bush Is Talking Right Now At Camp Pendleton

Bush did not repeat his assertions from September about nearly 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel being on the job.

Bush said his goal was to "help the Iraqi government build a force that no longer needs coalition support so they can defend their own nation. And then American soldiers and Marines can come home".

But Bush offered no timetables one day after Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he hoped U.S. troops would be pulled out of Iraq in the next four years.

Perhaps its more a matter of not being aware of the origins of the jacket more so than lacking a "high level of discourse" (which one would think would be ameliorated by avoiding gratuitous jabs).

One of the Camp Pendleton wife support group for soldiers that died in Iraq made that jacket and gifted it to George Bush. It would be bad form for him not to have worn it.

It's good to see the high level of discourse here hasn't changed...

During his visit, Mr. Bush wore a specially tailored Marine tanker jacket, the all-purpose, all-weather jacket for officers and enlisted men, said Maj. Jason Johnston, a Marine spokesman. Mr. Bush's jacket had custom touches like his name and designation as commander in chief embroidered across the front.

The military generally doesn't like the Clintons because Clinton was in charge when their budget was cut. I do think it funny that the Republican Congress gets credit for balancing the budget, but Clinton gets to wear the albatross of budget cuts around his neck.

I gotta say, it's just kinda weird to watch a grown man put on costumes and parade around with real heroes:



He's being a creep, really.

Central to American military tradition is the understanding that the military is under civilian authority, and at the head of that civilian authority is the President as Commander in Chief.

I believe the only time in American history a sitting President wore a military uniform was in 1794, when President George Washington put on a uniform and rode with militia to put down the Whiskey Rebellion. Since then, even Presidents who entered the White House after a professional military career (e.g., Grant, Eisenhower) never wore a uniform or anything suggestive of a uniform while serving as President. Certainly other wartime presidents -- Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt -- didn't strut around in uniforms. Nor did Presidents who had distinguished military service -- Kennedy, Carter, and even Bush's own father.

Heads of state of banana republics, or totalitarian dictators, swagger around in military uniforms. Saddam. Quaddafi. Noriega. Kim Jung-Il.

Not Presidents of the United States.

It's just wrong.

Uh, huh.

McGentrix wrote:

Uh, huh.

I think you may be trying to say with this post that two wrongs make a right.

Unh-uh.

Don't **** yourself, McG, but Clinton looks just as stupid as Dubya with that jacket on.

(Of course, Clinton didn't invade any nations and get over 1100 American soldiers killed on false pretenses, so perhaps he's still smarter...)