The War President!

[Glaucus]

You Can Make It With Plato
Bush's difficult relationship with reality. (http://slate.msn.com/id/2095160/)
By William Saletan

On Meet the Press, Bush handled questions about his service in the National Guard during Vietnam the same way. Russert reminded Bush, "The Boston Globe and the Associated Press have gone through some of their records and said there's no evidence that you reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972." Bush replied, "Yeah, they're just wrong. There may be no evidence, but I did report. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged." That's the Bush syllogism: The evidence says one thing; the conclusion says another; therefore, the evidence is false.

Bush at Sea
Does this war president have any idea what he's talking about? (http://slate.msn.com/id/2095184/)
By Fred Kaplan

If no commentators have noted, or perhaps even noticed, this new spin on American military policy, it may be because they don't take Bush's unscripted remarks seriously. (It's just Bush, talking off the top of his head. No sense parsing the implications.) That in itself is quite a commentary on this president. But it's not clear that these particular remarks were unscripted. Bush used the same phrase—"a capacity to make a weapon"—three times; it was almost certainly a part of his brief. Either the statement means something—that we now reserve the right to wage pre-emptive war on a hostile power that has the mere capacity to make weapons of mass destruction—or it's empty blather. It's unclear which would be more unsettling.

- Mike

[Glaucus]

I suppose this article deserves to be thrown in with the other two....

Bush's Spending Lie
It's one thing to lie to Democrats, another to lie to your comrades. (http://slate.msn.com/id/2095237/)
By Timothy Noah

Bush is gaslighting small-government Republicans. He's lying to the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl, who has observed that federal spending has grown twice as fast under Bush as it did under Clinton. He's lying to Paul Gigot, who edits the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, which says runaway spending is evidence that "the Republican imperium is starting to show signs of ideological dry rot." He's lying to Rush Limbaugh, who recently told his listeners that Bush hopes to soften "people's view of conservatism by making Americans work more for government and less for themselves," and that this strategy won't work. He's lying to Andrew Sullivan, the hawkish conservative blogger who's in utter despair over Bush's spending spree. He's lying, in short, to people who believe in him. Or rather, believed; Sullivan is drifting rapidly leftward and has already struck out at Bush's dishonesty on Meet the Press. If others follow, Bush could see serious erosion in his political base.

Well, I'll drink to that! :pint: :-)

- Mike

[T_Bone]

We just want Reagan back.

[blobrana]

Or Nixon....

Anyway arn`t the democrats saying that Bush isn`t a war president, and he cut his national service in vietnam short?


And on another note , it looks like the government is using manipulated figures (hum vietnam) for the war casualties in Iraq...Officially 3000, although the `military` hospital has recorded 8000...
They don't record noncombatant deaths.

[Wilse]

@Blobrana:

Bush never went to Vietnam. He used his daddy's connections to get
into the National Guard instead, allegedly jumping 500 other guys in
the queue. It would be interesting to hear what happened to those
guys. I wonder how many of them lost limbs or even their life.

If that isn't bad enough for 'bring 'em on' boy, it's also alleged
that he went AWOL while he was there.

Also interesting is the latest attempts to sweep this under the carpet
by producing pay records which, as far as I can tell, he would have
received whether he turned up or not.

[blobrana]

Tnx, for that correction.


The word on the street is that the democrats don`t have any concrete policy's though, only this vietnam angle.
Is this enough to win an election?

[Quixote]

:roll: That the Boston Globe's records do not have evidence that President Bush reported for duty during the Vietnam war does not constitute evidence that he did not. That's akin to suggesting that because Quixote has no record that Glaucus attended high school, Glaucus must not have.

:roll: Also, remember that George W. Bush's draft number was such that he would not have been called up before the war was over. Dissatisfied with that, he took steps to ensure that he would be able to participate, instead of having to sit on the sidelines. Regular visitors to this forum should remember this because it has been discussed here before.

[FluffyMcDeath]

Quixote wrote:
:roll: That the Boston Globe's records do not have evidence that President Bush reported for duty during the Vietnam war does not constitute evidence that he did not. That's akin to suggesting that because Quixote has no record that Glaucus attended high school, Glaucus must not have.

