Stop It Now

The subject and the attitude behind this have brought up so much anger and disgust in me (again) that I can barely see straight. All of a sudden these people--who wouldn't dream of enlisting, AD or not--are flocking experts on the military. All of a sudden it's sooo important that a CinC must have military experience, much less a "spotless" record of same. This would be the same military that they/their parents spat upon and called baby-killers a generation ago.

And, of course, the mainstream media (MSM) believe that no military are swift enough (heh) to read/watch John Kerry's 1971 betrayal of his cohorts before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. If we have enough average IQ to even know anything about computers, we're too busy gaming or checking out prÖn sites, according to them. CSPAN? You've got to be kidding.

A growing number of veterans are not buying it, but Senator Kerry and his PR machine the MSM are stupid enough to think that this so-called scandal will erode the president's increasingly high military approval rating. Veterans are stupid enough--in the minds of the MSM--to buy their latest transparent smear campaign, even though the weapon used isn't even a new one.

Guess what? If GWB didn't already have my vote, he would have certainly gained it via this latest insult to those of us who have worn the uniform.

Meanwhile, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion have endorsed President Bush. I wonder why that is. Maybe most veterans are smarter than the MSM (and Senator Kerry) thinks. They know when they’re being patronized. Or maybe most just know BS artists when they see them.

(Thanks to Smoke On The Water and Instapundit)

UPDATE: Could the "new" documentation of President Bush's service on which the Boston Globe based its story be fake? (Thanks to Thief)

UPDATE: This person points out correctly that those who endorsed the president in the Washington Times article linked above do not represent the VFW and the American Legion at present, but are ex-leaders. Thank you for your snark- and insult-free correction. /sarcasm

UPDATE:Yes, you may call me Sugar, Honeybun. Rusty advises us righty-bloggers to lay off the forgery meme. I’ll give it some thought as the unofficial investigation of it progresses.

Comments

[teal marie]

Oliver North had something interesting to say to some Kerry tout, I forget who.
He said "The only thing those kids (our troops) are afraid of is the possibility of Kerry being Commander in Chief."
I'm sick of the depravity of the left! They want to cripple this country out of perverse egotism. Selfish and yes, evil. And stupid!

[Ben]

Aren't these the same folks who kept saying Heinlein was a facist because he wrote about a future where military service was a requirement to vote? So, if I am right, and these folks are now advocating military service for Presidents, does that not make them facists?

Look, the whole reason they trot out Kerry's war record from 35 years ago, and completely forget to mention that Kerry was also a major anti-war protestor as well as slanderer of many vets, is because they thing the electorate are stupid. They think we will be fooled into voting for the guy in the uniform. That was the whole point behind Wesley Clark's run. Empty uniforms don't make good presidents.

One other point I think should be brought up. Johnson, Nixon, and Cater were all Navy. There has not been a good naval officer as president since Kennedy, and I am hard pressed to recall any naval officer who later became president prior to JFK who was any good. Military experience is great for fighting a war. A president's job requires a lot more.

[Ben]

I should point out that I said the above as an 8 year vet of the Navy. Its just history, naval officers have not made good presidents in general.

[torchy]

I guess we should wait for John McCain to call these accusations about Bushs Vietnam era service "dishonest and dishonorable". Or should we be waiting for the lamestream media to report McCains opinion. It is about time for the Kerrys media mouthpieces to register as 527s.

But it is not the accusations about Bush's Vietnam era service that are 'dishonest and dishonorable', it is Bush's service - or lack of it - that is dishonest and dishonorable - not to mention his subsequent accounts of it. So there is nothing that John McCain can honestly and honorably say. Can you not make simple distinctions? Perhaps if you stopped thinking that the more splenetically you write, the more right you must be, you might be able to begin to think.

[Iron Mike]

Hmmm....Vietnam matters in 2004 but it doesn't in 1992 or 1996....hmmmm...how interesting.

