Kerry's war record Vs Bush's

Kerry was actually in battle for what, four months? Probably seems like a life time when you're there, nevertheless it doesn't make you any more a leader of a country than Bush's National Guard term.

The difference is that Kerry was a hero and Bush likes to play at being one. As for being a leader Bush has shown for the last three years that he is not.

I disagree. I think the last three years has shown that he IS.

McGentrix
Yes, However allow me to change one word. The last three years have shown what he is.

which also speaks volumes about those who follow him......

Kerry has shown that he is not by his voting record.

Commentary > Daniel Schorr
from the February 20, 2004 edition

The privilege of a 'war president'

By Daniel Schorr

WASHINGTON – The issue is not how many of his assigned duties George Bush actually performed in the Air National Guard. Nor is the issue why Bush refused his periodic physical examination and stopped flying in 1972 shortly after drug testing was introduced - a coincidence, the White House says.
The real issue, painful in a society that prides itself on being egalitarian, is privilege - who got to serve in the Guard's "champagne unit" as his unit was called, and who went to Vietnam, perhaps to die.
It was all inside and cozy back in Texas then. Lloyd Bentsen III, son of a future senator, got a coveted slot in the Houston-based guard unit. John Connally III, son of the former governor, got another. And in 1968, George Bush, son of Houston's congressman, made it after Ben Barnes, Speaker of the Texas House, talked to the head of the National Guard on the young man's behalf. Bush's first solo flight made headlines in the Houston papers.
No one expresses himself more passionately about this kind of favoritism than Colin Powell, who came up from the streets of the Bronx and is now President Bush's secretary of State. In his 1995 memoir, "My American Journey," General Powell wrote: "I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war [The Vietnam War]. The policies determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live, were an anti-democratic disgrace.... I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well-placed ... managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country."
Powell couldn't have realized in 1995, as Joint Chiefs chairman, that he'd be talking about, among others, his future commander in chief, who was one of the privileged and well-placed.
There is some irony in the fact that the Bush National Guard controversy has come bubbling to the surface just as the president announces that he is "a war president."

Seems to me that there are at least three groups of people where Bush is concerned: Those who HATE him, those who FOLLOW him, and those who simply don't hate him. I'm among the latter. Those in the first group love to put those in the third group into the second group. I suspect it is because they can't imagine not being in the first group.

Scrat
Shades of Abott and Costello. Who is on first, what,s on second and I don't know who is on third. :wink:

and I, perhaps the 4th group, remain an enemy of the range of the body politic. But then, doesn't everyone?

Scrat wrote:




Scrat, there may be SOME who 'hate' Bush, but it seems to me that hate is an horrific emotion. It embitters persons.
For the most part, people I have read, here in this Politics forum on a2k- (who are either liberal, democratic /orboth, independent, or just disagree with today's administration) while they show a distinct dislike for views, I would not say they go as far as bitter hatred.

I have tried to look at GWBush, as from his mother, Barbara's heart. This is her son, and she longs for him to succeed. I do not hate the man or his family.

However, if there WERE something I could do beside 'vote'- (which seems so small) that would get this illegal administration OUT OF OFFICE, and start to bring personal freedoms back into focus, I would DO it.
Occasionally, we get too emotional about being tread upon----- forgive us.

The Bush presidency reminds me on one of my favourite quotes from Julius II,"God has given us the Papacy, now must we enjoy it!"

I do recognize the difference between harboring an irrational hatred for Bush, and simply being misinformed--whether willfully or not--as to the facts surrounding the current administration and the current state of our country. Point taken.

Scrat
Am I to take it from your last statement that if you do not agree with Bush's actions and policies you are misinformed. I will buy the misinformed however I should note the shoe is on the other foot.

You may "take" any "it" you wish. In fact, I fully expect you to intentionally take from what I wrote anything except what I meant.

What I did mean is that anyone referring to the current administration as an "illegal" one, is in ignorance or denial of the facts. (For starters.) There is no evidence in anything I have written to suggest that I agree with all or even most of Bush's actions. You like to pretend that's the case, but it isn't.

Your comment is a perfect example of the propensity of which I wrote: you hate Bush so much that your bias makes it impossible for you to recognize the difference between simply not hating him, and being some kind of blind follower who questions nothing he says or does. You are incapable of rational discussion with me, because you can't even recognize my point of view. I simply don't fit in your hate Bush/love Bush black-and-white worldview.

