Yesterday’s New York Times contained quite a “scoop” about the destruction of President Bush’s military records:

Military records that could help establish President Bush’s whereabouts during his disputed service in the Texas Air National Guard more than 30 years ago have been inadvertently destroyed, according to the Pentagon….

The disclosure appeared to catch some experts, both pro-Bush and con, by surprise. Even the retired lieutenant colonel who studied Mr. Bush’s records for the White House, Albert C. Lloyd of Austin, said it came as news to him.

The loss was announced by the Defense Department’s Office of Freedom of Information and Security Review in letters to The New York Times and other news organizations that for nearly half a year have sought Mr. Bush’s complete service file under the open-records law.

There was no mention of the loss, for example, when White House officials released hundreds of pages of the President’s military records last February in an effort to stem Democratic accusations that he was “AWOL” for a time during his commitment to fly at home in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

The story was published all over the world and prompted the usual “Bush is such a liar” comments from anti-Bush folks.

Fairly typical was the reaction of MemeMachine, who wrote: “Sometimes I feel like I can’t keep up. The Pentagon accidentally destroyed Bush’s service records. Whoops …. Strangely enough, there was no word of this when the White House released what they said were all of Bush’s military records earlier this year.”

Today’s Times , however, contains the following correction:

An article yesterday about the destruction of some payroll records of National Guard members, including President Bush, misstated the record of White House acknowledgment of the loss. The White House indeed took note of the missing information last February when it released hundreds of pages of Mr. Bush’s military files. In a briefing paper for reporters on Feb. 10, summarizing those files, it noted that payroll records for the third quarter of 1972 had been lost when they were transferred to microfiche.

In other words, this “scoop” was disclosed by the Bush Administration five months ago. I’m glad the Times admitted its error. Here’s hoping that those who made hay over the Times‘ “disclosure” also issue corrections.

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