Unfit Commander: Texans for Truth Take on George W. Bush

With a copycat title and dust jacket, readers might assume that this Leftist rejoinder merely imitates John O'Neill and Jerome R. Corsi's Unfit for Command, which attacked Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, in part, for failing to release his complete Vietnam military service records. But former journalist and veteran Democratic consultant Smith (The Politics of Deceit), now executive director of Texans for Truth, does his counterparts one better by publishing more than 260 pages of the President's available Air National Guard service records. Although the author avoids O'Neill/Corsi's long-winded, crusading tone and professes ""no personal hatred for George Bush,"" the book's brief commentaries often lean toward outright disdain. Comparing the President to a GI Joe doll trotted out for meaningless photo ops, Smith disparages his leadership credentials, charging: ""When millions of his fellow Americans were sent off to fight and die overseas, this modern faux-Alexander, psuedo-Caesar, and Neo-Napoleon managed to avoid military service in Vietnam."" Name-calling aside, Smith asks tough questions about Bush's stateside duty. In 1970, Bush earned accolades as a ""dynamic outstanding young officer."" But two years later, he was suspended from flying and was ""not observed"" at his Texas air base or, the author alleges, in Alabama, where he requested ""equivalent duty."" For Smith, this lightly documented posting ""is a disturbing lapse in the historical record"" comparable to the Watergate tapes' 18-minute gap. White House press secretary Scott McClellan's tortured stonewalling during press briefings about the records, detailed in nine transcripts here, further highlights the discrepancies, as well as the media's inability to chip away at them. However, readers may balk at wading through old government documents, some of them indecipherable, that don't offer new revelations. Ultimately, Smith lacks a smoking gun and, coming on the heels of the ONeill/Corsi book, this effort carries the taint of election year oneupmanship.