Moore takes on GW - Again

[Doug]

As usual from Michael Moore, maybe a little over the top, but at least entertaining. Letter

 

Fire away, neocons!

[klenke]

Blah blah blah. No wait. Actually, it's blah blah blah. Or it could be blah blah blah. Can't tell for sure. Blah blah perhaps? Maybe even blah.

[larrythellama]

klenke

 

kinda how when you post beta on little chossy peaks...it all just goes blah blah blah blah. then we hiked up a red gully, which becky claimed to have been brown...blah blah blah...

[wally]

do even lefties take this crap seriously?

[Roger]

probably as seriously as right-wingers take the swift boat veterans for "truth".

[klenke]

Larry, you're all wet. I've climbed lots of little peaks and I've climbed lots of chossy peaks. But I haven't climbed many little chossy peaks. From which climbing blog are you getting this crap?

[Doug]

do even lefties take this crap seriously?

 

It's easy to attack Moore on the way he tries to get his message across, but buried beneath the juvenile facade is this tidbit: The faction who is questioning the military record of the other facton's party has a candidate who has no appreciable military service. If the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth want assail Kerry because he had the veracity to come back from Vietnam and say that he did not support the U.S. being there, they have every right to do so. But, remember, Shrub, whom the SBVFT support, did his stint far from harms way in Alabama, allegedly. I guess that helped the U.S. cause in Vietnam more than John Kerry, didn't it?

 

Thank goodness no one is making GWB's alcoholism an issue in this campaign.

 

So, does the right wing really take this crap seriously?

[klenke]

Doug said, "The faction who is questioning the military record of the other facton's party has a candidate who has no appreciable military service."

 

Then there's this. So you tell me.

 

Ohhhh the wheels on the bus go round and round round and round round and round the wheels on the bus go round and round all election year long.

[Doug]

But, Kerry was in Vietnam. He served his country. And, who knows if the stories trying to discredit his and others accounts of his actions while on duty are true or not? You've got about the same number of people supporting Kerry as you do trying to discredit him. Truth or fiction? Who decides? The central fact is HE WAS THERE. Shit, Bush's "service" in the National Guard can't even be verified!

[klenke]

Both candidates are poopiepants, as far as I'm concerned. And Nader, well he's just the nadir.

[pope]

But, Kerry was in Vietnam. He served his country. And, who knows if the stories trying to discredit his and others accounts of his actions while on duty are true or not? You've got about the same number of people supporting Kerry as you do trying to discredit him. Truth or fiction? Who decides? The central fact is HE WAS THERE. Shit, Bush's "service" in the National Guard can't even be verified!

 

Well stated. As long as there are two candidates, let's compare their records. We can start by comparing their combat records. What? George Junior doesn't have one?

 

Well then, let's compare their criminal records. What? Kerry doesn't have one?

 

Well, I'm sorry, I thought I had a great idea for a thread here. Since there's nothing to discuss, I guess I know how I'm going to vote.

[Doug]

So, we back to deciding which party's agenda will be best for the country? If so, which party represented by a poopiepants preppie has the better platform? I think the conservatives have proven in the last 3 years that they are a bunch of incompetent idiots who believe that god and guns rules overall.

[klenke]

Well it would have been nice had the dems produced (nominated) a dominating challenger. As it is, the dems hoisted Kerry onto their shoulders and look where it has got them: a 50-50 vote percentage (based on current polls). The dems had 4 years to cuddle and coddle their savior amid their ranks and foist him into their fore, but all they could manage was Kerry. Aren't there any Kennedys or Roosevelts in the dems' midst? I guess not, just a bunch of Carters (who was a lame President but has been an outstanding pseudo-public servant since then).

[Roger]

Whatever man, the facts are that Kerry was out there getting shot at while Bush leveraged his family connections to avoid the war, and couldn't even be bothered to finish up his Guard duty. I don't understand how anyone, republican or democrat, can not bothered by the fact that Bush is once again turning his attack dogs loose on the war record of someone who served while he partied in Texas. Politics aside, the hypocricy is galling. I can't believe McCain still supports this jackass.

 

--------------------------

 

In what is surely the most important election of the last half-century, we seem trapped in the politics of the madhouse. What is incredible is that these attacks on men who served not just honorably, but heroically, are coming from a hawkish party that is controlled by an astonishing number of men who sprinted as far from the front lines as they could when they were of fighting age and their country was at war.

 

Among them:

 

Mr. Bush himself, the nation's commander in chief and the biggest hawk of all. He revels in the accouterments of combat. The story was somewhat different when he was 22 years old and eligible for combat himself. He managed to get into the cushy confines of the Texas Air National Guard at the height of the Vietnam War in 1968 - a year in which more than a half-million American troops were in the war zone and more than 14,000 were killed.

 

The story gets murky after that. We know the future president breezed off at some point to work on a political campaign in Alabama, skipped a required flight physical in 1972 and was suspended from flying. He supported the war in Vietnam but was never in any danger of being sent there.

 

Vice President Dick Cheney, another fierce administration hawk. Mr. Cheney asked for and received five deferments when he was eligible for the draft. He told senators at a confirmation hearing in 1989, "I had other priorities in the 60's than military service." Many draft-age Americans had similar priorities - getting an education, getting married and starting a family.

