| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
24 Aug 2004 08:03:27 AM |
| Object: |
Who served and who didn't serve. |
From The New York Times, 8/24/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/nyregion/24nyc.html
By CLYDE HABERMAN
THERE has been a lot of talk about medals and who did what long ago in
Vietnam, notably John F. Kerry, who also once put himself in harm's
way.
It is perhaps worth noting that some scheduled convention speakers and
other leading Republicans were of draft age during that war, men like
Tom DeLay, J. Dennis Hastert, Rudolph W. Giuliani, George E. Pataki,
Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, to name a few.
Theorists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William J. Bennett
may be in New York, too.
One way or another, all avoided military service when it was their
turn.
President Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, a surefire tactic
back then to reduce the chances of Vietnam duty almost to zero.
Vice President ***** Cheney steered clear of the military entirely.
He had "other priorities," he later explained.
Whatever they were, they clearly did not include even an outside
chance of finding himself in a hometown news release or qualifying the
hard way for a future Cold War Recognition Certificate.
_________________________________________________________
The Right Wing Chickenhawk Brigade at;
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%20NEWS%3B%20Chickenhawks
Harry
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| User: "Dwight Stewart" |
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| Title: Re: Who served and who didn't serve. |
24 Aug 2004 09:25:49 AM |
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"Harry Hope" wrote:
Vice President ***** Cheney steered
clear of the military entirely.
He had "other priorities," he later
explained.
Whatever they were, they clearly did
not include even an outside chance of
finding himself in a hometown news
release or qualifying the hard way for
a future Cold War Recognition
Certificate.
LOL. I like the "qualifying the hard way for a future Cold War Recognition
Certificate" comment, Harry. Mind if I borrow it from you? I'm going to
regardless (it's too good not to), but thought I would ask nicely anyway.
:-)
Stewart
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| User: "MrPepper11" |
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| Title: Re: Who served and who didn't serve. |
24 Aug 2004 02:44:52 PM |
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Harry Hope <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:<p4fmi09ahq0i4nv0kjifuuisaq2d2a88b2@4ax.com>...
From The New York Times, 8/24/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/nyregion/24nyc.html.
It is perhaps worth noting that some scheduled convention speakers and
other leading Republicans were of draft age during that war, men like
Tom DeLay, J. Dennis Hastert, Rudolph W. Giuliani, George E. Pataki,
Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, to name a few.
Theorists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William J. Bennett
may be in New York, too.
One way or another, all avoided military service when it was their
turn.
President Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, a surefire tactic
back then to reduce the chances of Vietnam duty almost to zero.
The "liberal" press has been ignoring the President's injuries while
serving our country:
Austin American-Statesman
August 23, 2004
Kerry got Purple Hearts; Bush gets Purple Thumbs
John Kelso
Ever pound your hand with a hammer while building a doghouse? Ouch.
So it's not exactly the Normandy beaches. But it throbs like a son of
a gun. And it's the kind of Purple Thumb Award that President Bush has
earned plenty of — for taking headers off his bicycle, choking on junk
food and dodging trailers full of trash.
Sadly, though, Bush isn't getting much mention lately for such
daredevil feats. This is because the nation's attention has been ate
up by all of the cheap talk about John Kerry and his Purple Hearts.
Currently, the debate rages over whether the Democratic presidential
hopeful bled sufficiently to earn three Purple Hearts while serving in
the Navy in Vietnam. Even Bob "Viagraman" Dole has, uh, popped up to
tell Kerry he should apologize to Vietnam veterans.
The unfortunate injustice done here is that, because of this dialogue
over Kerry's wartime accomplishments, we've ignored Bush's richly
deserved Purple Thumbs.
Though none of these adventures occurred during combat (the only thing
Bush ever fought off was a head cold), Bush did serve from 1968 to
1972 in the Air National Guard in Texas. Bush and I have eerily
similar military careers. To avoid Vietnam, I joined the Army Reserve.
Either way, Bush did a heckuva job while serving in the Guard. Not
once was Texas invaded by Oklahoma.
