Nutjobs Ranting About Politics.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
They say he was there, but later. As I said yesterday, BFD.

BFD? He is now saying he may have accidentally crossed the border.

This is a far, far cry from his testimony before the Senate where he was commanded to take part in covert activities - denied repeatedly by the Nixon administration - that are "seared, seared into his memory"

Quagmire indeed.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
255 Swift Boats Veterans with nothing to gain are the ones whoring themselves out and lying, whereas Kerry - he the man of the recreated war footage and only 4/12 months of service - with the office of the President on the line, is telling the truth? Um, fuck that. Open your eyes.

I'll add that the authors are donating every dime from the book to charities for the armed forces.

[Not Me]

I just heard that the CA Supreme court voided the gay marriage licenses that Newsome issued. What a damn waste of taxpayer money this whole spectacle has been.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
He is now saying he may have accidentally crossed the border.

That's not in the comments from his aide that you and club posted. Maybe you're seeing it somewhere else.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

By the standards applied to Kerry, this should render him unfit to serve as CIC, right? Or is the problem that it's impossible to find people who actually remember him serving in Alabama?

• George W. Bush lied about his military service record. The lie can be found in his own 1999 campaign autobiography (as written by Karen Hughes), where he dramatically describes his experience as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War. On page 34 of A Charge to Keep, Mr. Bush claims that, after learning to fly the F-102 fighter jet, he was turned down for Vietnam duty because "had not logged enough flight hours" to qualify for a combat assignment. Before going on to recall the "challenging moments" that involved close formation drills at night during poor weather, he adds: "I continued flying with my unit for the next several years."
  
  In light of what journalists and other researchers have learned since the publication of Mr. Bush's book, his account is unmistakably fraudulent.
  
  * * * * *
  
  The facts, established by Boston Globe reporter Walter Robinson in 2000, explode the lyrical flights of fancy penned by Ms. Hughes.
  
  George W. Bush graduated from Yale in June 1968. After his father's influential friends contacted Texas Air National Guard officials, they awarded young George a safe berth in Houston's famed "champagne unit," where sons of the Texas elite avoided Vietnam. His very special treatment included instant admission to flight training and an extraordinary commission as a second lieutenant. According to his former superiors, Mr. Bush performed admirably as a pilot while patrolling the coastal waters of the United States.
  
  But in May 1972, only 22 months after he completed pilot training, he stopped flying. In August 1972, he failed to show up for his annual physical examination and was automatically grounded. According to The Times of London, a conservative newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, Mr. Bush's campaign spokesman said he knew that he would be suspended if he missed that physical.
  
  He never flew a military aircraft again (or not until his flight-suit photo op last spring, when he briefly took the controls of an S-3B Viking jet before landing on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln). Instead, he left his Guard unit in Houston and went to Alabama to work in a Republican Senate campaign. He claims to have continued to serve in an Alabama Guard unit, but there is no evidence to support that assertion, and much contradictory evidence. The commanding officer of the Alabama Guard Unit told the Boston Globe that Mr. Bush never showed up for duty there. Nor is there any evidence that he sought duty in Vietnam.
  
  In fact, there is considerable evidence that Mr. Bush skipped all duty for a full year, until April 1973. At that point, his two superior officers in Houston noted in writing in an official document: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." They erroneously believed that he had been completing his duty in Alabama. Yet he somehow received an honorable discharge eight months before he completed his six-year commitment so that he could begin attending Harvard Business School.
  
  As the Globe noted, the "champagne unit" and others like it back then displayed "a tendency to excuse shirking by those with political connections."
  
  So Mr. Bush's claim that he "continued flying with my unit for the next several years" is an unabashed falsehood.

link

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Rassman, who spent less than a week on his boat and barely knew Kerry at all, made it clear Kerry pulled him out of the water and earned his Bronze Star (he recommended him for Silver). Kerry was not hurt in the Rassman incident and no Purple Heart came out of it. It's bad enough Ty is whitewashing these stories. Et tu, SAMmy?

Slave, IIRC Kerry was wounded in the arm by the explosion that rocked his boat and flipped Rassman off of it -- and that this was one of the two incidents noted in his third Purple Heart. Rassman described Kerry's arm as bleeding, while the injury report described "contusions".

S_A_M

P.S. How many of those 255 guys have signed affidavits and/or spoken out against Kerry from personal knowledge? Darn few. I suspect the rest signed up probably because they didn't like him them and/or were infuriated by his anti-war activism and/or don't like his current politics.

