WASHINGTON – The Pentagon on Friday released payroll records from President Bush’s 1972 service in the Alabama National Guard, saying its earlier contention the records were destroyed was an "inadvertent oversight."

(Source)

WTF?!?

Let’s recap. Bush promised (in his interview with Tom Russert) that he would release all his military records, which he didn’t . . . and when everybody complained about the incompleteness, we were told that some of the records were inadvertently destroyed, which they weren’t.

I know many of you think that those of us on the left make too much of this. But seriously, if the-powers-that-be would stop dicking the American people around about this, we wouldn’t have much to crow and caw about.

By the way, Washington insiders (and "West Wing" fans) are aware of this tactic: all the bad, embarrassing and/or outrageous stuff gets told to the press on Friday afternoon/evening. Because people are less tuned in to the news over the weekend. Friday is often called "take out the trash day" or "document dump day" in Washington. This is a prime example of releasing something and hoping it won’t get noticed as much.

UPDATE: And of course, much of the national media has left for Boston . . .

UPDATE: CNN is reporting that the new records indicate that Bush did NOT log any flight time in the controversial 3rd quarter of 1972 . . . .