 

Attorney General John Ashcroft. He is reported to have said, "I would have served, if asked." But with the war raging in Vietnam, he received six student deferments and an "occupational deferment" based on the essential nature of a civilian job at Southwest Missouri State University - teaching business law to undergraduates.

 

Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense secretary and a fanatical hawk on Iraq. He was not fanatical about Vietnam and escaped the draft with student deferments.

 

There are many others.

 

I would like to see at least some of these men, in keeping with their positions as leaders of a great nation, stand up and say it is wrong - just wrong - to try and reap a cheap political gain by defacing the sacrifices of individuals like John Kerry, John McCain and Max Cleland, who put themselves in mortal danger in the service of their country.

 

It's one thing to decline to serve. It's quite another to throw mud at those who did serve - or to remain silent as allies hurl the mud.

[klenke]

Don't forget to add Clinton to that list...and quite a few other democrat politicians. I think you know it's a little shortsighted to only list republicans as having been war avoiders (conscientious objectors, etc.).

[larrythellama]

klenke you are right, i am all wet...hours of swimming will do that to a llama!

[Doug]

Don't forget to add Clinton to that list...and quite a few other democrat politicians. I think you know it's a little shortsighted to only list republicans as having been war avoiders (conscientious objectors, etc.).

 

Hmmm....who's military service did Clinton try to attack?....

 

You are right though, that list was full of Conservatives. Face it, most of those guys dem or gop did "avoid" military service,

[pope]

Don't forget to add Clinton to that list...and quite a few other democrat politicians. I think you know it's a little shortsighted to only list republicans as having been war avoiders (conscientious objectors, etc.).

 

Not only did Clinton not attack anybody's service record, McCain has asked Bush to silence the Swift Boat Vets because he understands it is in such poor taste. I don't have a problem with Clinton's lack of service; at least he wasn't being paid for time he didn't serve like George Junior.

[Dave_Schuldt]

Cool link, thanks for posting it.

[Doug]

Hey, anyone gonna climb anything tomorrow? Hijaking my own thread.

[Dave_Schuldt]

No Going for a road ride with Paco and Ken4ord on Whidbey Island.

[Jason_Martin]

Don't forget to add Clinton to that list...and quite a few other democrat politicians. I think you know it's a little shortsighted to only list republicans as having been war avoiders (conscientious objectors, etc.).

 

I thought this article written by Eric Alterman addressed this quite well:

 

 

 

A taxonomy of positions on Vietnam:

 

Category A: Exhibiting the strength of one’s moral convictions.

 

Supported the war and served in Vietnam (John Kerry, John McCain)

 

Opposed the war and served in Vietnam because it would have been unfair to force someone less fortunate to take one’s place (Al Gore)

 

Opposed the war and dedicated oneself to anti-war movement at some personal risk, including conscientious objection. (This position is not as dangerous as serving in a war, but it is nevertheless just as moral. The war was evil. Putting oneself at legal and physical risk as many did to try to end this evil strikes me as an unimpeachable moral position, though given America’s political culture, it would also be untenable for any contemporary presidential candidate to hold.)

 

 

Category B: Exhibiting the strength of one’s moral convictions after protecting one’s posterior.

 

Opposed the war, protected self, and then worked for anti-war movement (Bill Clinton)

 

This position seems to me to be the minimum necessary to consider oneself a moral being. Risking one’s person for one’s principles is a lot to ask for most of us, but the least one could ask is that if we identify an evil that is literally killing people, our peers included, one lifts a proverbial finger to stop it, say, by working for the presidential candidacies of Robert Kennedy, Eugene McCarthy or George McGovern.

 

 

Category C: Having no convictions to protect save self-protection

 

Opposed the war, protected self, let others worry about it (Howard Dean, Joe Lieberman)

 

This is the position of those who merely opted out of the question, accepted their college deferments and went on with their lives and did not feel any sense of responsibility for their peers and countrymen.

 

 

Category D: Contradicting one’s alleged convictions in the service of protecting one’s posterior

 

Supported the war, preferred to let others fight and die for it (George W. Bush, Dick Cheney)

 

This seems to me to be the least defensible position imaginable. Bush and Cheney both used their privileged positions to protect themselves; Cheney says he did it because he had “other priorities.” Bush says he did it because he wanted to “better himself” by learning to fly planes. Whether he deserted his post or not—and I think he did-- it is incontrovertible that he wasted the government’s million dollar investment in his training by allowing his qualifications to lapse while he was still supposed to be on active duty. (And what if during this period, the Guard was actually needed, if say, Oklahoma had invaded Texas?)

 

One day, historians will attempt to explain just how two men who fall in category D somehow made the election about the moral rectitude of a man who fell into category A not once but twice. We have to admit this. This Rove feller really is a genius. Just when you thought the media couldn’t be any more irresponsible, he proved it had even more to give. (Most journalists today of the proper age, I imagine, fall into category B or C, with a significant number in D and a tiny, tiny minority in A.)

[Fairweather]

[scott_harpell]

Self-loathing parasite.

[Lars]