[Iron Mike]

Face it guys, a great amount of people in this country WILL fall for the lame-stream (I like that!) media's ploys.
Remember a few years ago when the "undecided voters" were paraded on TV? These people who just wanted to be seen on TV by their family but you KNOW were voting Democrat? How stupid are they?
"I'm an empty shell, Senator Gore and Governor Bush. Please tell me how to think," the undecided moron says.
How stupid could you be? The Democrats and Republicans are polar opposites. How could you NOT know which side you lean (more) towards?
I understand being undecided at a primary. "OK, I can't decide between any of these nine loons," the Democrat-registered voter says.
But being undecided between two opposite political parties? That's dumb.

[Jim]

The link is appreciated, sis! Always.

Jim
Sloop New Dawn
Galveston, TX

P.S. Ol' Waffles was against the 527s, before he was against 'em.

[Noble Eagle]

Do they think we have such short attention spans that they forgot who these same people championed in not one, but two races for President against decorated combat veterans? For those who have forgotten, check out the site below for the answer.

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/draft.html

[David C]

The Kerry political playbook is surreal on a lot of levels, but it's this one particular line of argument that strikes me as especially bizarre:

(paraphrased)"John F. Kerry served honorably at the exalted rank of 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy, and was in Vietnam. Therefore, he has the necessary experience to be Commander-in-Chief."

"George W. Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard, which was not in Vietnam. Serving in the National Guard and Reserve is pretty disreputable, ain't it? But set that aside for a moment. Even if it was honorable - a point we don't concede - he wasn't in Vietnam. Therefore, George W. Bush is not qualified to be Commander-in-Chief."

The thing is, even if we accept the arguments about qualifications, it overlooks one pretty salient fact: George W. Bush *is* the Commander-in-Chief! And even if you argue that he's been a bad one, as Kerry does, he's still got Kerry licked on the issue of "who's more qualified?" by that simple fact. Bush has had 4 years of actual experience in the position!

It's defensible (if kinda desperate, IMO) to use Kerry's military record to say "Kerry is qualified," but downright bizarre to use it to say "Kerry is *more* qualified."

[caltechgirl]

Isn't there an ongoing investigation into Kerry's medal citations? What a bunch of stinkin hypocrites...

The MSM are trying LIKE HELL to ease gracefully out of the mistake that they made in anointing Waffle-boy as (angelic harps play....)"The Chosen One" and so they can't be wrong if they can make GWB look worse in the meantime.....

[Thief]

Before you go off the rails...

The documents that this new story is based on may, in fact, have been forged.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007760.php

[baldilocks]

Anonymous coward, here's splenetic for you. Unless you have a counter argument backed up with fact--as opposed to a counter assertion--please be so kind as to bugger off.

[Silicon Valley Jim]

Let's look at some dates here. According to this biograph

http://www.klru.org/texasmonthlytalks/archives/barnes/bio.asp

of Ben Barnes, he was "U.S. representative to the NATO conference in 1967, and United Nationls Representative to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1968. In 1969, Barnes was elected lieutenant governor of Texas and served from 1969 to 1973."

George W. Bush, according to Roger L. Simon, was sworn into the National Guard on May 27, 1968. Now, just how did Ben Barnes use his status as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives to do that? I can't quite verify when he left the Texas legislature, but it seems to have happened a considerable time before Bush entered the National Guard.

We need to get all the facts assembled and get them posted on as many websites as possible.

[Allen]

As a note, both the VFW and American Legion do not endorse candidates. I found this out when searching their sites when Kerry recently addressed the groups.

The endorsement came from former leaders.

BTW, in his address to American Legion, Kerry said, "I know it's always tough to talk truth to power." That phrase struck me as one that normally isn't bandied about at your local American Legion hall.

[Monty]

This "military service" canard has gotten out of hand. But if the Left wants to play that card, I say okay:

1. George W. Bush has served for the last four years as the Commander-in-chief of the United States armed forces.

2. Dick Cheney was the Secretary of Defense from 1989 to 1993. He has also served as the second-in-command to the Commander-in-chief for the last four years.

In my view, this military service trumps anything that happened 30 years ago.

[baldilocks]

Allen: Thanks. I posted a correction.

[Mike]

As far as military experience goes, there are two lines of thought: First, FDR and Truman weren't in the miltary, and they got us successfully through the biggest war ever, up to that time.

Second, the President is a civilian, and in this country we keep the military and civilian aspects at least as far apart as the secular and religious aspects.

