Operation OUTROVE: Da river in Egypt

I've run into some people who think my points in the Bush/Barnes/Gtech story are weak. There are two points in particular I'd like to defend. (Our current president will be reffered to as "Dubya" to avoid confusion when talking about him and his father.)

First: "Bush Sr. never contacted Barnes directly, therefore he Bush family had nothing to do with getting Dubya into the Air National Guard."

No, Bush Sr. did not contact Barnes, this is true. However, Barnes says he was asked to get Dubya into the Air National Guard by Sid Adger, a powerful Houston oilman who was a personal friend of the Bush family. On top of asking that Barnes give Bush preference, Adger's own children served in the same unit as Dubya. Barnes admitted under oath that he was the point man in an "underground railground" to get rich Texas kids into the Air National Guard because their parents didn't want them serving in Vietnam, and it can be argued that the crimes Dubya is guilty of was simply the culture in Texas at the time.

But I digress. Sure, a definite smoking gun doesn't exist that ties Bush Sr. to Barnes, but why is this necessary? We know that a close, personal friend to Bush Sr. personally asked Barnes to get Dubya into the Air National Guard. We also know that it was the culture of the rich and politically connected in Texas to go through Barnes when they wanted to keep their sons out of Vietnam. To suggest that Bush Sr. didn't know what was going on is the same as suggesting that he was blind to current events of the time. Bush Sr. may be a lot of things, but he's not stupid - There's no denying that he knew exactly what was going on.

How much does this matter, though? The whole country is sick of hearing about Vietnam. I'm sick of hearing about Vietnam, and looking at what I just wrote, I'm thinking about deleting it because I'm just rehashing a bunch of nonissues. Besides, this was all brought up in 1999 and Dubya brushed it off then, so why bring it up again?

Because it's a vital part of a story about crimes committed by Bush in 1997, information that doesn't hark back to a war that nobody wants to forget. The Vietnam connection is here is important because it was still an issue back in 1997, and Barnes know Dubya's secret. He could have opened his mouth at anytime and ended Bush's political career. So Dubya dodging the draft is relevant to the more current story about Dubya committing crimes while he was an elected official.

Second: "GTech and Littwin settled for $300,000? So what? Many corporations settle lawsuits instead of fighting them."

That's true, and I can't say I'm surprised that GTech settled with Littwin. However, I contend that they only settled because they knew they were guilty, and Littwin obviously had the evidence to prove it.

Let me present a different argument: Back in 1999, I had job interview with GTech. I had all the qualifications for the position, and at the time I lived next door to a manager at GTech who put in a good word for me, so I should have had a leg up on the competition and been a shoe-in for the job. But I was never hired, and GTech never gave me the reason why my application for employment was denied.

What would happen if I claimed that I was discriminated against and filed a civil lawsuit against GTech? Do you think I would have received a $300,000 settlement? No, of course not, because I don't have the evidence to support a case against them.

Since GTech saw that it was more cost effective to settle with Littwin, this can only mean one thing: Litttwin had the evidence to sustain a trial against GTech. Littwin had the evidence to prove that GTech gave a $23 million payoff to Barnes because he could use his influence over Dubya to force the state of Texas to keep their contract with GTech.

Those are the facts. I've done the research, and I can back up everything I have said. Anybody who still thinks that Dubya isn't guilty of corruption is simply living in denial.