Bush asserts that he turned up and did his duty. However, no one on the base remembers seeing him, including the commanding officer and several other officers who say they were actively looking to network with the hot-shot Texan with the influential father--but waited in vain.

The paper record does show that he was ordered to report for a flight medical exam in July 1972, but that Bush "failed to accomplish" it, and that in September he was ordered to report for an inquiry into why he had not passed. His memories of these momentous events which grounded him and made him unfit for flight duties seem very hazy.

For example, the "failure to accomplish" his medical examination could mean either that he did not turn up, or that he did and failed it--in which case the answer may lie in medical records that the Bush Administration has refused to disclose.

It may or may not be significant that mandatory drug testing was introduced in 1972, and that Bush spokespeople have maintained that he had not used narcotics since 1974--while maintaining a discreet silence about what happened before then.

Bush could, if minded, produce W2 forms from the IRS that would show his Guard earnings while in Alabama. He has not.

The core issue is that George W. Bush, who campaigned eagerly for Republican pro-war candidates, joined the National Guard, ticking the box to refuse overseas service, at the height of the Tet Offensive, in what Senator Robert Byrd has called the "War of His Generation."

He did so with the aid of nepotistic influence, jumping a long line, despite a 25 percent score on his pilot aptitude test--and despite a series of driving convictions (DUI) that should have required a special waiver. He was commissioned an officer despite having no pilot experience, no time in the ROTC, and without attending Officer Training School.



Yea, I think I know why his account was "Hazy"....

It's sad that Kerry Could create or back (like Bush is doing) an entire smear campaigne based on this like the Swift boat guys are doing and have since been Totally Discredited. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5818634/ But Kerry's a Better person than that....

 

Yep. GW didn't go. He chickened out and was in a bar somewhere

So what does that prove? It proves that he was a physical coward like many young men were at the time.
Fortunately, for most of us, we have never had to make that decision.
I have the deepest respect for the people that did (and still do) volunteer for conflict but to come back like Kerry did and slag your mates off is beyond the pale. You NEVER tell tales especially to make yourself look good.

Does that fact that GW didn't go to Vietnam make him a bad choice for President? I don't thinks so because it never harmed Clinton, did it?
Wasn't he a draft dodger too?

 

If Bush was protected by his rich daddy then releasing any records is a waste of time, because those who wish to discredit him will say that they are fabrications, because his daddy's rich. The records that have been released confirm that he served his time honorably. Even though the left states that you can receive an Honorable discharge without having honorable servce. Sounds like they won't believe anything that is released.

Get a clue. He is in a guard unit they meet once a month. If he received a transfer to work on a polictical campaign then he did not spend his time hanging with the boys at the officer's club. People come and go from these units so often and with little fanfare I would be more surprised if people remembered him. I don't remember most of the people I worked with every day from 2001 when deployed. I saw and worked with these people daily for 118 days. He was in Alabama for what a year or two. That's 24-48 training days. He met on the weekeends and for some reason was given permission to not show on a few of these. It is common practice that if you do not fullfill your commitment to the guard or reserves during war they automatically put you in the active force. Since that did not happen one can assume that either he was given permisson not to show up, he actually did show up, or his rich daddy pulled strings to keep him out of the active force.

If his rich daddy had the power to keep himout of active duty, don't you think he had the power to infulence GW's commander into allowing him to not show up?

His W-2's he!! those are gone at the seven year mark the last hing I want to do is keep around old crap. The gov't lost my medical records only 6 months after getting out of the military I doubt if they even have his W-2's.

"He was commissioned an officer despite having no pilot experience, no time in the ROTC, and without attending Officer Training School. "
Uh. This is one of the selling points of hte military...THEY TRAIN YOU! Do you really think they are going to involuntarily put a college graduate in the military as an enlisted troop. If you answer yes you might want to rethink your opinion of the way the government worked back then.

This is a topic that will not be resolved. Those who can think for themselves know that the one of first two options given above are probably what happened. Those who can only think what the libs tell them to think maintain the last option is the correct option.

So why argue the point? It won't be resolved to the satisfaction of the Libs and GW is not using it as a point to win election.

Kerry on the other hand is using his Vietnam record in his bid for the presidency. As such his record is subject to scrutiny. From what I have seen I hold Kerry in low regard when it comes to the medals he has received.

 

I guess it's kind of like Rush Limbaugh saying all those that do drugs deserve to go to jail, yet he is a drug addict.