We're really not interested in having a General Whoozits get in and decide that he should take over the country. Which he could probably do, perhaps not easily, but effectively, if he had the military behind him.

[Brad R. Torgersen]

As has been noted by others, there is tremendous irony in the fact that the same people who worshipped Clinton, a dope-smoking obligation-dodger if there ever was one, now worship at the altar of "War Hero" John Kerry while trashing Bush because he (*gasp*) never saw combat while in uniform.

All I can say is, I'm USAR. My father was USAFR '65-'75 while my uncle was a cargo plane pilot in the ANG during the same period. None of us have seen combat. All of us have served. If the rhetoric of the Kerry supporters is to be believed, myself, my father, my uncle, we're all a bunch of cowards and dodgers and shady characters.

I tell yah, it's enough to make me put a fist through the wall!

I don't think I will ever vote Democrat again. Not with the way they have sold out to the hippy-dippy Left and their Postmodernist relativistic moral (insert laugh track) paradigm. Kerry is, in many ways, the perfect Postmodern candidate. No wonder he is so adored by the core Left. He represents everything they stand for: double-speak, talking about both sides of your mouth, shouting loudly while in truth standing for nothing, etc.

[Noble Eagle]

Mike,
Truman served in the MO National Guard and was activated and deployed to France during WW I where he served with distinction in combat.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/lifetimes/military.htm

[Iron Mike]

Monty,
Be careful with your argument! The vice-president isn't technically second-in-command under the President, not with respect to the military anyway. The way I've been taught, the National Command Authority is:
1) The Prez
2) The SecDef
Got the following from this website: http://www.dtic.mil/jcs/core/overview.html

The National Command Authorities (NCA) are the President and Secretary of Defense together with their duly deputized alternates or successors. The term NCA is used to signify constitutional authority to direct the Armed Forces in their execution of military action. Both inter-theater movement of troops and execution of military action must be directed by the NCA. By law, no one else in the chain of command has the authority to take such action.

I think the better argument is that President Bush has already done the job for four years and Dick Cheney has done the #2 job for four years under Bush 41.

[torchy]

Good point Miss Juliette. Questioning the authenticity of supporting documents gives the impression you accept (and perhaps agree with) the entire premise of the argument. It stinks of aquiesence and nitpicking and distracts from the basic inconsistencies of the argument and clear hypocrisy of the entire exercise. Bush never cast himself as a Vietnam war hero or an decorated soldier of any stripe. To attempt to dishonor his entire service is beneath comtempt.

[baldilocks]

Eh, I think you've got me wrong, torchy. I said I'd *think* about it.

And I don't agree with your assertion that questioning the docs' authenticity impies agreement with the argument.

I *do* think that most of those who have questioned GWB docs have shown quite a bit of bad faith in their research. The very things they question show this time and again. Those in the know (military Guard/Reservists all) are asking, "what's the problem?"

[torchy]

Sorry Miss Juliette, perhaps I wasn't clear, I was agreeing with Rustys advice that you posted in the last update for the reasons stated. I'm suggesting that dog won't hunt on the grounds of principle. Kerry made a mistake putting his foot into the Swiftvet allegations. Feeling called to confront some media hacks allegations is a low calling indeed. If this came from the Kerry camp I'd feel more obliged to answer and a case could be made for using it to put big media in its place but who would publish a refutation besides Fox News and the consevative blogosphere. Just feels like a red herring. Maybe I'd just rather that this fly in Kerrys face instead of it being glossed over with a correction issued by CBS.
Update: Found out that the forgery allegation WAS covered, however briefly, by ABC and NBC. Maybe Dan Rather should crawl to the White House with an apology in hand.

[quasimod]

Just look at the doc, it's obviously fake. Proportional font from a 1973 era typewriter? Ha!

Someone will fry for this one.

I'm giggling like a 10 year old girl.

[chuka]

i love ktime

[La Femme Crickita]

Miss Juliette,
As always a good read. If I may opine?
Bush is being accused of something that he never was: A deserter and AWOL.
This follows the meme that if you repeat a lie often enough it will sink in, regardless of the facts. As Cassandra pointed out on her blog, it is the perception of the lie, not the reality of the truth.

You stay on this. You rock.