And though some question remains about whether Bush ducked out of some
Guard meetings in Alabama, one officer said he recalled Bush sitting
in his office while reading magazines.
Hey, maybe Bush got a paper cut. Also, he did go to the dentist while
in the Guard, and that smarts, even with Novocain.
But what can you expect from a guy who was a prep school cheerleader?
Boy cheerleader ranks up there on the leadership list, right behind
guys who make funny animals out of balloons.
But I digress. One of Bush's Purple Thumbs was earned by falling off
his mountain bike at his ranch in Crawford. In July, he sailed over
the handlebars of his $3,100 Trek Fuel 98 bicycle and landed on his
back, getting a small cut on his knee. It might not compare with
fishing a guy out of a river in Vietnam during a firefight, but a scab
is a scab.
If you thought that didn't amount to much, neither does this one.
About 2 1/2 years ago while watching football on TV, Bush fainted and
fell off the couch after choking on a pretzel.
Yep, one lousy pretzel. You could understand a guy being taken out by
a bag of pork rinds, a 5-pound ham, a couple of turkey legs and a
cheese blintz. But one pretzel and you're going for a Purple Thumb
Award? This is a world leader?
Then there was the time five years ago here on the hike-and-bike trail
when Bush dove behind a bridge support to avoid debris flying out of
an overturned trailer. He scraped his right leg and hip and suffered
"a significant strawberry," he said at the time.
Though this didn't occur on a river in Vietnam, there are similarities
here to Kerry's wartime experience. The debris encounter did happen
next to a body of water: Town Lake. And there may have been watercraft
nearby, although they might have been canoes.
----------------------------------------------------------------
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| User: "Liberty1st" |
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| Title: Re: Who served and who didn't serve. |
24 Aug 2004 08:54:22 AM |
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Leave it to left wing Larry to miss what the discussion is really about.
"Harry Hope" <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:p4fmi09ahq0i4nv0kjifuuisaq2d2a88b2@4ax.com...
From The New York Times, 8/24/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/nyregion/24nyc.html
By CLYDE HABERMAN
THERE has been a lot of talk about medals and who did what long ago in
Vietnam, notably John F. Kerry, who also once put himself in harm's
way.
It is perhaps worth noting that some scheduled convention speakers and
other leading Republicans were of draft age during that war, men like
Tom DeLay, J. Dennis Hastert, Rudolph W. Giuliani, George E. Pataki,
Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, to name a few.
Theorists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William J. Bennett
may be in New York, too.
One way or another, all avoided military service when it was their
turn.
President Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, a surefire tactic
back then to reduce the chances of Vietnam duty almost to zero.
Vice President ***** Cheney steered clear of the military entirely.
He had "other priorities," he later explained.
Whatever they were, they clearly did not include even an outside
chance of finding himself in a hometown news release or qualifying the
hard way for a future Cold War Recognition Certificate.
_________________________________________________________
The Right Wing Chickenhawk Brigade at;
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%20NEWS%3B%20Chickenhawks
Harry
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| User: "ouroboros rex" |
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| Title: Re: Who served and who didn't serve. |
24 Aug 2004 09:21:09 AM |
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"Liberty1st" <liberty1st_@email.com> wrote in message
news:J5adnQ7UD6fj1bbcRVn-sA@comcast.com...
Leave it to left wing Larry to miss what the discussion is really about.
rofl
Defend your draft dodger all you want.
"Harry Hope" <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:p4fmi09ahq0i4nv0kjifuuisaq2d2a88b2@4ax.com...
From The New York Times, 8/24/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/nyregion/24nyc.html
By CLYDE HABERMAN
THERE has been a lot of talk about medals and who did what long ago in
Vietnam, notably John F. Kerry, who also once put himself in harm's
way.
It is perhaps worth noting that some scheduled convention speakers and
other leading Republicans were of draft age during that war, men like
Tom DeLay, J. Dennis Hastert, Rudolph W. Giuliani, George E. Pataki,
Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, to name a few.
Theorists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William J. Bennett
may be in New York, too.