Here Bush is backing a campaigne to Slam Kerry's record with lies and squabbleing over how many times he was wounded and how close the bullets were flying over his head. It's just not right...

If Bush is all that great, why doesn't he focus on his accomplishments instead of this Negative Smear campaigne we've got going on now. I can hardly think of One of Bush's Ad's that's not Negative....

And Yea, this is a HUGE judge of character for me. You know damn well if Kerry had skipped out of a year of duty YOU guys would be ALL over him for it.

Are you guys trying to say that events like Hamburger Hill never happened? Don't slam the guy for actually Talking about what was going on there, instead of closing their eyes and believing whatever Nixon told you to believe....

Bush also "Says" Kerry has an admirable war record at the same time he's Attacking it. The records don't lie 1depd. He was AWOL and thrown out of the military for it. If Bush Wanted to prove he was not missing from duty, He could. He's NOT because he CAN'T. This is just the way it is....

 

Erm, no. We never said that. Didn't the Burtmeister mention spin to you?


It would be interesting to know what Kerry ACUALLY saw rather that what he thought would make him look good.
Rather like his recolection about spending Xmas in Cambodia. Now it turns out that it was really "somewhere between" Vietnam and Cambodia. Where is that exactly? Sounds a bit like the land of Oz to me.
Kerry says and does whatever he think will look best at the time. Unless he changes his mind

 

"Now it turns out that it was really "somewhere between" Vietnam and Cambodia."

You see, You're slamming him for something minor like this. Does it Really matter?? Either way he was Somewhere in Vietnam. So do you know where Bush was?? Somewhere "between" Alabama and Texas maybe?

It just cracks me up that you guys can cut on Kerry for little things like this, when Bush has done a BIG thing and went AWOL.

I mention Hamburger Hill because this is one of the things Kerry Mentions in his reports and is EXACTLY what YOU guys are slamming Kerry for. It was him talking about things like Hamburger Hill that got him in trouble with some of his comrades at arms. Talking about Hamburger Hill is NOT turning on your fellow soldiers. It's just talking about what Really happened. Yet it somehow makes him a Coward and back stabber because he didn't keep his mouth shut like Nixon wanted him to do.

 

That one cuts both ways, the Dems have built an entire campaign around the negative. John Kerry has always wanted it both ways. He wants to keep his medals, he is proud of them but we wants to make a statement against the war, so he gets someone else's medals to throw b/c his belief in the cause wasn't great enough to throw his own. He was a noble hero in a tragic war but everyone else was a war criminal and a baby killer. He wants to use his service in Vietnam as a big selling point to voters but he doesn’t like the scrutiny that it brings up. He supported the war when it was popular but jumped on the anti-war bandwagon as soon as he saw it working for Howard Dean. He thought he supported gay marriage until he found out that his stance would **** off a lot of potential voters. I'm not attacking the man's service in Vietnam I’m sick of his inconsistency and his propensity to go whichever way the wind blows. He doesn’t make decisions he avoids them or confuses the issue. His campaign strategy has been built upon the premise that he doesn’t actually have to take a stand on the tough issues, just muddy the water and tell everyone that they need to vote for him b/c Bush is wrong. Problem is people want to know how John Kerry will be right where Bush is wrong, be they get no definitive answers from him, the opposite of Bush isn't necessarily the right way to do it. He seems unwilling to actually take a stand and stick with it regardless of the consequences. I'm not even going to try and defend Bush's actions during the Vietnam War but the argument of honorable service in wartime went out the window when a WWII hero lost an election to a draft dodger. I submit to everyone that Kerry's service during Vietnam is irrelevant, his record since and time in the Senate are all anyone needs to know about how John Kerry does business. John Kerry isn’t any better than GWB, just different, kind of like lima beans are different from broccoli but they both taste bad (to me at least).

One final ranting thought: Just b/c Bush is a bad candidate dosn't mean that John Kerry is a good candidate or even a better one.

 

You bring up some good points, but even the way the Bush administration portrays Kerry's LONG voting record is deceitful. For example, Republicans just had to Vote Down a Gun bill because of all the extras that got tacked on to it. If taken out of context, you could say Republicans vote against more leniant gun laws. That's exactly what the "Record" shows. The Weapons vote is a perfect example of this. Many of the weapons were Also voted against in a 91 Bill by Many republicans and the Apache Helicopter budget was tacked on to a conference committee report.

The 1.5 billion in intellegence cuts Kerry proposed is Also taken out of context.

