"Newly discovered payroll records from President Bush's 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard shed no new light on the future president's activities during that summer. A Pentagon official said Friday the earlier contention that the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."

"Like records disclosed earlier by the White House, the newly released computerized payroll records show no indication Bush drilled with the Alabama unit during July, August and September of 1972. Pay records covering all of 1972, released previously, also indicated no guard service for Bush during those three months. The records do not give any new information about Bush's National Guard training during 1972, when he transferred to the Alabama National Guard unit so he could work on the U.S. Senate campaign of a family friend. The payroll records do not say definitively whether Bush attended training that summer because they are maintained separately from attendance records.

"Although, as many bloggers noted, the AP tried to whitewash the sudden Hilary-Clinton-like rediscovery of Bush’s military pay records by saying that they “shed no new light on the future president’s activities during that summer” it’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that in fact they do shed light on a dark corner. Like the curious case of the dog in the nighttime, the pay records speak volumes for what they do NOT say: they lack any indication that Lt. Bush met his service obligation. That’s simple. How Lt. Bush got away with an honorable discharge anyway is much more complex. The fullest descriptions of the whole paper trail are provided by Paul Lukasiak and can be found at his AWOL Project. Mr. Lukasiak has now released part III of this saga, ‘Deserter: The Story Of George W. Bush After He Quit The Texas Air National Guard’. It’s pretty powerful stuff, but it’s also complicated and set out in an over-wrought style. The combination of complexity and pushy style mean that the major media will probably ignore it. If a story is a little technical and can’t be explained in a sound bite, even most print reporters these days are reluctant to cover it, and doubly so if the person offering the data isn’t either a known member of the pundit class or sounds very calm and sober. No one wants to be thought shrill, after all.