http://www.southerner.net/blog/awolbush.htmlGeorge W. Bush's Lost Year in 1972 Alabama
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By Glynn Wilson
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Feb. 2 (PS) — The result of an investigation into George W. Bush's lost year in 1972 reveals a cocky privileged son who used his family connections to avoid military service in Vietnam and spend seven months in Alabama partying. He clearly skipped out on National Guard duty and avoided a mandatory drug test, all while learning the politics of "dirty tricks," deception and coded racism in the land of George Wallace.
It was the year Wallace, the spunky Alabama governor and presidential candidate, was gunned down in a Maryland parking lot, the year of the Watergate break in and the beginning of the end for "Tricky Dick" Nixon. It was also the last year for segregationists to openly fight integration of the public schools, a time when racism went underground in American politics in the form of a "Dixie Strategy." And it was the beginning of a major political realignment that transformed the American South from a one-party Democratic stronghold into a solid block for the GOP.
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Dirty Tricks
It is also apparent that Bush learned one of his first lessons in the politics of "dirty tricks," deception and coded racism in 1972. It was the biggest year for "Tricky Dick" style dirty tricks in American politics. A group of Cubans working secretly for the Committee to Reelect the President, otherwise known as CREEP, broke into the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Hotel in Washington on June 17.
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One of Bush's duties as "campaign coordinator," according to his official title in the newspapers, was to stay in contact by phone with campaign managers in Alabama's 67 counties, and to handle the distribution of all campaign materials, Archibald says. That material included a pamphlet accusing Sparkman of being soft on the race issue. It also included a doctored tape from a radio debate distorting Sparkman's position on busing.