlines, which went bankrupt during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, the current incumbent’s father. “I watched my company dissolve under his policies. They let the airline fall victim to a hostile takeover,” Bishop says. Both Bushes were “children of privilege,” unlike himself and Mintz.
“Our fathers were poor dirt farmers. We would not have been given the same considerations he and his father were,” says Bishop, who maintains that, just as the junior Bush used family and political influence to jump himself ahead of 500 other flight training applicants, the senior Bush “apparently” did something similar when he became a naval aviator during World War Two. “I applaud him for volunteering, but he should have waited his turn like everybody else.”
But, says Bishop, “At least I can give him credit for serving his country.” That is more, he suggested, than can be granted the younger Bush.
Would he consider voting for the president’s reelection? “Naw, this goes to an integrity issue. I like either [John] Kerry or [John] Edwards better.” And who would Mintz be voting for? “Not for any Texas politicians” was the Memphian’s sardonic answer.