One way or another, all avoided military service when it was their
turn.
President Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, a surefire tactic
back then to reduce the chances of Vietnam duty almost to zero.
Vice President ***** Cheney steered clear of the military entirely.
He had "other priorities," he later explained.
Whatever they were, they clearly did not include even an outside
chance of finding himself in a hometown news release or qualifying the
hard way for a future Cold War Recognition Certificate.
_________________________________________________________
The Right Wing Chickenhawk Brigade at;
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%20NEWS%3B%20Chickenhawks
Harry
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| User: "cyber" |
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| Title: Re: Who served and who didn't serve. |
24 Aug 2004 10:33:03 AM |
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In article <cgfisl$lf9$1@news.ks.uiuc.edu>,
"ouroboros rex" <c-bee1@itg.uiuc.edu> wrote:
"Liberty1st" <liberty1st_@email.com> wrote in message
news:J5adnQ7UD6fj1bbcRVn-sA@comcast.com...
Leave it to left wing Larry to miss what the discussion is really about.
rofl
Defend your draft dodger all you want.
"Harry Hope" <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:p4fmi09ahq0i4nv0kjifuuisaq2d2a88b2@4ax.com...
From The New York Times, 8/24/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/nyregion/24nyc.html
By CLYDE HABERMAN
THERE has been a lot of talk about medals and who did what long ago in
Vietnam, notably John F. Kerry, who also once put himself in harm's
way.
It is perhaps worth noting that some scheduled convention speakers and
other leading Republicans were of draft age during that war, men like
Tom DeLay, J. Dennis Hastert, Rudolph W. Giuliani, George E. Pataki,
Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, to name a few.
Theorists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William J. Bennett
may be in New York, too.
One way or another, all avoided military service when it was their
turn.
President Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, a surefire tactic
back then to reduce the chances of Vietnam duty almost to zero.
Vice President ***** Cheney steered clear of the military entirely.
He had "other priorities," he later explained.
Whatever they were, they clearly did not include even an outside
chance of finding himself in a hometown news release or qualifying the
hard way for a future Cold War Recognition Certificate.
_________________________________________________________
The Right Wing Chickenhawk Brigade at;
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%20NEW
S%3B%20Chickenhawks
Harry
From The American Prospect, 8/23/04:
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8
388
Cowards All Around
The media should take a step back and remind us what Bush and Cheney
were up to in 1969.
By Michael Tomasky
At first blush, the treatment given to Michael Dobbs' page-one
swift-boat article in Sunday's Washington Post seems at least vaguely
reassuring.
There's the neutral headline "Swift Boat Accounts Incomplete," but
below that, a deck-headline informing readers that "Critics Fail to
Disprove Kerry's Version of Vietnam War Episode."
The banner treatment, running across three-fourths of the front page
above the fold, places the onus of proof where it belongs -- on the
accusers, not on Kerry, a point that Bob Novak and others have chosen
to ignore, obscure, or even refute; and in announcing that the proof
isn't there, it seems to be a plus for Kerry.
So what's wrong with this picture?
This:
The Washington Post should not even be running such a story -- a
takeout of something in the neighborhood of 2,700 words, I'm guessing,
delving into the remotest arcana about what really happened on the Bay
Hap River on March 13, 1969 -- in the first place.
Len Downie and the paper's other editors would undoubtedly argue that
the story represents the Post's tenacity for getting to the truth,
without fear or favor.
But what the story actually proves is that a bunch of liars who have
in the past contradicted their own current statements can, if their
lies are outrageous enough and if they have enough money, control the
media agenda and get even the most respected media outlets in the
country to focus on picayune "truths" while missing the larger story.
And the larger story here is clear:
John Kerry volunteered for the Navy, volunteered to go to Vietnam, and
then, when he was sitting around Cam Ranh Bay bored with nothing to
do, requested the most dangerous duty a Naval officer could be given.
He saved a man's life.
He risked his own every time he went up into the Mekong Delta.
He did more than his country asked.
In fact he didn't even wait for his country to ask.
