http://www.drudgereport.com/ GLOBE: BUSH DIDN'T MEET GUARD COMMITMENTS President Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, the BOSTON GLOBE is planning to front on Wednesday, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE. The 1,500 word expose on Bush's records comes just hours ahead of an exclusive CBSNEWS interview set to air Wednesday night with a man who secured for the 22-year-old Yale graduate Bush a coveted place in the Guard -- a man who now claims he regrets helping Bush. The GLOBE claims: "Twice during his Guard service - first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School - Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty. "He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show." After laying dormant for most of the summer, big media picks up where it left off on the Bush national guard issue in a post-Labor Day filing frenzy. In the next hours and days, the ASSOCIATED PRESS, CBSNEWS, BOSTON GLOBE and NBCNEWS [who will host Bush author Kitty Kelley on Monday] will revisit Bush National Guard. The upcoming reexamination of Bush's records by the GLOBE show that Bush's attendance at required training drills "was so irregular that his superiors could have disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973, or 1974. But they did neither. In fact, Bush's unit certified in late 1973 that his service had been "satisfactory" - just four months after Bush's commanding officer wrote that Bush had not been seen at his unit for the previous 12 months." Developing...
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=544&u=/ap/20040908/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_national_guard&printer=1 Democratic National Committee communications director Jano Cabrera disagreed. "For months George Bush told the nation that all his military records were public," he said. "Now we know why Bush was trying so hard to withhold these records. When his nation asked him to be on call against possible surprise attacks, Bush wasn't there." Bush's 2000 campaign suggested the future president skipped his medical exam in part because the F-102A was nearly obsolete. It showed the unit joined a "24-hour active alert mission to safeguard against surprise attack" in the southern United States beginning on Oct. 6, 1972, a mission for which Bush was not present, according to his pay records.
So I conceed...George Bush may not be qualified to be a top line fighter pilot; but he makes an excellent Commander in Chief and President... can we move on to the issues? IntheNet Bush/Cheney in 2004
Kristof's column today in the Times covers the story. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/opinion/08kristof.html Oh, and all you guys touting post-convention polls need to go read about polling trends in the 1980 campaign.
Yes. In fact, I predict that because of a blip in the time-space continuum, he lost his 11 point lead even before the information came out!!! And I'm right!!! By the way, this "scoreboard" crap is like having a discussion about music, and some guy pulling out sales records to argue that Slim Whitman is superior to Bob Dylan.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040908/D84V54IG0.html http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=559273
Maybe this was relevant in 2000 BEFORE Bush became Commander in Chief...but someone explain the relevance RIGHT NOW since he has been in office for FOUR YEARS, and everyone knows how he will perform (place adjective here....) It is as relevant as Kerry's 4 months in Nam...IMHO.... NOT! What is relevant is THEIR POSITIONS on issues of national importance. Kerry's anti war position is relevant if painted in the light of his votes over 19 years and his position post Viet-nam... What Bush or Kerry did in THEIR PERSONAL LIVES 30 years ago is not relevant. Does anyone care that Kerry admits that he smoke (OFTEN) marijuana in Nam and at Yale? I don't....Do you? This election is fast becoming CRAP. The Kerry folks are desperate, and now they are lashing out. They take the view that any attack on THEIR POSITION's is a personal attack on them and their patriotism (oh please grow up!), and thereby gives them permission to go to the gutter. They have created the myth that the Swift Vets were coordinated with Bush. That is an complete LIE. IT IS a myth. They now lash out. Bush has been called every vile name one can think of. I can't count the number of comparisions with Hilter anymore. And now we go as low as humanly possible. Kerry is going to lose this election. In fact, I am prepared to predict that it will not be close. Why? Because these attacks are going to be viewed the way they are...as DESPERATION TACTICS from a group of people not prepared to lead!
This is great! Yeah, no link between the Bush campaign and the Swifties, yet TWO Bush staffers had to resign once their involvement came to light. Bush set up a smear campaign by proxy, and now that he's been called out for the lazy bastard he is with regards to his military "service", the neocons want to talk about "real issues". Oh really? Yeah, lets talk about how inept Bush has been in every major facet of domestic and foreign policy over the last four years. Lets talk about a GOp-controlled Congress and Executive branch that has taken a $155 billion surplus and turned it into a $455 billion deficit in three short years. Let's talk about the ever-increasing number of people falling below the poverty line and going without health insurance. I'd LOVE to see that debate, but it will never happen because the neocons paint anything that punctures the happy-face facade of the Bush administration as treasonous or aiding and abetting our "enemies".
I am truly curious at the cognitive dissonance involved in supporters of Bush. USA Soccer, is it your position that whether Bush served in the National Guard according to his requirements is something in his PRIVATE LIFE??? Yesterday you posted something about the Russian hostage situation that implied that we had to vote for Bush because John Kerry would not be opposed to terrorists killing children. Dick Cheney says that if we don't choose Bush, we'll make ourselves vulnerable to terrorist attacks. I don't understand whether you really see the world the way you do, or do you just make these arguments as a way to advance your candidate? How can there be a completely different set of rules for what is "fair"?
