George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography - Get a Free Blog

For the 1992 presidential campaign, the Bushmen have readied yet another rehash of the
adulatory "red Studebaker" printout in the form of a new biography by Richard Ben
Cramer. This is distinguished as a literary effort above all by the artificial verbal
pyrotechnics with which the author attempts to breathe new life into the dog-eared Bush
canonical printout. For these, Cramer relies on a hyperkinetic style with non-verbal
syntax which to some degree echoes Bush's own disjointed manner of speaking. The
resulting text may have found favor with Bush when he was gripped by his hyperthyroid
rages during the buildup for the Gulf war. A part of this text has appeared in Esquire
Magazine. [fn 7] Here is Cramer's description of the critical phase of the incident:
He felt a jarring lurch, a crunch, and his plane leaped forward, like a giant had struck it from
below with a fist. Smoke started to fill the cockpit. He saw a tongue of flame streaming down the
right wing toward the crease. Christ! The fuel tanks!
He called to Delaney and White--We've been hit! He was diving. Melvin hit the tower dead-on-four
five hundred pounders. West was on the same beam. Bush could have pulled out. Have to get
rid of these bombs. Keep the dive....A few seconds...
He dropped on the target and let 'em fly. The bombs spun down, the plane shrugged with release,
and Bush banked away hard to the east. No way he'd get to the rendezvous point with Melvin. The
smoke was so bad he couldn't see the gauges. Was he climbing? Have to get to the water. They
were dead if they bailed out over land. The Japs killed pilots. Gonna have to bail out. Bush radioed
the skipper, called his crew. No answer. Does White know how to get to his chute? Bush looked
back for an instant. God, was White hit? He was yelling the order to bail out, turning right rudder
to take the slipstream off their hatch...had to get himself out. He levelled off over water, only a
few miles from the island...more, ought to get out farther....that's it, got to be now...He flicked the
red toggle switch on the dash--the IFF, Identification Friend or Foe --supposed to alert any US
ship, send a special frequency back to his own carrier...no other way to communicate, had to get
out now, had to be ... NOW.
It will be seen that these versions contain numerous internal contradictions, but that the
hallmark of "red Studebaker" orthodoxy, especially after the appearance of the
Mierzejewsky account, is that Bush's plane was on fire, with visible smoke and flames.
The Bush propaganda machine needs the fire on board the Avenger in order to justify
Bush's precipitous decision to bail out, leaving his two crew members to their fate, rather
than attempting the water landing which might have saved them.
The only person who has ever claimed to have seen Bush's plane get hit, and to have seen
it hit the water, is Chester Mierzejewksi, who was the rear turret gunner in the aircraft
flown by Squadron Commander Douglas Melvin. During 1987-88, Mierzejewksi became
increasingly indignant as he watched Bush repeat his canonical account of how he was
shot down. Shortly before the Republican National Convention in 1988, Mierzekewski,
by then a 68 year old retired aircraft foreman living in Cheshire, Connecticut, decided to
tell his story to Allan Wolper and Al Ellenberg of the New York Post, which printed it as
a copyrighted article. [fn 8]
"That guy is not telling the truth," Mierzejewski said of Bush.