Did DDN’s Questioning Of Rep. Jim Butler’s Military Bio Stem From A GOP In-Fight To Choose A New Speaker?

Jim Butler, Representative for OHD41 — including Riverside, Oakwood, Kettering, and Centerville.

In a recent DDN article, “Lawmaker’s Military Claims Questioned,”reporter Laura Bischoff quotes several military officers who charge that the biography of representative for Ohio House District 41, Jim Butler, exaggerates and misrepresents his military service.

The disputed sentence in the House biography of Butler is this: “Representative Butler served in the United States Navy as fighter pilot, flying the F-14 Tomcat.” But according to Bischoff, “Butler said that after nine months of training flights on the F-14, a medical condition became apparent and he was grounded from flying in 1999 and then medically discharged the following year.”

The F-14 pushes the physical capacity of every pilot to the maximum and the fact that Butler was grounded from the program for medical reasons, I’m sure, was a big disappointment to this outstanding individual who had graduated in the top 10% of his class at the Naval Academy. Butler has every right to be proud of his military service, proud that he “received his wings,” proud that he trained on the F-14. It must hurt to read in the DDN that some military people think his bio claims too much. Bischoff quotes four people connected to the military:

• Retired Navy Capt. Jack Kennedy of Columbus, speaking of Butler — “Calling himself a fighter pilot – it’s a little bit of an exaggeration.”
• C. Douglas Sterner, curator of the Military Times “Hall of Valor” database and author of an upcoming book titled “Restoring Valor” — said Butler’s claim to be a “fighter pilot” title may mislead the public.
• State Rep. Connie Pillich, D-Cincinnati, who spent eight years on active duty in the U.S. Air Force and reached the rank of captain, said the military trains its members to be precise in describing duties and titles — speaking of Butler said, “He could have said ‘naval aviator,’ which we all understand is a prestigious position with rigorous training standards.”
• Jay Sumner, who served in the U.S Navy for eight years on active duty and 18 years in the reserves said about the Butler biography — “I just think it’s disingenuous to portray yourself beyond what you really did. Generally speaking, in these days and times when people are getting killed in the military, the tolerance for over-exaggeration or over-boasting isn’t what it used to be.”

David Esrati on his web-site expresses outrage — “Dayton Daily News Writer Laura Bischoff – Pretends To Be A Journalist” — and unleashes such an intemperate personal attack on Bischoff and the DDN that he comes across sounding a bit unhinged. He writes:

Unfortunately- they’ll let any fool sit down in front of a computer at the Dayton Daily news and write crap. No lives are at stake, and if you make a mistake, no one dies and you don’t crash $38 million worth of avionics and propulsion systems. … The only thing that needs questioning is why did she (Bischoff) write this bullshit article and why did it appear in the newspaper?

Frankly, if you want to talk about dishonor- questioning this naval officer’s résumé in public, when there is no legitimate basis- is the true dishonor.

The editors of the Dayton Daily News owe Mr. Butler a public apology.”

The focus of Esrati’s wrath is on Bischoff’s first paragraph where she says: “Butler trained on the F-14 but received a medical discharge from the Navy before he ever landed one on an aircraft carrier or received an assignment to a fleet. So does that still make him a ‘fighter pilot?’ ”

Esrati says, that since Butler piloted fighter jets, then, of course, he was a “fighter pilot.”

About referring to himself as a “fighter pilot,” Bischoff quotes Butler as explaining, “I never would want to brag or anything like that, but it’s an easy way to communicate that when I flew in the Navy I flew a fighter jet.”

This claim of being a “fighter pilot” seems an exaggeration to the four military people quoted in the Bischoff article. But, to me, I think Butler has a point and the term “fighter pilot” is simply an easy way to communicate that Butler had the wonderful opportunity and the great experience of flying a military fighter jet.

But, it seems to me that the disputed statement in the bio — “Representative Butler served in the United States Navy as fighter pilot, flying the F-14 Tomcat” — does not align with the facts. For Butler to refer to himself as a “fighter pilot,” I believe is fair. But the question raised by the DDN article is whether Butler’s biography — posted on the Ohio House web-site — misrepresents his military service. If the facts are that Mr. Butler withdrew from the F-14 training program, never completed his training, never was certified to pilot the F-14, then this bio is misleading.

I’m thinking that Butler is sensitive to implying a level or type of service that is incorrect and, now that this matter has been brought to his attention, that he would want to revise his web-site so that there would be no chance for misunderstanding.

I’m wondering, however, with Esrati, why this matter of Butler’s biography is now emerging. I’m thinking that someone who had something to gain alerted Bischoff to this story, and that the person with something to gain is probably a fellow Republican in the Ohio House. Butler, according to a Columbus Dispatch article from mid-summer, is a possible candidate for Speaker of the House. This position may be hotly contested, and maybe someone is trying to knock Butler out of consideration. Here is an excerpt from the Dispatch story:

Rep. Cliff Rosenberger was still four months shy of being born when Rep. Ron Amstutz joined the state legislature in 1981.
Thirty-two years later, the upstart and the veteran are squaring off to become the next speaker of the House.
Rosenberger, 32, and Amstutz, 62, have emerged — at least at the moment — as the top candidates to replace Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, when he must depart the House because of term limits at the end of 2014.
A formal leadership vote is more than 15 months away, and things could change. GOP Reps. Jim Butler of Oakwood, Louis Terhar of Cincinnati and Kristina Roegner of Hudson, for example, are among those mentioned as showing interest in the top job.