Since February, Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau has been offering $10,000 to anyone who can come forward and demonstrate that they actually served with, or saw George W. Bush serving his required time in the Air National Guard in Alabama. As he said in his strip: "So if you served with Mr. Bush --- even if only in the officers' club --- we want to hear from you right now!" So far, no takers.

Now the ante is upped. Texans for Truth is offering $50,000 to anyone who can prove that George W. Bush fullfilled his required duties in the Alabama National Guard from May of 1972 to May of 1973.

Now if he actually did perform that service, there should be plenty of folks, and plenty of documentation that he did so. Not to mention, the idea of winning $50k, showing up those "terrible mean partisans" at Texans for Truth, and proving once and for all that Bush did fullfill his required duty, should be more than ample incentive for anyone who could actually prove it to be the case.

We'll let you know if anyone is able to do so.

And again, speaking to why this is relevant today, Texans for Truth founder Glen Smith said in a statement announcing the reward: "Bush's dishonesty about missing from service during Vietnam goes to the heart of his presidency. He was dishonest then just as he is misleading us about why we went to war with Iraq. He dodges responsibility then just as he dodges responsibility for Iraq today."

Remember folks, when Clinton was "caught" with his pants down, the conventional wisdom was "See? We knew he was a philanderer before we elected him, so why should we be surprised that he still is?!"

That question goes precisely to the heart of the Bush "Presidency" where, with virtually every decision he has made, he has either mislead, told only partial truths about, or lied completely and attempted to quash or discredit any information that didn't support his point of view. Had the media, and America, looked a bit closer at Bush's Air National Guard record before placing him into office, they would have been able to see precisely the kind of guy he was:

He has done all of those things in his "Presidency", and America is paying the price. We should have known. And perhaps if the media had done it's job then (or even started doing it now!) America would be better able to make informed decisions about it's leaders.

I'm not sure what to make of this. But for some reason, it seems notable. From LA Weekly...

Funny, he doesn't sound like a Liberal when I accidentally see him on TV. Then again, neither does anyone in the Mainstream Media, but that doesn't stop the Right from telling us they are again and again.

He's certainly a smart guy, and astute enough to say in the interview about Fox News: "It's fascinating that they can go a whole year without mentioning Osama bin Laden. You're aware this is a Republican thing."

Okay...So perhaps he just overcompensates (like the Media) for his liberal tendencies. Perhaps the truth about both him and the media is found somewhere in this exchange:

Not to be snide, I think Leno's a very decent fellow, but perhaps he's in that same pocket, though perhaps more for the corporations (he does alot of private corporate gigs) who are his bread and butter, rather than the government. He denies it in the interview, but something's not adding up. And perhaps that's why Letterman and The Daily Show are doing Leno's job for him.

Credit nonetheless to him for sitting down and answering the questions.

See the previous story here, and then take a look at what Scott McClellan, White House Spokesman said today, once again as reported by John Aravosis who also broke the original story:

Look, these guys in even lie in lockstep. If the Dems could tell the truth as clearly, much less as much in lockstep, perhaps they'd be getting somewhere! Never mind the question of why the blogosphere is reporting this stuff instead of the actual Media.

UPDATE: 10:25p PT I'm a dolt. I just re-read the quoted text above, and realized I missed McClellan's other lie in the very same breath! The part about "the President inherited a recession when he came into office." Which, as informed individuals know, is pure crap.

On Tuesday, at a campaign rally, according to AP, Dubya instructed his supporters:

Well, sure enough, the supporters took him at his word as John Aravosis of AMERICABlog discovered today. He caught White Houes Deputy Asst. for Communications, Suzy DeFrancis lying to CNN earlier today:

So John did some fact-checking on that. Here's what he found:

CNN and the rest of the "Liberal" media continue to snooze on such blatant misrepresentations of the truth, even by Bush Administration Officials, as Bush and Friends continue to say anything to win.

Or in this case, as John puts it, "Bush is gonna milk those 3,000 deaths for everything they're worth." Indeed.

(AMERICAblog has more on this, so see his full story, as well as the one that follows it showing that the Bush Administration has quietly announced plans to cut --- yes, cut --- some $2.3 billion "from virtually all domestic programs not mandated by law, including education, homeland security and others central to Bush's campaign."!!!)