George W. Bush spent those same years in a state of dissolution at
Yale, and would go on, as we know, to plot how to get out of going to
Southeast Asia.
On that subject, here's a choice quote.
"I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to
get a deferment," Bush told the Dallas Morning News in 1990.
"Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by
learning how to fly airplanes."
Let's parse that quotation phrase for phrase.
We do not, of course, know the full context of the conversation he was
having with the reporter, and we don't know exactly what question Bush
was asked.
But his words begin from the presumption that actually going to
Vietnam was absolutely not an option.
The quote is entirely about how to avoid going.
He wasn't prepared to damage his hearing intentionally for the sake of
securing a deferment (he probably meant a 4-F classification and
confused the two).
And he wasn't willing to go to Canada.
So he took the third option, the Air National Guard.
And note how the choice was about bettering himself, not about
thinking of a way to best render service that this child of privilege
might -- had he been possessed of the moral fiber and sense of duty
of, say, John Kerry -- have considered his obligation, especially
considering that, on paper at least, he supported the war.
***** Cheney is another who, on paper at least, supported the war.
But we know Cheney's story:
A series of deferments going back to 1963, when he was a student at
Casper College in Wyoming.
As Tim Noah reported in Slate, Cheney went on to marry -- as fate
would have it, right after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, when it was
clear that young single men would be called up in larger numbers than
before.
And then he went on to have a child, Elizabeth, born precisely nine
months and two days after the Selective Service ended the proscription
on the drafting of married but childless men.
What a happily timed burst of passion he and Lynn were consumed by!
So, while Kerry was plying the Mekong Delta, Cheney was safe and dry
stateside, dropping out of Yale because his grades weren't sufficient
to maintain the scholarship the school had offered him.
Everyone knows Cheney's quote, delivered to the Senate committee that
was vetting him for service as George H.W. Bush's Defense Secretary,
that he "had other priorities" than going to fight for his country.
But he made another comment at that hearing that's less known and more
damning:
He said he "would have obviously been happy to serve had I been
called."
That, as John Nichols notes in his recent book *****, is not just an
obfuscation or a tap dance; it's a lie.
He was called, and he ducked.
So now we're having a debate about whether the man who did the
honorable thing may have embellished his record a little (although
nothing in the documentary record suggests he did this), while we have
two cowards who did everything they could to stay miles away from the
place Kerry demanded he be sent.
This is the fundamental truth.
And while yes, Kerry has made his war service a centerpiece in a way
that Bush and Cheney for obvious reasons did not, is it really Kerry
who deserves scrutiny for how he behaved in 1968 and 1969?
Why shouldn't the major media be doing comparisons of how Kerry, Bush,
and Cheney passed those years?
Why shouldn't The Washington Post be devoting 2,700 words to a
comprehensive look at Cheney's deferments?
Nichols identifies three young men from Casper who did die in Vietnam:
Robert Cardenas, Walter Elmer Handy, and Douglas Tyrone Patrick.
Did one of them die because Cheney had "other priorities"?
But The Washington Post won't do that, because there exists no Vietnam
Veterans for the Truth About Deferments, financed by wealthy
Democratic donors and out peddling its wares.
Which is the moral of the story.
Our media can sort through the facts in front of their nose and
determine, at least some of the time, who's lying and who's not.
But they are completely incapable of taking a step back and describing
the larger reality.
Doing that would require making judgments that are supposedly
subjective rather than objective; but the larger reality here is
clearer than clear.
Just imagine if the situation were reversed:
The same people now questioning Kerry's "character" would have worked
to establish Bush as a war hero long ago.
They would have labeled Kerry a coward.
If by chance a liberal-backed group came forward to question Bush's
wartime actions, they would have been called traitors and worse.
And the mainstream media would be following the agenda they set every
step of the way.
You'd think a press corps that has now officially acknowledged that it
was had by this administration on the pre-Iraq war propaganda would
think twice before letting itself get used one more time.
You'd think, for example, that if the editors of the Washington Post
were planning 2,700-word takeouts, they might have given priority to
an investigation into ties between the White House and the Swift Boat
group.
