With all the controversy about John Kerry's Vietnam medals and ribbons, who'd have thought that loyal George W. Bush aide Karen Hughes would be the one to catch the President fibbing about a supposed varsity letter? In her new book, “Ten Minutes From Normal,” Hughes recounts a conversation with Bush after Russian President Vladimir Putin grilled him on his Yale days.“President Putin knew you had played rugby, but he didn't have the context. I mean, you just played for one semester in college, right?” Hughes said.
Bush corrected: “I played for a year, and it was the varsity.”
Yesterday, a Yale spokeswoman confirmed that there's no such thing as varsity rugby at Yale - not when Bush was an undergrad in the 1960s and not today.
link via Atrios
Also linked to Tom Tomorrow's site, where Bob Harris posts:
As long as we're re-examining the 1960s, looking for signs of character, trying to decide if a man who volunteered for combat and was decorated five times was more or less courageous than a guy who didn't even show up for his own medical exam... here's George W. Bush during his college days, hitting a fellow sportsman in the face....
Incidentally, while rugby is a contact sport, every player knows that tackling above the shoulders is a foul. So is leaving your feet during a tackle. Either of these is serious enough that the other team is immediately awarded a penalty kick, often directly resulting in points for the other team.
So even without throwing a punch, Bush is already well outside fair play.
Grasping an opponent by the back of the head and punching him in the face is beyond the pale -- I've watched rugby avidly for years, and I've never seen it during an open-field tackle like this, honest -- and will typically result in a player being immediately sent off.