Hell, Kerry's former CO is a member and signed an affidavit -- even though he defended Kerry and his medals in the mid-1990s and as late as 2003. He has since admitted that he had no personal knowledge of any misrepresentations or misconduct by Kerry, but is going on what others in the group have told him. Don't make this out as more or different than it is. Club sez he had an open mind, and has since pulled back to the Cambodia incident as the key. We know you don't have an open mind, but there is no traction here.

P.P.S. (Referring to a later post of yours) You cannot posibly be so historically ignorant as to believe that U.S. forces did not operate covertly in Cambodia in at least the 1967-1973 time frame. The VC and NVA ran supplies through Cambodia, had support bases there, etc. The U.S. government denied such operations at the time, but it was happening. There is no doubt. Look it up.

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop

• George W. Bush lied about his military service record....

Did he testify in front the Senate about this experience?

Was this experience "seared, seared" into his memory and would thus become the basis for his beliefs on foreign policy for the rest of his life?

If not, its hardly comparable.

[SlaveNoMore]

Secret_Agent_Man
P.P.S. (Referring to a later post of yours) You cannot posibly be so historically ignorant as to believe that U.S. forces did not operate covertly in Cambodia in at least the 1967-1973 time frame. The VC and NVA ran supplies through Cambodia, had support bases there, etc. The U.S. government denied such operations at the time, but it was happening. There is no doubt. Look it up.

Why would I need to look it up. Kerry says he was there. Shouldn't this be enough?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Did he testify in front the Senate about this experience?

Was this experience "seared, seared" into his memory and would thus become the basis for his beliefs on foreign policy for the rest of his life?

If not, its hardly comparable.

Nicely played. I start to worry that you actually believe this stuff.

[taxwonk]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Did he testify in front the Senate about this experience?

Was this experience "seared, seared" into his memory and would thus become the basis for his beliefs on foreign policy for the rest of his life?

If not, its hardly comparable.

Why not? Because the level of rhetoric was somewhat more subdued? It's still a lie. One repeated throughout the campaign until it became impossible to back up.

I don't think that Bush is any less culpable because the memory of his fictitious service defending Galveston and Corpus Christi is not searedinto his memory like the incontrovertible evidence of WMD in Iraq. (oops. how did that slip out?)

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man

P.S. How many of those 255 guys have signed affidavits and/or spoken out against Kerry from personal knowledge?

I understand 60 or so have signed affidavits.

eft

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
Did he testify in front the Senate about this experience?

Was this experience "seared, seared" into his memory and would thus become the basis for his beliefs on foreign policy for the rest of his life?

If not, its hardly comparable.

I must have missed something. Is Bush claiming we should re-elect him because of his national guard service?

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
255 Swift Boats Veterans with nothing to gain are the ones whoring themselves out and lying, whereas Kerry - he the man of the recreated war footage and only 4/12 months of service - with the office of the President on the line, is telling the truth? Um, fuck that. Open your eyes.

Rassman, who spent less than a week on his boat and barely knew Kerry at all, made it clear Kerry pulled him out of the water and earned his Bronze Star (he recommended him for Silver). Kerry was not hurt in the Rassman incident and no Purple Heart came out of it. It's bad enough Ty is whitewashing these stories. Et tu, SAMmy?

You and club and Hank and penske and bilmore have nothing to gain from all the crap you spew, yet you continue to spew it. The fact that they have nothing to gain -- other than helping cause the defeat of a hated *liberal* -- does not mean that they are telling the truth.

ETA and Ty and SAM and whoever likewise have nothing to gain by arguing about whether Bush is a misleading sack of shit, but yet they continue to do it. The "something to gain" is a total red herring. People are not rational beings in a predictable way, despite what whatever really simplistic econ courses you may have taken said.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I must have missed something. Is Bush claiming we should re-elect him because of his national guard service?

On his campaign site, if you follow the link called "President Bush's Agenda," it helpfully explains: "In his 2003 State of the Union Address, President Bush told the nation, 'We will not deny, we will not ignore, we will not pass along our problems to other Congresses, other presidents, and other generations.'"

I gather this means Bush wants to be re-elected so that he can raise taxes and get rid of his budget deficits.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I must have missed something. Is Bush claiming we should re-elect him because of his national guard service?

Hm. I'm not sure what reasons Bush has given to be re-elected. Brilliant performance of the economy over the last 4 years? Our enhanced standing in the international community? Turning the corner on winning the war on terrorism? The united (not divided) state of political discourse?

Really, I think his strongest point is that he has not yet been caught being sucked off by an intern in the Oval Office. But I'll wait and hear nattering naBob Novak's testimony before the grand jury before I pass judgment on that.