“And that when we say they’re full of shit, we mean they’re brimming with it, and that it seeps out their pores to the point where they can’t touch anything without smearing shit all over it.”

...which is more than bad enough, but they insist on flinging it about too.

Of course, the 101st Chairborn will not see this as any reason to question themselves and their commitment to The Truth.  If Rather is vindicated it will just be more proof of how huge the vast Liberal Media Conspiracy really is…

William Ayers!  Kerning!  Kenya!  Obamanation!  Wolverines!...

The only problem is that the howling monkeys won’t be included in the lawsuits.  Getting someone else to pay for their shit-flinging is about their style.

Someone let me know when it’s time to start popping the popcorn. This could be fun.

They’ll use this as proof that the media is really “liberal”. They’ll say “Look how they caved to us. They’re pussies. They MUST be liberal.”

And like PiaToR said, they won’t have to pay a thing. It’ll all be CBS’ fault.

BTW, this: “And that when we say they’re full of shit, we mean they’re brimming with it, and that it seeps out their pores to the point where they can’t touch anything without smearing shit all over it.”  Fucking rocks!

They shouldn’t necessarily have to pay a thing. If CBS behaved improperly, they should pay.

It isn’t necessarily about making the right-wing-nuttery pay for it, but making the legitimate media ignore them or pay the price. Once their BS stops being automatic talking points, then the filtering mechanisms get aligned back to where they belong - if what they are reporting is true or valid, then it gets passed on, if not, not.

They should be subject to laws regarding slander, fraud, and the like, but otherwise the First Amendment applies. Including the free press being allowed to ignore them as needed.

it appears the military lost his records, which isn’t too surprising. also, if he did ACTUALLY go AWOL, keep in mind this was the 70’s, and it wasn’t uncommon.

“it appears the military lost his records, which isn’t too surprising. also, if he did ACTUALLY go AWOL, keep in mind this was the 70’s, and it wasn’t uncommon.”

I’ll bet that if it had been William Jefferson Clinton who mysteriously got into TANG ahead of others, and then mysteriously disappeared from his post, whether the records “disappeared” or not, there would be testimony from people who claimed to be there at the time, and he wouldn’t have just been impeached, he would have been executed for dereliction, or some such.  They could probably recycle some of the assholes who claimed Kerry was a fraud.

You people are always willing to let a Bush, or a Coulter, or a Limbaugh, or a Buchanan (let’s not forget Randall Terry practically calling for a Civil War) get away with anything, but don’t dare suggest there might be mitigating circumstances related to some transgression by a Democrat.  Completely different rules for different political views…

Comparing the Right to monkeys is an insult… to the monkeys!

Train, it is actually astoundingly surprising that the military lost his records, given the amount of duplication which is involved. 

Or, rather, the idea that anyone still thinks that the military lost his records, instead of “lost” his records, is astounding.

He has’t won his suit yet.  Discovery isn’t the same as judgement.

He will.

And that when we say they’re full of shit, we mean they’re brimming with it, and that it seeps out their pores to the point where they can’t touch anything without smearing shit all over it.

THIS is the kind of writing that will ALWAYS keep me coming back for more, Amanda! ROCK ON!

(Cue David Essex’s “ROCK ON”)

Not trying to be nitpicking but the correct term for failing to attend military service for 30 days is desertion.

Not one document was ever presented to show that he ever received a discharge.  I have a copy of my DD214 and my final discharge registered as public documents in the county that I lived in when I enlisted.  Never has one person even suggested that AWOL had either.  He deserted.

It’s time for retribution.  Blood will flow in the streets.  I mean it.

Not only is Rather suing, he’s vowed to not settle out of court.  Apparently this isn’t about the money for him but rather about fixing his reputation, getting at the truth of his firing and possibly extracting a pound of flesh as painfully as possible from the cowardly idiots at CBS News.

Which is, frankly, awesome.  With so many “journalists” these days ready to kow-tow to power at the drop of a hat the fact that Rather is saying “No, my friend, fuck YOU” to the jackasses just warms my heart.

Not only is Rather suing, he’s vowed to not settle out of court.

Oh boy. There isn’t gonna be enough popcorn in the whole world for this one…

You know, this whole thing with George Bush and the National Guard is astounding to me.

