Eric Boehlert at Salon has a good round-up of the Bush AWOL story, including an analysis of the way the New York Times was spun into neutralizing the story in 2000 and unearths a nugget that’s new, or at least new to me:
Releasing military records has become a time-honored tradition of presidential campaigns. During the 1992 presidential election, Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, called on his Democratic opponent, Bill Clinton, to make public all personal documents relating his draft status during the Vietnam War, including any correspondences with “Clinton’s draft board, the Selective Service System, the Reserve Officer Training Corps, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, the United States departments of State and Justice, any U.S. foreign embassy or consulate.” That, according to a Bush-Quayle Oct. 15, 1992, press release.
Calls to the White House seeking comment on if and when the president’s full military records will be released were not returned.