Boston Writer on the AWOL Story That First Broke in 2000

By: Joe Strupp As the issue of President George Bush's alleged absence without leave (AWOL) from the Texas National Guard in the early 1970s becomes a topic in the 2004 election, The Boston Globe reporter who first broke the story four years ago says he's glad it's making news now, even though it failed to gain much traction in 2000.

Asked why so few papers followed up on his reporting for the May 23, 2000, Globe story, Walter V. Robinson told E&P, "When a newspaper has done a thorough scrub on someone and not found anything, then somebody else reports it, they are not exactly eager to follow up. Other news organizations are not inclined to credit their competition, particularly if they have done their own look at the candidate."

Robinson cited The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times as two papers that had done thorough reviews of Bush's career earlier in 2000 and not reported on the AWOL allegations. "It would have been nice if the Post had mentioned it in 2000," Robinson said, citing a Post story in today's paper that investigates the episode with a new review of documents. "I think the story deserved more attention than it got in 2000."

Globe Editor Martin Baron, who was not at the paper in 2000, said he was not surprised that other papers did not follow the Globe story then, but added: "It is not our job to worry about that. We did our job." That original story "holds up great. I don't believe it has ever been challenged."

The issue resurfaced in recent days with leading Democratic Party officials and now Sen. John Kerry -- the Democratic primary front-runner -- raising the question of whether Bush failed to serve his entire tour of duty. Critics of Bush have almost always cited the Globe story as evidence. Today, a Republican leader fired back at Kerry for raising questions about Bush's service.

But Robinson said the timing and atmosphere in the 2000 campaign was different from today and may have played a part in the lack of follow-up to his story at the time. "Bush was running to replace a president who had taken steps to actively avoid -- and some would say evade -- military service," he pointed out. "Whatever Bush's sin was, he wasn't the first president to shirk his military duty, Clinton was."

The Globe writer, himself a Vietnam War veteran, also said the fact that his story ran in May of that year, at a time when Bush had the nomination pretty well sewn up and the political conventions just months away, might have made it easier to avoid. "I don't know if the editors (at other papers) even saw the story in 2000, or if they understood it," Robinson said. "Bush's people fogged it over a bit and they are very good at that."

Robinson would not say if the Globe planned to revisit the story, but said he believed it should be looked at again during this election cycle. "If any paper has a responsibility to remind people what was reported in 2000, we should," he said.

Baron also declined to say if a follow-up would occur. "We don't discuss our coverage in advance," he said.