My dad, who has come around to realizing that the Republican Party is really just a bunch of thugs and is actually kind of enlightened, is a Bushie.  He gets seriously pissed off if you say anything remotely negative about Bush.  I don’t get it, but there it is.

Anyway, he’s been known to make snide comments about Clinton going to Canada and then getting that Rhodes Scholarship and thusly not being eligible for the draft.  If I even mention that Bush found a way to avoid the draft too, he goes off the wall.  My dad has issues with Clinton because he was in the military and went to Vietnam.  He has issues with every single person who didn’t go.  He was one of the guys spit on when he came home, so you can understand.  But he just will not or cannot admit that Bush was a dodger too, and I don’t get it.  I don’t understand why Bush gets so many passes from so many people for so many things, when Clinton still gets shit about a damn blow job.  I mean, that blow job didn’t cause anybody to be killed or maimed, for fuck’s sake.

Nony Nony and Steve beat me to it, but I LOVE the fact Rather is not settling out of court.  He doesn’t need the money.  He doesn’t want the money. 

He wants to expose the “news” for the reichwing appeasement vehicle it is.

Go, Dan, Go!

It still blows my mind that the same assholes who wore purple heart bandaids have no problems when one of their own deserts.  IOKYAR at its finest.

I still want W brought up for the illegal things he did as President, but wouldn’t it be funny if he ended up in trouble over desertion?  A crime he got away with until the 101st Chairborn took up the cause and bullied a formerly respectable news institution into pacifying them at any cost?

Pass the popcorn, Steve.

Not only was Bush a draft dodger, he was the worst kind, because he was an avid supporter of the war in Vietnam.  That’s why this was such a big deal to the 101st Fighting Keyboardists.  For those who weren’t into blogging back in the day, there was no more surefire way to send the howler monkeys off on a tailspin where they would dominate your comments, trying to “win” by being so obnoxious that no one would reply to them anymore, than to point out that if they thought the Iraq War was so goddamn awesome, why aren’t they fighting in it?

I cannot emphasize enough how much the wingnut bloggers fetishized warfare as a way to make themselves feel manly.  They gave themselves military titles, and wrote supposedly rousing posts about how they would stay and fight until the end.  Behind their keyboards.  Their bloodthirstiness is only matched by their cowardice. 

Punishing Rather for pointing out that there is no uglier hypocrisy than supporting a war for other people to fight was critical to their self-image as brave warriors who couldn’t go to the front because they were doing the much dirtier work of being unpaid propagandists at home.  The segment on Bush laid out their true nature—-cowards, imperialists, children living in adult bodies that want to play war with other people’s lives.

“The segment on Bush laid out their true nature—-cowards, imperialists, children living in adult bodies that want to play war with other people’s lives.”

QFT. 

Let us not forget Dick “5-Deferment” Cheney either, since he was de facto POTUS while Junior played dress-up and practiced decidering…

Oh, good grief, talk about revising history.  First of all, Dan Rather was not fired following the so-called “Rathergate” scandal.  His retirement as anchor of the CBS Evening News had already been scheduled, though Mr Rather moved up the date by about a year. 
.
CBS News set up an independent panel to review the incident, the THornburg Commission, which released its report in January of 2005.  Based on the findings of the report, not on evil right-wing bloggers like me, CBS fired producer Mary Mapes on 10 January 2005, and demanded the resignations of Senior Vice President Betsy West, 60 Minutes Wednesday Executive Producer Josh Howard; and Howard’s deputy, Senior Broadcast Producer Mary Murphy.  Mr Rather continued to work for CBS News until 2006, when he was forced out.

Shorter Dana:
Look, a tree.  Ergo there is no forest.

My dad, who has come around to realizing that the Republican Party is really just a bunch of thugs and is actually kind of enlightened, is a Bushie.  He gets seriously pissed off if you say anything remotely negative about Bush.  I don’t get it, but there it is.

speedbudget, I have noticed a similar situation with my father. What is interesting is that my father did not go to Vietnam, and in fact stated that he would have dodged the draft if he had had to do so. In fact at one point he was a pot-smoking semi-hippie.

I think there is a certain emotional territory that is nourished by wars as long as they take place far away. It may be that Bush was/is satisfying to this emotional territory.

Dana, can you please explain the difference between “fired” and “forced out” in your mind?  Your claim is that Rather was not fired, he was forced out.  That sounds like a distinction without a difference to me.