:roll: Also, remember that George W. Bush's draft number was such that he would not have been called up before the war was over. Dissatisfied with that, he took steps to ensure that he would be able to participate, instead of having to sit on the sidelines. Regular visitors to this forum should remember this because it has been discussed here before.


That the National Guard has no record of Dubya showing up for a year and that his commanding officer and anybody else who was there that year do not recall that he showed up for that year only means that the National Guard has no record of Dubya showing up for a year and that his commanding officer and anybody else who was there that year do not recall that he showed up for that year.

[Quixote]

FluffyMcDeath, flatly:That the National Guard has no record of Dubya showing up for a year and that his commanding officer and anybody else who was there that year do not recall that he showed up for that year only means that the National Guard has no record of Dubya showing up for a year and that his commanding officer and anybody else who was there that year do not recall that he showed up for that year.From Glaucus' post:"The Boston Globe and the Associated Press have gone through some of their records and said there's no evidence that you reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972.";-) The "their" in the sentence refers to the subject of the sentence, The Boston Globe and the Associated Press. If they meant something else, they should have worded the sentence differently.

[KennyR]

Hands up who really thinks the Bush family, a billionaire family with almost as much power as wealth, would send one of their sons to fight in a war along with all the other grunts and cannon fodder.

Mhhh...not me, sorry. Mahatma Ghandi had more chance of getting killed while bravely trying to take out a gook machine gun nest than any Bush ever did.

Bush is a draft-dodger. His family pulled strings, plain and simple. If that wasn't bad enough, an earlier campaign involved attacking Clinton for dodging the draft himself. The hypocricy still stuns me. The idea of Bush being seriously taken as a war president is like Peewee Hermans being taken as a charasmatic and dashing leader of men.

[Speelgoedmannetje]

http://www.rnw.nl/achtergronden/binnenhof/assets/images/balkenende020718.jpg

Put this one in the front lines too please.

[Glaucus]

That the Boston Globe's records do not have evidence that President Bush reported for duty during the Vietnam war does not constitute evidence that he did not. That's akin to suggesting that because Quixote has no record that Glaucus attended high school, Glaucus must not have.Hmmm... Yeah, but if I was unable to provide the evidence, and the high-school I claimed to attended couldn't produce it either, then you'd be right to be very skeptical of anyone claiming that I did attend high-school. You see, the problem with you analogy is that the Boston Globe did some research into this, and so far the National Guard was unable to provide evidence that he did attend, and neither has Bush.

Also, remember that George W. Bush's draft number was such that he would not have been called up before the war was over. Dissatisfied with that, he took steps to ensure that he would be able to participate, instead of having to sit on the sidelines.So you don't consider pulling strings to get into the Air National Guard while a hot war is raging "sitting on the side lines"?!?!? And if he was so eager, then why was he such a slacker and allowed himself to be grounded by failing to show up for a physical? Doesn't sound like he was all that eager to do his part on the side-lines!

- Mike

[FluffyMcDeath]

Quixote wrote:
FluffyMcDeath, flatly:That the National Guard has no record of Dubya showing up for a year a[...]From Glaucus' post:"The Boston Globe and the Associated Press have gone through some of their records and said there's no evidence that you reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972.";-) The "their" in the sentence refers to the subject of the sentence, The Boston Globe and the Associated Press. If they meant something else, they should have worded the sentence differently.

I meant something else, and I did word it differently. I said the National Guard has no record of his service for a one year period when he was supposed to be serving.

[Fade]

Well, it's a satisfied cinch that not many making comments here have spent one day in active military service, and have no clue as to what they are talking about.

The military does not run like any company, or organization that you can compare it to.

For a commanding officer to not know who wasn't on duty at any time would be an oddball situation. Every day he would get a report stating "all present or accounted for" or "x number of personnel not accounted for, and a list of the name or names of the missing. Accounted for means you know exactly where the absent person is located and why they are there. At this point the CO is required to pass this information up the chain of command. I repeat for all you experts, this is done every day of active duty.
Any days missed for being AWOL, or in the brig, is called "Bad Time" and you are not paid for these days. They are also added on to your exit date.

