Would SBVFT consider Bush 'fit for command'?

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Over the last few weeks, the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" invested much work and money to show that John Kerry is 'unfit for command', as they put it. Their main argument is that Kerry dishonestly oversells his accomplishments during Vietnam and lied about the medals he earned during his term of duty there.

But what about George Bush's record? What about the way he sells it? To find out, The Boston Globe examined the president's record as published by the Whitehouse this spring. They find that contrary to his assertions, the president didn't fulfill his commitment.

Quote:

In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

But Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation, a Globe reexamination of the records shows: Twice during his Guard service -- first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School -- Bush signed documents pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty.

He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show. The 1973 document has been overlooked in news media accounts. The 1968 document has received scant notice.

Read the full article here

On the same topic , we have a Boris Kristof article that draws the same conclusion:

Quote:

President Bush claims that in the fall of 1972, he fulfilled his Air National Guard duties at a base in Alabama. But Bob Mintz was there - and he is sure Mr. Bush wasn't.

Plenty of other officers have said they also don't recall that Mr. Bush ever showed up for drills at the base. What's different about Mr. Mintz is that he remembers actively looking for Mr. Bush and never finding him...

Read the full article here

Now I'm wondering: Will SBVFT run Anti-Bush ads too?

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Ah, good job Thomas. The more the merrier! I like your take on it.

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sozobe wrote:

Ah, good job Thomas. The more the merrier! I like your take on it.

Thanks! And I agree about "the more the merrier". Very Happy

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My take on this is that both are running for President. One has experience as a president and should be running his campaign based on that experience. The other does not have experience as president and that means he must run on other experiences.

Bush and his ANG service doesn't matter any more because 1] he isn't using his experience in the ANG as a key to his campaign, and 2] ... stupid phone call... I lost my train of thought...

anyways, it doesn't matter because he has already been elected president once and is now running a campaign to be RE-elected while Kerry is running a campaign to be elected. He doesn't have experience as president to campaign on therefore he needs things like his servcie in Viet Nam to fall back on and it is being scrutinized thoroughly.

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I can't help but wonder if much of this rancor about both Kerry and Bush re their "war record" isn't more in the realm of conservatives having never been able to reconcile our (the US) having lost bigtime a war with the according loss of ego-face so that Kerry having taken the stance that he did (Vietnam Vets against the war) It almost seems to me akin to the Southerner still fightening the "war between the states" frankly I am sick of all of it and no amount of revisionism is going to change that history.

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Quote:

Now I'm wondering: Will SBVFT run Anti-Bush ads too?

They might. But only if he made it the centerpoint of his campaign as Kerry has done and probably only if some of them were tortured as a direct result of anti-war testimony (as Kerry has done).

Veteran's Day will be observed by many of us on November 11 this year.

For many Vietnam vets and indeed many veterans of other wars, Veteran's Day will be observed on November 2 of this year, when they once again choose to vote for George W. Bush as President of the United States of America.

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I don't recall Bush ever being on a swift boat. Maybe they should create an F102Pilots for Truth 527 group and then they could discuss Bush's service.

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Bush was never on a swift boat, but apparently he should have been sent into combat... but wasn't:

Quote:

And early in his Guard service, on May 27, 1968, Bush signed a ''statement of understanding" pledging to achieve ''satisfactory participation" that included attendance at 24 days of annual weekend duty -- usually involving two weekend days each month -- and 15 days of annual active duty. ''I understand that I may be ordered to active duty for a period not to exceed 24 months for unsatisfactory participation," the statement reads.

Yet Bush, a fighter-interceptor pilot, performed no service for one six-month period in 1972 and for another period of almost three months in 1973, the records show.

The reexamination of Bush's records by the Globe, along with interviews with military specialists who have reviewed regulations from that era, show that Bush's attendance at required training drills was so irregular that his superiors could have disciplined him or ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973, or 1974. But they did neither. In fact, Bush's unit certified in late 1973 that his service had been ''satisfactory" -- just four months after Bush's commanding officer wrote that Bush had not been seen at his unit for the previous 12 months.

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I love the way the conservatives here are parsing the issue of Bush's service record. Let's see if I have this right: It doesn't matter if he didn't fulfull his requirements because he's not taking credit for it.

