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I followed this when it was happening, since I live in Austin.
A couple of weeks after the DUI, I read an article entitled something like "Did Bush avoid jury duty to cover a DUI record?" The article described Bush's official questionnaire to the court. In the article, the questionaire was reported to have said "nothing on record" when asked about DUIs. The article then explained that Bush had had his drivers license number changed when he became governor. In Texas, even if arrests are taken off your record, there is still a history of the arrest traceable through your DL number. Bush claimed that he changed the number (and Laura's number) for security reasons, and that all Texas governors did it. Of course, that was a lie-- no other governor had done it. The article pointed all this out.
When the DUI issue came up in 2000, the jury questionaire was released, and the questions about prior arrests were blank. Bsuh claimed that he had a staffer at the Mansion fill out what the questionaire as much as they could, and Bush was supposed to fill out the rest, but since he was dismissed, he never had to.
So there is a difference between what I remember, and what the official records say. Winston Smith moment. So I went to the Austin American Statesman's archives, at the Texas History Center, to find the article I remember.
They have every AAS paper in microfilm, dating back to the 1800s. I found the appropriate film, and scanned through it til I had a headache, and could not find the article I remembered. I did this for about a week. I also searched the Houston paper, because we also got the Houston Chronicle where I remember reading the article and discussing it. No article.
Interesting thing, though. There are hundreds of rolls of this microfilm, filling many drawers. Each roll covers a two week period. Every roll is in a little box that bears the brand name of either the film maker or the company that scans the film, or something-- I never checked. But for a hundred years of this paper, every box was exactly the same.
Except the box for the period two weeks after the jury pool dismissal. It was in a plain white box.
I asked a couple of people who worked there why the box was different. Every one of them looked surprised, said something like "Wow, I have no idea," and said they could think of no reason. I didn't ask anything like "Could this be some government coverup?" I didn't explain why I was looking at the film in the first place. I just asked about the box. I even asked if the box could have just worn out or been lost. They said no, that the replacement box would have been the same as the others. They don't keep little white boxes around to replace lost boxes. It had to come from somewhere else.
Also, this wasn't the box that contained the articles written about the jury case itself. it was suggested once that maybe the old box just wore out because so many reporters had used it doing research on the jury trial when the DUI issue flared up. But the jury trial was two weeks before. THAT box would have worn out, not the one with the article I remember. I checked-- the box with the JFK assassination didn't wear out. The box with tower sniper stories didn't wear out. No box on LBJ wore out.
I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist. I believe Oswald killed JFK, Sirhan killed RFK, etc. As a trained historian (though not employed as such) I am careful with facts. So I don't know what happened, whether my memory is bad (though I remember having a long, running debate with someone over this article, and we saved it and pulled it out a few times).
I tried to find a paper copy of the article in other libraries, in case someone had the original paper still laying around. That way I could see if I was imagining it, or if something else was happening. But I never could find any library or person with actual paper records. Everyone had microfilm backups, and the microfilm was supplied by the paper, as nearly as I could figure it.
Anyway, back to Gonzales. At the time of the trial, Gonzales asked the judge to dismiss the case because Bush, as governor, could be called on to pardon the defendant, and that created a conflict of interest. They let Bush go, thinking it was all just a publicity stunt and that Bush was really just trying to get out of JD. So it was Gonzales that raised the issue. He's lying.
Bush is lying, too. He was covering more than that one DUI. I checked up on that DUI-- Bush lost his right to operate a vehicle for fourteen months, according to the arrest record posted on Smoking Gun, CNN, and everywhere. That wasn't the penalty for a first offence. That was at least a third offense. That's what Bush was covering up, as well as his cocaine bust in the 70s. And Gonzales helped him. That's why this complete mediocrity is where he is now. He played ball with Bush, and is being rewarded.
It would be nice if this nomination made someone dig deeper and uncovered some of this. Maybe figured out that the lie was an attempt to protect more than the DUI. It would be interesting if my memory is right, and someone did alter records. Keep in mind that if Bush did say "nothing on record" on the jury questionaire, and signed it, that might be perjury, since the answer was an attempt to mislead.
Watergate started small, too.
Okay, now that I've convinced everyone I'm a whacko conspiracy guy, I'll get back to work.
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