- Hmmm ... could it be the Bushies are slowly leaking this stuff deliberately to keep Kerry's stumping efforts in a TV cave...

- One things sure ... Anyone who looks to use them will vet the ink off the paper they'll be so careful now....

Kevin, you don't think it is asinine that Bush and crew have constantly stated they have released all the records, but now they are going to release more now?

Stifle yourselves.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, actually, we talked about this earlier today -- some questions came up this morning. And if you'll recall back in February, the President directed the Department of Defense to do a comprehensive search, gather all the records, so that we can make them available publicly. The President's personnel, payroll and medical records were released in their entirety -- I notice you had a comment the other day, I just want to make sure that's clear and that's what I referred to back then. Since that time, there were some further media inquiries. The Department of Defense went back and did -- apparently they didn't do as comprehensive a search as we had requested, and they found some additional documents that weren't in any of those files. And so they have continued to scour through additional files that aren't part of the President's personnel, payroll, and medical files to see if there are any records relating to the President. And my understanding is that that work has continued. I don't know the latest update on it at this point.

Q Have you or others in the White House seen documents that have not yet been released?

MR. McCLELLAN: I have not. I'll try to check. We've been traveling, but I don't know of any other specific documents that have been found at this point. But I know that they're -- I know they're continuing to look at that, so that's a very real possibility.

One never knows, but please recall that the same day the Kerry camp / dems started the charge that Bush wasn't on active AF duty, a document pointing out that he was, in fact, on active duty appeared. I heard no questions about the doc appearing and the charge faded away. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm starting to think Rove et al worked realhard to see whatever they could see coming and planned for it. Word is Bush doesn't just want to win, he wants to win big - so far, Kerry hasn't been able to mount anything worthy of being on the same field with these guys. As an aside, I saw a revealing little snippet on ABC's note tonight. Notice ABC sees 2 tracks to THIS story, neither of them have to do with Bush. Very telling, I think.

President Bush and the National Guard: the politics of the documents:

No one knows where the twin tracks of this story (documents real or not and, if not, who made 'em up?) are going.

The greatest political rope-a-dope ever? This combined with the SBVT's claim that they have more forthcoming documentation to back up THEIR charges...I can't handle the suspense.

- So now Rather wants to investigate himself?...

- at the risk of being a little indelicate I seem to remember something back in my youthful college days about going around in circles until you got your head stuck up your ass....

Dear Hunter,

Thank you. Somehow your post inspired me. I can now report that Rather has indeed found new memos.

It is interesting to note that as one who served in the US military 1979-1987, that drug screening tests and testing were not available until the early 1980s. The US Navy did not begin random drug testing of its personnel until 1981.

Not to mention that drug screening is *not* part of the annual flight physical process. The blood samples and urine samples taken for flight physicals do not follow the strict chain of custody and signature receipt process used as a part of drug testing. The Flight Surgeon will ask questions about what prescription medications you're on and ask about any Over-The-Counter (OTC) med useage (btw- OTC useage is a big no-no in a flight status. Any meds have to be approved by a flight surgeon). But that's about the extent of it.

The only time drug testing becomes part of a flight physical is during post-accident investigations, where samples will be drawn not only for detection of illegal drugs, but unauthorized OTC medications. This is to determine if unauthorized drug useage was a contributing factor in the accident.

The other part that seems to be neglected about the "missing flight physical" and is ignored- why would anyone require a flight physical for a person who (a) can't fly the type aircraft available and (b) is leaving in a few months to head off to Harvard? Full flight physicals are damn expensive. Why would you waste money on administering a flight physical to someone you know is leaving?

-From a former Naval Flight Officer whose gone through 21 flight physicals.

I vote rope-a-dope. If this were damgaing, thye would have put it out long before now, not teased it. Rove has made not a single substantive error in this campaign; would he screw up something like this? Genius.

As a federal employee, let me assure you that it's quite a task to round up documents from 5 years ago, much less 30+. We only hold documents for maybe 7 years anymore. When we purged the older stuff it gets shredded. Now, DoD has a different archiving standard, I'm sure, but I'm surprised they have any of those old documents.

Jen's right. I have worked for government at various levels for many years and losing documents is real easy. One misfiling, transpose a file number, and you won't find it until you accidentally stumble across it enroute to finding something else. You are really up the creek if the documents are in "remote storage". Chances of finding those again is the chance brothers: slim and fat.