the story is out there already, his service records are open and available to all we still don't know why Bush skipped his drug test in 1972 and lost his flight status though
Was FDR in the service? Was there this kind of griping about him as CIC? How many more American boys died then than now? EDIT: I also want to mention that the argument that Bush is better qualified to be CIC is based on his four years of experience in that current job rather than that he had nominal military experience-- how dumb a claim would that be?
The premise is that this is political. If you truly cared about this, your focus would be on the people who hand the award out. You have yet to bring them up. None of the conservative talking heads and attack dogs bring them up either. The whole point of this is to paint Kerry as someone who "TOOK" a purple heart he shouldn't have gotten, completely ignoring the other 2 for one thing, and completely ignoring the fact that he can't take a purple heart, they are "GIVEN." So, why are you afraid to mention the people who hand them out? I'll tell you why, it would take the argument away from Kerry, and that's not what you want. If you truly cared, the argument would go to the system that hands teh awards out. You don't want the negative light on that, you want it on Kerry.
Left out in all this is that Neal Boortz is a hypocrite and an idiot. This is a guy who routinely makes disparaging remarks about people who "attended government schools" yet is a proud graduate of Texas A&M, which last I checked was a public-- i.e., government-- school.
LOL, as a student of A&M, I can tell you Neal Boortz isn't the only former or current student who takes the same hypocritical stance.
This is truly Bizarro world... We have a campaign supporting a candidate who used his political connections to get placed in the TANG, still avoided service, and can't find anyone from his Alabama unit to corroborate his story attacking a candidate who volunteered to go to Vietnam by using people who were there to denigrate his service, question his medals, and imply that he used political connections and wiles to coast through a tour and play up his achievements. This is ridiculous and completely fails the other shoe test. If Bush had Kerry's record and Kerry had Bush's record, would we still be having the same conversation?
If Kerry had come back from Viet Nam and not defamed the US military as he apparently did, we would not be having this discussion.
What's the problem with going to fight in a war, and then protesting against it after you have experienced it firsthand?
this is where your argument falls apart because you, like a lot of right-wingers, like to confuse candor and 'whistle-blowing' with lack of patriotism. IMO of course
How many damn times are you going to look at a war protestor and think "why do they hate our troops?" Seriously. It's getting old.
So if in Iraq, a group of soldiers go crazy from being there too long, having their combat pay slashed and health benefits cut, and they kill innocent civillians on purpose in their state of rage, and a troop where to step forward and expose them, he'd be the bad guy?
Kerry's serious mistake was to cast his net of guilt too widely and associate with idiots like Jane Fonda and the communists. Surely there are those who protested without making those kinds of mistakes. There certainly was a lot to protest, wasn't there? Damn Democrats... ... they are the ones who escalated Viet Nam into a quagmirish status.
No. where did you get a crackpot idea like that? Don't say you got it from me... It's really tough to discuss these matters with a group who either doesn't want to understand a position different from their's or can't do the same. So which is it?
Brian Kagy is absolutely correct. Boortz is a buffoon. For one example where he obviously lied to gain a trivial debating advantage, see the idiotic lie he gave onCNNwhen Air America first debuted. He claimed he invited Al Franken to guest host his show, but that Franken was too much of a coward to go before his callers, and refused the offer. Franken had him on during the first weeks of his show, and Boortz said, 'I never said that. I never invited you to do my show. That must be a mistake in the transcript.' A few weeks later, Franken had Boortz on again. This time, he played him the audio from CNN. Boortz, instead of apologizing for the pathological and completely trivial nature of the lie, became enraged, and threatenednever to be interviewed on Air America again. === You haven't given the name of the doctor. One CO in the past came forward and claimed one of Kerry's wounds was nothing but a tiny scratch on his forearm (as has been noted, remembered the exact location after thirty years). But Kerry's medical report (not signed by this blowhard, I believe his name was Hubbard) explicitly stated that Kerry's wound was above the elbow, making obvious that the guy was lying or at best had a faulty memory. If it's the same guy, this Boortz interview is a non-story. By the way, Kerry never claimed his wounds were massive. Two, IIRC, were relatively minor, from shrapnel. The third was also from shrapnel, but a more serious injury to his leg (before he pulled Rassman from the water) that required a brief hospitilization, again, if I remember. The point is, he was wounded three times. It's, in my opinion, a good thing he wasn't partially paralyzed like Dole, and that he can still walk. He was awarded the purple hearts ultimately by his commanding officers. How does this matter? Also, the difference between Clinton's non-service and Bush's non-service is that Clinton actively demonstrated against the war. He didn't believe in it, and refused to fight in it. GWB, on the other hand, doesn't remember Vietnam as being that 'big a deal' when he was in college. He tacitly supported the war, as he admits, but refused to fight it. See the contradiction? Kerry has both of 'em beat. Kerry didn't agree with the war, but still volunteered for service because he thought it was his duty to his country. Then, seeing the horror of war firsthand, and after acquitting himself well in battle, returned to actively make sure the war would end as soon as possible, so that no more soldiers would need to "die for a mistake."
Bizarro world indeed. Giddyup, Have you never heard of the Phonix quotas? Tiger Force didn’t exist? Maylay didn’t happen? Nixon didn’t illegally order the bombing of Cambodia? Free fire zones didn’t cut down innocent women and children, anybody who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? Soldiers weren’t ordered to set fire to villagers’ homes, raze entire villages based on nothing but hunches? Napalm didn’t rain down equally on civilians and VC alike? Agent Orange didn’t defoliate entire crop supplies, pollute the groundwater, and leave birth defects for generations to come? What world are you living in? In your worldview, for Kerry to be wrong in opposing Vietnam, Vietnam would have to be right, a just war. Do you honestly believe that? So that must mean the domino theory was correct, right? Funny thing: we lost Vietnam. And the rest of SE Asia did not turn Communist; why is that? Do you really believe that Kerry had no reason to protest, citing his own experiences and those of many other disillusioned veterans?
have you seen 'Fog of War' ? this is a interesting site that has transcripts (or you can listen) of LBJ's conversations dealing with the Vietnam dilemma http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/prestapes/d1.html this has nothing to do with your reply, just you mentioning LBJ being the one to esculate the war reminded me of that movie and that site
And yes, the Democrat LBJ didn't trump up the Tonkin Gulf incident in order to garner support for a rapid escalation of the war?
Chump, Off-topic, but I just saw Fog for the first time a few nights ago. Robert McNamara might be the most complex man of the past century. He had no compunctions at the time about fire-bombing to death 100,000 civilians, yet later fights for seat belts to save lives. Realizes that Vietnam was a horrible mistake, but still has too much pride to bring himself to say it. Wants to make, with the film, an absolute confession of the lessons learned from the mistakes he's made, then ends up lying about them anyway. Absolutely amazing film.