If the conventions of mainstream journalism prevent our media from
letting readers, viewers, and listeners examine the full truth in its
broadest context, then it's time to reexamine those conventions.
Until that happens, people who are willing to say anything, and who
have the money to back them up, will be setting the agenda, and the
media -- once upon a time, a guardian of our democratic traditions --
will be following them.
______________________________________________________
The Right Wing Chickenhawk Brigade at;
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%
20NEWS%3B%20Chickenhawks
Harry
What did Dubya do in the war, daddy?
http://www.kcdemocrats.com/Bush%20News/LindaMcQuaig111702.htm
"If I can not dance, I want no part in your revolution." Emma Goldman
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| User: "Miles Long" |
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| Title: Re: Who served and who didn't serve. |
24 Aug 2004 09:55:37 AM |
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Liberty1st wrote:
Leave it to left wing Larry to miss what the discussion is really about.
Foolish boy, Harry didn't write the article, he only brought
it to your attention. Are there any writers from the Right
with higher than room temperature IQ?
Miles "Lifeguarding at the Shallow End of the Gene Pool" Long
"Harry Hope" <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:p4fmi09ahq0i4nv0kjifuuisaq2d2a88b2@4ax.com...
From The New York Times, 8/24/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/nyregion/24nyc.html
By CLYDE HABERMAN
THERE has been a lot of talk about medals and who did what long ago in
Vietnam, notably John F. Kerry, who also once put himself in harm's
way.
It is perhaps worth noting that some scheduled convention speakers and
other leading Republicans were of draft age during that war, men like
Tom DeLay, J. Dennis Hastert, Rudolph W. Giuliani, George E. Pataki,
Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, to name a few.
Theorists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William J. Bennett
may be in New York, too.
One way or another, all avoided military service when it was their
turn.
President Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, a surefire tactic
back then to reduce the chances of Vietnam duty almost to zero.
Vice President ***** Cheney steered clear of the military entirely.
He had "other priorities," he later explained.
Whatever they were, they clearly did not include even an outside
chance of finding himself in a hometown news release or qualifying the
hard way for a future Cold War Recognition Certificate.
_________________________________________________________
The Right Wing Chickenhawk Brigade at;
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%20NEWS%3B%20Chickenhawks
Harry
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| User: "J.D." |
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| Title: Re: Who served and who didn't serve. |
24 Aug 2004 11:02:47 AM |
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Military Service & AWOL maybe different sides of the coin but they are
connected!
The blind leading the blind and the dumb leading the dumber!
You've been letting Rush "The Cyst" do your "Thinking" too long.
J.D.
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 09:54:22 -0400, "Liberty1st"
<liberty1st_@email.com> wrote:
Leave it to left wing Larry to miss what the discussion is really about.
"Harry Hope" <rivrvu@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:p4fmi09ahq0i4nv0kjifuuisaq2d2a88b2@4ax.com...
From The New York Times, 8/24/04:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/nyregion/24nyc.html
By CLYDE HABERMAN
THERE has been a lot of talk about medals and who did what long ago in
Vietnam, notably John F. Kerry, who also once put himself in harm's
way.
It is perhaps worth noting that some scheduled convention speakers and
other leading Republicans were of draft age during that war, men like
Tom DeLay, J. Dennis Hastert, Rudolph W. Giuliani, George E. Pataki,
Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, to name a few.
Theorists like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and William J. Bennett
may be in New York, too.
One way or another, all avoided military service when it was their
turn.
President Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard, a surefire tactic
back then to reduce the chances of Vietnam duty almost to zero.
Vice President ***** Cheney steered clear of the military entirely.
He had "other priorities," he later explained.
Whatever they were, they clearly did not include even an outside
chance of finding himself in a hometown news release or qualifying the
hard way for a future Cold War Recognition Certificate.
_________________________________________________________
The Right Wing Chickenhawk Brigade at;
http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=list&category=%20NEWS%3B%20Chickenhawks
Harry
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