"Kerry did co-sponsor (along with 4 other senators, three of them Republicans) A. 2882, which was included in the Intelligence Appropriations Authorization Act for 1996. Introduced on the same day as S. 1290, this amendment specifically targeted the NRO for strict oversight, and set limits on the amount of funding the NRO could 'carry forward' from one month to the next, because the New York Times had recently reported that the NRO was cooking the books to the tune of $1.5 billion. Senator Bryan had this to say when introducing the amendment:

'Last week, the public was informed of another example of gross financial mismanagement by the NRO. As the papers reported, the NRO has accumulated more than $1.5 billion in unspent appropriations.'
A. 2881 and A. 2882 were introduced 'en bloc' with two other amendments, clearly in response to the Times article. Although Kerry did not specifically mention the NRO in S. 1290 or his floor speech, it's reasonable to believe that he included the $1.5 billion cut in his bill in response to the Times story. After all, the fact that he co-sponsored S. 2882 on the very same day proves that he had the NRO malfeasance in mind, and the number $1.5 billion pops up frequently enough to eliminate the possibility of coincidence.

This is just ANOTHER CLEARLY DECEITFUL point in a BUSH BACKED Ad. Yet you guys are OK with this?? Honestly, I think it's just because you don't Know the truth. Yea, it looks bad on the ad, but you've got to research these things to see if they're actually TRUE or not.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...&notFound=true

 

BHibbs, why do you waste your time? Any crap that Bush does is OK, and it's also alright to exaggerate anything Kerry does if it makes him look bad. As much as these guys say "I don't like everything Bush does, in fact I don't like a lot of it" you'll never see them starting a thread bashing Bush. There are still Bush fans quoting the swifboat vets even though it's been proven as utter BS. It doesn't matter that until Bush was 40 he was a womanizing, drug abusing alcoholic, but it does matter what Kerry did when he was 22, even though he was reporting terrible crimes. It doesn't matter that Kerry is the guy that busted open the Iran-contra scandal (actually that busted Republicans so it does matter, it doesn't matter that the Republicans were screwing up, Kerry is to blame for that too). Also, Bush Jr's bad economy is Clinton's fault, Clinton's GREAT economy is credited to Reagan and Bush Sr's poor economy was his own fault as well as Jimmy Carters. Do you see a pattern here? Republicans can do no wrong, Democrats can do no right, doesn't even matter if it makes no sense. When will you get it Mr. Hibbs? It would be less painful for you to find a brick wall and beat your head against it.

 

You have been quiet recently momalle1, I was actually wondering when you would join this little exercise in futility. I respect you opinions, but you should know some of us better than that. What is to criticize about Bush that a full-length movie hasn't done and isn't being said by any multitude of talking heads? I will spell out my big objections about the Bush administration in the interest of fairness.

1. His diplomatic skills are awful. There is a happy medium between bowing down to the UN and the scumbags in Europe and running through them like a bull in a china shop, how about discreetly getting their ***** in a vise and making them do what you want.
2. He refuses to jettison people who are not fit for their jobs.
3. His stance on stem cell research is horrible for the scientific future of this country.
4. He is going soft on illegal aliens.
5. His environmental record isn't just bad, it’s terrible, you don't need to be a tree hugger but lets not go over board the other way.
6. Who care who anyone else wants to marry, don't push your religious beliefs on the rest or us.

The problem is that with all the negative focus on GWB, John Kerry is being made into some sort of visionary saint and he hasn't even told us his position on anything! I reiterate just b/c Bush is wrong and bad doesn’t mean John Kerry isn't. Kerry isn't getting smeared nearly any more than (by the wink wink, nudge nudge, don't do that anymore political groups) Bush is. It is an unfortunate part of the game of power politics and when you use your war record as a banner you might want to get ready to have it shredded by anyone with an agenda, you deny the critics, prove them wrong if you can and stop whining about how mean it is. He has done the first two but what’s up with the whiny b!tch routine?

I’m not beating the Bush campaign drum here; I’m just trying to make people take a realistic look at the “savior” and Bush replacement. Might be a good idea to see him for what he is so that in his administration (should he get elected) isn’t a major let down. What John Kerry is a man who can’t make the hard decisions and tries his best to defer or find a way around them without taking a stand. He is a political opportunist who is WAY left of center, a bleeding hear liberal, a patrician snob with no idea what its like to be an ordinary American, and a Washington insider who is as influenced by special interests as anyone in DC. Against any other candidate in any other set of circumstances John Kerry gets laughed off the ballot. One bad choice doesn’t make the other choice good or better by default. I’m sorry if I seem to be blind to the faults of GWB b/c I can’t stand Kerry but the two are not mutually exclusive.