Now 30 years later, for a person to say I don't remember seeing so and so on duty, so he wasn't there, is a crock, and here is why. This same CO is also responsible for filing a daily report for pay purposes. Other reports for persons on light duty, sick call, special duty, on leave, or in the hospital. In other words multiple reports on a daily basis going up the chain of command.

Now you say, so what?
It's done for more reasons than you think.
#1. To see if anyone is missing.
#2. For pay purposes of each individual.
#3. For retirement purposes of each individual.
#4. For withdrawal of supplies; food, ammo, weapons, vehicles, gas, etc. etc.
#5. Head counts and names are needed in case of accidents, or hostilities where all that is left is blood stains.
#6. And the big one for the CO, is to prove that he is not stealing money by reporting more people on duty than he has, and sticking someone's pay in his pocket. And yes, it has been tried. Or reporting 150 guys on duty when only 140 are actually there, drawing food for 150, taking the extra food and selling it. Really big money in this last instance. 10 guys x 3 meals x 365 days @ minimum of $3.00 a meal = $32,850.00 or $3,285.00 per man.

There is a paper trail for everything that the military does, and you guys think this CO is going to sign off that Bush was on duty when he wasn't. And he did sign off, otherwise they wouldn't have found some of Bush's pay records in Colorado where these things are stored.

No one in his right mind is going to risk his career to cover for, or sign off on someone that is AWOL for a week, much less a year.
Think of it as you punching someone else's time clock every day for a year, and that person showing up to collect his pay every two weeks, without getting caught.

[Glaucus]

@Fade,

If the military has such a paper trail (and I never doubted that it does), then why isn't there official record of George's attendance? It's POSSIBLE he attended, but so far the evidence is still against him. With the current evidence and the special relationships that W had with his important father and rich oil tycoons, it's not hard to conclude that strings were pulled and special favours granted to allow Bush to go AWOL without the typical consequences one would suffer for doing so.

- Mike

[FluffyMcDeath]

Fade wrote:

No one in his right mind is going to risk his career to cover for, or sign off on someone that is AWOL for a week, much less a year.

No-one is going to risk his career for a nobody that goes AWOL. However, covering up for a very well connected somebody who goes AWOL can be a career enhancing move (and has been!)

[T_Bone]

FluffyMcDeath wrote:

Fade wrote:

No one in his right mind is going to risk his career to cover for, or sign off on someone that is AWOL for a week, much less a year.

No-one is going to risk his career for a nobody that goes AWOL. However, covering up for a very well connected somebody who goes AWOL can be a career enhancing move (and has been!)

Maybe it's classified :-P

Somewhere I read (recently) that documents about his whereabouts would be released soon anyway.

[FluffyMcDeath]

T_Bone wrote:

Somewhere I read (recently) that documents about his whereabouts would be released soon anyway.


Some where released after the 2000 election ( the FOIA requests were in before the election).

Here's one document;

http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003220.html

A lot of this stuff was pretty much already known in 2000, but the press was reluctant to run with it.]

[T_Bone]

FluffyMcDeath wrote:

T_Bone wrote:

Somewhere I read (recently) that documents about his whereabouts would be released soon anyway.


Some where released after the 2000 election ( the FOIA requests were in before the election).

Here's one document;

http://www.calpundit.com/archives/003220.html

A lot of this stuff was pretty much already known in 2000, but the press was reluctant to run with it.]

At the time I doubt it would have mattered, the public was pretty much desensitised from weekly reports of Monica lewinski's laundry problems, impeachment trials, etc etc...

I have to say he's more than a bit of a dissapointment, he's not the conservative I thought I was voting for, although it wouldn't have changed my vote had I known, given the competition.

[MaDDuck]

Just check out my FAV website:
www.presidentmoron.com

It explaines what he is!

AND to all the U.S. residents here, PLZ regester and VOTE so we can get rid of this son-of-a-bush!!!