Is that it?

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Oh but he is...

Quote:

In February, when the White House made public hundreds of pages of President Bush's military records, White House officials repeatedly insisted that the records prove that Bush fulfilled his military commitment in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

(Glob article.)

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D'artagnan wrote:

I love the way the conservatives here are parsing the issue of Bush's service record. Let's see if I have this right: It doesn't matter if he didn't fulfull his requirements because he's not taking credit for it.

Is that it?

I love the way the liberals can't defend Kerry's service so they rehash the same tired attack on Bush that failed in 2000 and will fail again in 2004.

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Argh, McGentrix, we've spent (how many?) pages successfully defending Kerry's service on the "Debunking SBVT" thread. Go ahead and debunk this, I'm interested.

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Just Wonders wrote:

They might. But only if he made it the centerpoint of his campaign as Kerry has done

Can you tell me what makes you think that John Kerry made Vietnam "the" centerpoint of his campaign? Nothing I see on Kerry's website seems to justify your assertion. He mentions the war in his bio, where it's appropriate. But the first page is dedicated to policy issues, and many more pages are devoted to them than to Kerry's service. But I'm not living in the USA at the moment so it's possible I'm missing something important. (Edit: It turns out there is one link to a commentary about the SBVFT thing -- right at the bottom of the page; so I have to admit it is displayed there, but if it were displayed any less prominently, it would be gone.)

Justwonders wrote:

and probably only if some of them were tortured as a direct result of anti-war testimony (as Kerry has done).

Could you back this up please?

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mark

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Thomas - Kerry (who was in Vietnam, you know) has made statements that his military service would make him "better qualified" to be president. (I don't think even anyone on A2K who lives here in the US has disputed that claim.)

As far as the POWs, they've recently put up a website http://www.stolenhonor.com and are releasing a documentary.

Another website you might peruse is http://www.vnsfvetakerry.com/
put together by Vietnam special forces vets (among others), who categorically state on the site:

"If Bush had done what Kerry did, this site would be against Bush!"

I honestly don't think any of this is about Kerry's military record, but rather, as many have said and believe, about what he did after his four months in Vietnam.

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I very much agree with your last sentence, JW. O'Neil and the rest don't actually have any problem with Kerry's record, they are annoyed at the efforts he took to end the war.

Rather shabby of them to pretend it's about his record, isn't it?

(Leaving aside whether he actually did anything wrong after the war -- what is your charge, there?)

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JustWonders wrote:

I honestly don't think any of this is about Kerry's military record, but rather, as many have said and believe, about what he did after his four months in Vietnam.

On this we can agree, if by it you mean the fight is really about Kerry's returning to the US and speaking out against the war. Because it's clear that some of these Swift Boat characters have been on his case ever since.

But they don't make that the main issue, rather they try to destroy his reputation as a veteran. It's a despicable strategy, especially because so few of them are who they claim to be.

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sozobe - whether Kerry (he was in Vietnam, you know) actually did anything wrong after the war is not my charge to make. The question was whether or not the vets would go after President Bush if he'd done the same thing, and some say they would.

You need to ask the Vietnam POW's about the charges since they're the ones who say they were tortured as a direct result of Kerry's anti-war testimony.

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Quote:

You need to ask the Vietnam POW's about the charges since they're the ones who say they were tortured as a direct result of Kerry's anti-war testimony.

Bah.

They would have been tortured no matter what was said, so this argument is pretty flat. Is the message that there should be no dissent, just in case someone gets tortured with that message?

Cycloptichorn

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No, JW, you were saying much more than that:

JW wrote:

They might. But only if he made it the centerpoint of his campaign as Kerry has done and probably only if some of them were tortured as a direct result of anti-war testimony (as Kerry has done).

You're now backing away from that, which is fine. But all you're left with is that some of the SBVTs might have similarly condemned Bush. But you don't know. That's fine, just not much of an argument one way or the other.

Seems like this is the test of it -- looks like Bush actively ducked duty, not showing up, and should have been sent into combat as punishment. He wasn't. Favoritism? Who knows.

Oooh, just went back to Yahoo for the article and found some really interesting breaking news... more in a minute...

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Would SBVFT consider Bush 'fit for command'?

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