By:Robert Novak

WASHINGTON -- A 34-year-old flier lists speakers for an anti-Vietnam War rally at Valley Forge State Park, Pa., Sept. 7, 1970. Included were two of that era's most notorious leftist agitators, the Rev. James Bevel and Mark Lane, plus actress Jane Fonda, a symbol of extreme opposition to the war. Leading off the list was a less familiar name: John Kerry.

So much for the contention by Kerry supporters that his connection with "Hanoi Jane" (so called for her later visit to the enemy capital in time of war) was accidental juxtaposition in a photograph. In fact, Navy Lt. Kerry returned from heroic wartime service to help lead the radical Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), whose diatribes against flag and country are shocking from the distance of three decades.

Does this reflect on Kerry's qualifications for the presidency? Perhaps no more than George W. Bush's record in attending National Guard drills in 1972. When Democrats made President Bush's past part of the 2004 campaign, Sen. Kerry's past became fair game. Relentless attention to the Bush record has helped the president's political decline, while the Kerry record has been largely ignored.

Kerry now keeps his distance from Jane Fonda, expressing disapproval of her adventures in Hanoi. Rep. Charles Rangel on CNN's "Crossfire" Feb. 12 minimized a photo showing Kerry three rows away from Fonda at an anti-war rally: "There was some distance between Jane Fonda . . . and there was a guy that looked like it was Kerry that was a part of the crowd." He added to me: "I just hope that you wouldn't just identify me with your politics just because I took a picture with you."

Actually, Kerry and Fonda both were among war resisters with the most extreme positions in criticizing U.S. participation in the war. Kerry, as the New England representative, attended a VVAW executive committee meeting Sept. 11, 1970. Minutes show plans to picket the National Guard Association convention in New York, to sponsor "war crimes testimony" at the U.N. and to coordinate with Jane Fonda's speaking tour. A later VVAW staff meeting decided to bar the American flag from the organization's offices.

A VVAW flier of their period claims "American soldiers" commit atrocities "every day" against "the Vietnamese simply because they are 'Gooks.'" Kerry bought into the VVAW mantra that war crimes were not isolated in Vietnam. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that "in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan," U.S. troops committed unspeakable atrocities while they "ravaged the countryside."

Returning to Kerry's youthful indiscretions is valid only because of the inordinate attention on young Bush in the same period. Kerry's strategists never planned to go down this path, which inadvertently was opened when leftist moviemaker Michael Moore called Bush a "deserter" for allegedly missing National Guard drills. That triggered a feeding frenzy for Democratic politicians, helped along at first by Kerry.

In 2000, Kerry leaped on the National Guard issue, comparing the Republican candidate unfavorably with "those of us who were in the military." Four years later, Kerry was less direct, linking Bush's Guard service to people who "went to Canada" or "opposed the war." Kerry's surrogate, former Sen. Max Cleland (recently named by President Bush to the Export-Import Bank board) asserted "we need somebody who felt the sting of battle, not someone who didn't."

Kerry has since backed away from the National Guard question and ordered his surrogates to do the same, but that does not cover such irrepressible Democrats as Charlie Rangel. In 1992 when Bill Clinton's non-service was under attack, the congressman from Harlem brushed off his own heroic Korean War record as a way "to get off the street because times were rough." On NBC's "Meet the Press" last Sunday he sang a different song. "I've served in combat," he said, adding that "those who haven't shared it ought to give a lot of space to those that have been there."

Once again, Rangel suggested that Kerry did not even know Jane Fonda. Documents show they shared the same platform and the same wing of the anti-war movement. That is surely as valid as investigating how many National Guard drills Bush attended.

the more the talking heads bring up Kerry and his war record, the more questions pop up regarding Bush. One would think that letting dead war horses fade away would be in everyone's best interest.

The media won't let it die, this is a way to make the competition look more than it is, Kerry don't have anything else on his record that makes him look superior to Bush.

ok, I just dont see Bob Novak as "the media" and I am pretty sure Bob is not interested in elevating the posture of Kerry.

I agree, and I wasn't clear in my post, I meant the media in general, like 6 'o' clock news hungry for ratings.