He did *TWO* tours of duty more than Bush, not one. Actually, it is. George Bush is a quitter and a coward who won't fight his own fights. That was true in the early 70s and it's true today. Best. Fixed post. Ever. I'm rubber, and you're glue. Everything you say bounces off me and sticks to you. Lastort, your chart please. If the goofy little mustache fits.... Allow me to point out that the Kerry website primarily talks about John Kerry, while the Bush website primarily talks about...John Kerry. http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=projection Are you anxious, or guilty, or both?
Would it be inappropriate to point out that I am experiencing a delightful bout of Schadenfreude right now?
At least Bushco wasn't lieing. They 'misspoke." http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~11676~2387069,00.html
Kerry's first tour was on the USS Gridley. That "tour" lasted from February to June of 1968, he never set foot in Vietnam during that time. He finally set foot in Vietnam in November of 1968, then left in March of 1969. So in total Kerry spent 10 months in or near Vietnam during both of his tours.
...which is at least 10 months more than Bush spent in Vietnam, and apparently five months more than Bush spent in Alabama in '72
Straw man, and a complete decietful misstatement of what I said... To be sure, my position is that the terrorist attack in Russia will have a big underlying current in favor of the President, simply because it brings international terrorism front and center, and that the audacity and pure wickedness of said attack will remind people of 9-11. As for Bush's service record...this is a non issue. And I am tired of arguing with people who are clueless. I have forgotten more about military service than all of you jokers combined. This is SUCH A NON made up ISSUE! You simply have no idea of WHAT you are talking about.
The following article is spot on..... I love it when post-hippie 1970 liberals indignantly throw around words like "evaded service in Vietnam." Of course for eight years while Bill Clinton was Commander in Chief this was a non-issue, but suddenly they are enraged that somebody might have "evaded service in Vietnam" by serving in the National Guard. Now liberals will say the issue is not that Bush served in the National Guard, but rather how he got into the National Guard. But Kristof's own words accuse the President very directly of "evading service in Vietnam." The hypocrisy here is so stunning and the gall of baby boomer, anti-war lefties getting all self-righteous about "evading service" is a joke. The fact the Left has decided to go back to the trough on this issue just shows how few attractive avenues of attack they have left against the President. This is a sign of weakness, not strength. The Kerry campaign, The New York Times, the Boston Globe and CBS are all excited that they are going to "swift-boat" George W. Bush and turn these next two weeks into the equivalent of John Kerry's August for the President. But after the heat of the 2000 Presidential campaign and then the attempt several months ago to reignite the National Guard issue, the likelihood that there is going to be something substantive in all of this noise is extremely unlikely. Now the Kerry folks and the liberal glitterati in the press will say that there was nothing substantive in the swift-boat story yet it caused tremendous damage to John Kerry. It is this logic that has probably deluded them into thinking that this old National Guard issue can be used effectively against President Bush. But they are missing two key points to why this re-attack on President Bush's National Guard service will not have nearly the effectiveness of the swift boat attacks on Senator Kerry. First, and this is not a small point, George Bush has not made his stint in the National Guard one of the primary reasons to vote for him as President. Bush is more than happy to run on his 6-year record as Governor of the second largest state in country and his four years as President of the United States. It is Senator Kerry who decided to make his four-month service in Vietnam the prime qualification to lead this nation in war as opposed to his twenty-year public record in the United States Senate. Second, and it is this point that infuriates the elites in the media, there happens to be quite a lot of substance in the swift-boat attacks. The Kerry campaign and their friends in the press like to pretend that this is all just a pack of lies conjured up by the right-wing slime machine, but the facts seem to suggest a different story. The reason the swift-boat controversy continues to resonate is there is significant evidence supporting the charges. The media did their best to cherry pick one story here and another story there in an attempt to discredit the swift-boat veterans, but when you have over 90% of the people Kerry served with corroborating the story, at some point it becomes difficult to suggest the whole thing is all a pack of lies. As Bob Dole said very devastatingly just a couple of weeks ago: Not every one of these people can be Republican liars. There's got to be some truth to the charges. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/commentary.html
Oh yes, let's! By all means let's move on to the issues where your guy is just going to wipe the floor with us. Hmm, lessee... Bin Laden? Nope. Saddam? Okay, there's one. Afghanistan? Might catch a break there. Iraq? 1000 and counting. Environment? Nope. Medicare Reform? Nope Jobs Record? Nope. Poverty? Nope. Health Care? Nope. Trade Deficit? Nope. Fiscal Responsibility? Nope. Renewable Energy? Nope.
This will put the Bushies on the defensive for a while - just as Kerry was in August. You can't gain in the polls playing defense. Kerry has an opportunity with this.