:-)

[Fade]

I know this is not going to make FluffyMcDeath or Glaucus very happy, or change their minds, but retired Gen. William Turnipseed has finally said that he shouldn't have been making statements about George Bush not attending guard duty in Alabama.

It now seems that Gen Turnipseed has admitted that he has alzheimers, and can't even remember where he left his pecker!

[KennyR]

It now seems that Gen Turnipseed has admitted that he has alzheimers, and can't even remember where he left his pecker!

Compared to your current president, that's a step up.

[Fade]

@ KennyR
"Compared to your current president, that's a step up."
---------------

Then you are saying you would still prefer to believe the General.
Dang his credibility, I'll believe him anyway?

[FluffyMcDeath]

Fade wrote:

It now seems that Gen Turnipseed has admitted that he has alzheimers, and can't even remember where he left his pecker!

This is bigger than Turnipseed. This is not a single source story (unlike the 45 minute WMD story).

[Fade]

@ FluffyMcDeath
"This is not a single source story"
-----------------
Maybe you would like to use
the New York Times or the Boston Globe (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/1/24/154936.shtml) as your sources, but I doubt it.

But I'm sure you would like to hide this story (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040213/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_military_records_56) from everyone.

[FluffyMcDeath]

@Fade

All Dumbya has to do is release his full service records and he can prove his case.

[Fade]

There you go with your lack of military knowledge again.

An individual person does not have access to all of his own records, no matter who he is.

I know the only records I kept, were the ones I thought would be important at a later date, or that held some special meaning to me, that is, the ones I had access to. All the rest were just, so much junk.

As for the Army, (I was in the Army) I think they keep what they deem necessary, but no more. It was not a computer world back then, only paper.

There are tens of thousands of veterans who would like access to old records, but have been denied either because they don't exist, or because the military doesn't want them released.

There is one piece of information on "Discharge papers" called a spin number (SPN), that is an evaluation of that persons service. Try to get the military to tell you yours, and you will be laughed at.

Tell you what Fluffy, why don't you ask your grammer school to release your fourth grade math score; you know, the one you took on June 12th 1984, while you were studying long division. Get back to us when you get it. And remember, it's a public record, and everyone has a right to know

[FluffyMcDeath]

Fade wrote:
There you go with your lack of military knowledge again.

An individual person does not have access to all of his own records, no matter who he is.



The president is the top dog in the armed forces. He can get anything released (or supressed) on his order. It's part of the job. So far all he's managed to show seems to indicate that he didn't show up anywhere for 5 months, didn't show for a medical and ended up making the time up in a paper unit that didn't require attendance.

[Wilse]

Whether he was there or not, the fact that he supported the
Vietnam war then did his best to avoid going there, coupled with his
subsequent willingness to send young people to die, whilst playing Tom
Cruise, seems to be upsetting a lot of people.

anyway, it's good to see you people are slowly starting to wake up to
what a lying bastard he is.

[Fade]

@ Wilse
"anyway, it's good to see you people are slowly starting to wake up to what a lying bastard he is."
-----------------

I take it you are saying, no matter that the Boston Globe based the original source in 2000 on bad information, and the parent company (New York Times) has admitted the story is bogus, and shouldn't have been printed, and have since printed retractions, or that Gen. Turnipseed himself admits now in 2004 that he has alzheimers and shouldn't have made statements about things he can't remember, doesn't matter a whit.

EDIT
On this afternoon's news, the General stated that he was basing his recollection on the recollection of one of his subordinates. The named subordinat, a Colonel from his old unit, says the subject was never even discussed between himself and the General.EDIT off


In other words, you want to believe the origional story, and choose not to believe their retractions! Who is still asleep?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Still waiting on your math score Fluffy; it shouldn't take you too much longer to get it. Tell them to release these records. They're yours. We all have a right to know.

[FluffyMcDeath]

Fade wrote:

Still waiting on your math score Fluffy; it shouldn't take you too much longer to get it. Tell them to release these records. They're yours. We all have a right to know.

Turns out the math teacher seems to be senile and now can't remember if he can remember anything or not. Therefore we can see that I scored 100%!

[Fade]

Good show!