White House aides backed away from President Bush's weekend pledge "to release all his military records," the Washington Post reports. The controversy "has mushroomed into a test of his credibility and his staff's crisis management skills."
Meanwhile, USA Today notes that as Bush "prepared to run for president in the late 1990s, top-ranking Texas National Guard officers and Bush advisers discussed ways to limit the release of potentially embarrassing details from Bush's military records."
A former Texas Guard official "was told by a participant that commanders and Bush advisers were particularly worried about mentions in the records of arrests of Bush before he joined the National Guard in 1968."