Following up on our previous story of how Jeb Bush's Secretary of State Glenda Hood (Jeb's appointee to replace Katherine Harris) was "forced" to place Ralph Nader's name on the ballot in Florida despite a Court Order not to...we have some good news to report. For now.

According to AP, the hearing on the matter that was scheduled for today was indeed held today. That was the hearing that Elections Director Dawn Roberts said couldn't be held because Hurricane Ivan would force them to cancel --- thus, she ordered Nader be added to the ballot despite the court order not to do so --- even though Ivan was not predicted to hit Tallahassee where the hearing was scheduled.

The results of the hearing were also good news for those that care about "the rule of law". The Circuit Judge ordered that Nader's name be removed from the ballot, since Nader's Reform Party nomination in Florida did not conform to state law, and that those four counties who'd already sent out absentee ballots with Nader's name on them, immediately send out amended ballots without his name on it.

In 2000, Nader received some 90,000 votes in the state where Jeb Bush's Secretary of State at the time claimed George W. Bush received some 500 more votes than Al Gore in order to "win" the state.

Jeb's office, predictably, is appealling the ruling.

Click to see their opening animation, and then look at their video...

1,021 of our U.S. Soldiers and Marines now killed in Iraq, by the way.

(Link via Atrios)

With intelligence failures from 9/11 through "slam-dunk" WMD's through our "miscalculation" in the post-Saddam period, you'd think George W. Bush would making nothing a higher priority than finding the right man to fill the more-important-now-than-ever post of Director of the CIA.

He chose Porter Goss instead. And here's what Porter Goss said on video before he knew he'd be tapped for the job of Director of Central Intelligence.

Yes, it's the judgement of our Commander-in-Chief that is up for referendum this November. Choose wisely.

(Free QuickTime player required to watch the video, thanks to BRAD BLOG reader Amir for the pointer!)

When she is able (when there is power, and she is emotionally prepared), a women in Iraq who writes under the pseudonym of "river" posts to her blog, "Baghdad Burning". She posted today for the first time since the beginning of August and speaks about the exhaustion of the ever increasing violence, fear and desperation that has wracked the populace in Iraq over the last few weeks.

The entire post is worth reading. Here's her closing thoughts...

Pay attention.

I'm just watching Nightline and there's this story about some kind of a war going on in Iraq! Weird! More later...developing...

As predicted here the day after Ben Barnes came out to explain how he helped Bush leap to the front of the National Guard line, the smears based on the Republican Talking Points have made their way into the Media. Though that GOP web page gives no evidence of Barnes lying, nonetheless, they claim (falsely) that he's changed his story on this issue. In fact, he never has.

Barnes has never claimed that anyone from the Bush family approached him for this favor. Rather that he was asked by a friend of the Bush family, a Houston oilman by the name of Sidney A. Adger.

But truth or decency doesn't matter to Sean Hannity. As reported by the ever-meticulous Media Matters:

Later in the program, Barnes was accused of being "a partisan Democrat trying to help Senator Kerry". While Media Matter notes that Barnes is indeed currently raising money for Kerry, he has also supported many Republicans --- including Jeb Bush and White House press secretary Scott McClellan's mother!!! --- over the years...

Apparently that information didn't show up on those Republican Talking Points for some reason. Anything to win.

Sorry to bother you with this. But with another 59 killed today in a single incident, someone's got to. As always from the excellent "Today in Iraq":

The line from the Bush Administration and their surrogates is that Kerry's proposed programs will cost the tax payers $1.5 Trillion. (Far less, by the way, than Dubya has been able to increase the National Debt so far during his tenure).

But, okay. Fair enough. $1.5 Trillion is the cost for Kerry's proposed programs.

And the cost of Bush's proposed programs? The ones he introduced for the first time at the Republican Convention? According to the Administration's own figures? Bush's programs will cost in excess of $3 Trillion.

And yet there are still folks out there who really believe that George W. Bush is a conservative. These are the people that will believe anything George W. Bush tells them to believe. These are the people George W. Bush is counting on.

Bush/Cheney '04: Suckers for America