 

Obviously these points were addressed.

I have not read the accounts of Kerry bashing what happened at Hamburger Hill. Just one qustion though, when did a swift boat pilot who spent 4 months in country go to Hamburger Hill? He wasn't there how can he be an authority about anything he did not witness? I was in the military and I could tell you everything that happened in Desert Storm 1 even though I was not in during the war. I knew alot of people who were and told me everything that happened. Does that make me an authority or a fool for believing everything that is being told to me. Anyone who has spent more than 6 months in the military knows that you don't believe anything you hear and only 1/2 of what you see.

 

This is what I'm talking about. When did Kerry claim to be an authority on Hamburger Hill? What he said was that he was representing other men that told him what happened. "Anyone who has spent more than 6 months in the military knows that you don't believe anything you hear and only 1/2 of what you see." That should apply to everyone, not just those in the military.

 

You are so blinded it's not even funny.

 

It does NOT matter what Bush did during Vietnam. Why? Because he has NOT made it his center piece to be elected President. Where were all these concerned democrats, liberals specifically, when Clinton was trying to get elected President? Clinton was a draft DODGER, and not only that he flew his wussy *** all the way to Russia to protest the war…

Get over it, it does NOT matter what Bush did during Vietnam, it ONLY matters what Kerry did, or more specifically lied about because Kerry has asked every single America to take a close look at his time in Vietnam and after.

Remember the old saying, “Be careful what you wish for”?

All it takes is a close look at Kerry’s 20 plus years of service and voting. When you look at that it all proves he is WEAK, an extremely weak man when it comes to the national security of America, a weak man when it comes to screwing the middle class and those on social security by taxing them as much as possible.

Kerry has NEVER supported the military, Kerry has NEVER supported the intelligence agency, and Kerry has NEVER supported the middle class. Kerry ONLY cares about the lazy and useless as well as the fat cats that are loaded beyond what any of us can imagine in money.

In short Kerry is a traitor and a war criminal, someone that should not even be allowed to be elected crossing guard for kindergarten…

Kerry is very, very nervous that the truth coming out about him will hurt him bad, very bad and that is good, what goes around comes around and FINALLY Kerry is getting his for being a traitor…

Bhibbs, please my good friend lets keep the speed to no more then 65mph in your spin zone. Since I am always parked it really makes it a little to windy for my taste. Thanks good friend…

"If Kerry is the answer, it must have been a stupid question."

 

Get over it will you and drop the liberal talking points. Bush is NOT backing the truth about Kerry. This group has spent how much, less then 1 million dollars but yet other 527’s backed by big money democrats, moveon.org etc have spent about 150 million dollars.

These Kerry supporting, and in your words, Kerry backed moveon.org and other 527’s have spent a chit load more money and have done so over a year now bashing Bush. Now since that didn’t do much, a little itty bitty group comes along and spends some pocket change, compared to Kerry backers (in your words) and completely has Kerry in a frenzy…

I think that is funny as hell…

Bush’s ads are simply pointing out the truth about Kerry. You can actually go and verify that yourself because the Congressional voting record is public as well and the public national security meetings that Kerry has missed 100% of since 911. That is truth, it hurts and you may think its smear, but it’s the cold hard facts…

Let’s not forget all the times Kerry has voted to raise taxes on the middle class and on social security benefits, its all there in the records. Bush’s ads are simply telling you that what Kerry says is basically NEVER what Kerry does. No smear there, again just the cold hard facts, it hurts I am sure it hurts you a lot, but the facts are the facts…


Kerry did NOT skip out of duty so I’ll give him that, what he did was MUCH WORSE, he became a traitor and gave Americans permission to spit and treat Vietnam vets like chit. Kerry gave ammunition to the captors of POW’s in Vietnam to further continue to torture the POW’s, yes that happen and it happen because of Kerry’s LIES in front on Congress.

That is absolutely characterless, Kerry has no character, he is a puppet mouthing the words people want to hear at particular times. That is why Kerry is on every possible side of an issue…

Get over the rest of the above. The vast majority of Americans do NOT care what Bush did during Vietnam. I know that hurts you too, but oh well so sad, grab a tissue and wipe them tears away because that is just the way it is…