It looks like, for at least the second time, George Bush is not going to fulfill his civic obligation to appear for jury duty.
From the
Waco Tribune-Herald:
"Leading the free world during wartime and reporting for jury duty are both important public service responsibilities.
While most would agree that serving as president of the United States is more pressing than serving as foreman of a jury, McLennan County officials are waiting for Crawford resident George W. Bush, potential juror number 286, to respond to a summons to report Monday for jury duty.
"It is not uncommon that people don't respond for jury duty," said 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother, to whose court the president has been summoned. "It is unique having the president in this situation, so I have never faced this issue before and I am not sure what is going to happen. I am assuming at some point that we will hear something from somebody on his behalf."
White House spokesman Allen Abney said the commander-in-chief was not aware of the situation: "The White House has not received the summons yet."
While this is really no big deal in and of itself, it does tug at my memoory a bit. Now what was the big deal the last time Bush was called for jury duty in 1996?
Oh, yeah... Last time, Bush fail to fully answer the questionaire. He left out some little details like the number of times he was arrested and what he was charged with.
That was all part of the plan to keep the public from knowing about his shady past. I recall that his keepers even went so far as to take the highly unusual step of changing his driver's license number so that his previous arrests wouldn't show up in a records search.
From Bush Watch
"Sources told MSNBC.com's Jeannette Walls that Bush associates had been worried for several years about his arrest record and had hoped that because it was in Maine, and not Texas, it wouldn't surface. The sources said Bush took one step to keep it under wraps in March 1995, when his driver's license number was changed. Walls first reported this in August 1999 in The Scoop, an MSNBC.com column. At the time, the sources told Walls that Bush got his license number changed because he was worried about an arrest record surfacing. "He has an arrest record that has to do with drinking," a source said then. "He's worried it will come out, but his handlers keep assuring him it won't."
The allegation was not disclosed by MSNBC.com at the time because the arrest could not be confirmed. Also in August 1999, the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles told MSNBC.com that changing one's driver's license number was "highly unusual" and that it is done only when the holder of the license can prove that someone is using the license number for illegal activities. Repeated calls to Bush?s camp back at the time were unanswered, until a spokeswoman for Bush said the motor vehicle agency would have an additional comment. An agency spokesman then called MSNBC and said Bush?s license number was changed for "security measures." He declined to comment further. In light of Bush's admission of his arrest, a second source said Friday: "Bush's people didn't want to comment [in August 1999] because they didn't want to be on the record lying or misleading anyone about this."
. "A lot of people had heard about [Bush?s arrest record], but they were looking for documents or some sort of evidence in Texas," the second source said. Bush's camp "was keeping their fingers crossed that nothing would come out because the record was in Maine and Bush's license number had been changed."
You know, in retrospect, this ten-year-old batch of lies and cover-up actions seems almost quaint compared to lying our country into a needless war and covering up the illegal actions of the Bush administration since 2001. But it was definitely a sign of things to come.