Really, MikeEss, “you people?”. You done feeling self-righteous and close minded enough yet to actually listen to the truth? All I said was it wouldn’t be too surprising if the records were lost, and that in that era, use of one’s influence to affect a family member’s enlistment in the military wasn’t uncommon. And, if you remember your history class, draft dodging wasn’t exactly rare.

IF he did actually desert the military, then the military should follow whatever legal action is available to them. I see deserting your post not only as a dereliction of duty, but as a betrayal of the people who trust you to defend their freedom (and yes, that applies to even the “cooks and bakers battalion”). Until that determination is made, remember innocent until proven guilty.

“All I said was it wouldn’t be too surprising if the records were lost…”

Actually, as has been pointed out, it would be very surprising if the records were actually lost, as opposed to “lost”, which is far more likely given who those records would be in reference to. 

Do you not find it odd that not one person who was also in TANG at the same time has any personal recollection that they are willing to share that can help clear up the “mystery” of what Junior was doing (or not doing) there?

Losing the records and people afraid to speak up has all the marks of classic CYA behavior, which makes Bush’s unaccounted for activities even more suspicious.

’...and that in that era, use of one’s influence to affect a family member’s enlistment in the military wasn’t uncommon.  And, if you remember your history class, draft dodging wasn’t exactly rare.”

Agreed, as long as we all agree that getting in to TANG by your daddy’s pull, and then getting assigned to a fighter type that was already on its way out, and then being able to just disappear from your post are all forms of draft dodging, which the rabid wingnuts are unable/unwilling to accept.

“IF he did actually desert the military, then the military should follow whatever legal action is available to them. I see deserting your post not only as a dereliction of duty, but as a betrayal of the people who trust you to defend their freedom (and yes, that applies to even the “cooks and bakers battalion”).”

And I suspect that if he was named George W. Smith instead of George W. Bush, he might very well have been held accountable and served time in the brig.  But we all know that Junior’s every excretion is like chocolate and flowers and the last 8-years pretty much proved there is nothing on this planet that he could do and actually be held accountable…

I said “you people” because the first thing anybody defending Bush says is “but the records were lost!”, as if the most bureaucratic organization ever developed by the mind of man is set up so important information just mysteriously disappears with no one ever being held accountable and procedures put into place to prevent problems from occurring again. 

Not buying it.  If you think the whole thing stinks and has stunk for decades then we are in agreement.  If you believe it’s all just some misunderstanding about a minor issue and Look! Obama called that cop stupid!!!, then we’ll have to disagree on that point…

The quintessential wingnut believes that Obama was born in Kenya and elected illegally, while Bush Jr. served honorably in Vietnam (Texas province) and was elected two times by the overwhelming majority of Americans.  That about sums up the lunacy to me…

Given that blogging was in its infancy in 2004, to say that a handful of conservative blogs “Bullied” Dan Rather into being fired seems a bit silly, like claiming an elephant was “Bullied” by a couple of mice.

But, that aside, one must ask - why was the National Guard story even relevant in the first place? At best, it might have had some relevance in 2000, when Bush was merely a candidate for president. This would have been comparable to Clinton’s draft avoidance being a story in 1992. In 1996, when Clinton was running for re-election, it was basically a non-starter. Ditto for Bush in 2004. Re-election campaigns are generally a referendum on how the incumbent has done his job in his first term, not what he may or may not have done 30 years earlier. The voters already knew, as of 2004 (really, as of 2000) that Bush went into the Guard as opposed to going to Vietnam, so this wasn’t even news at all. Why CBS pursued this story in the first place seems rather pointless, and that they were willing to stake their reputation on what was likely a hoax suggests they were obsessed with “Getting” Bush in an election year as opposed to simply practicing responsible journalism.

It was a story because Bush never served appropriate jail time for desertion, so he should have been too busy to campaign.

Not that you people care about such things.  IOKIYAR.

Seriously, the relentless support for a man who deserted in a time of war is Exhibit I in the whole “conservatives have no values or beliefs, they just hate a lot of their fellow Americans” museum.

Just a note:
There is no evidence to back up claims that Vietnam veterans were spit on. Studies have been done. Research has been ... researched. And it all seems to come down to mythology and “Rambo” movies.

I have no qualms with anything else said by the commenter who claimed his father was “spit on.” But I’m really tired of hearing this tale repeated.

That’s all I got.

Given that blogging was in its infancy in 2004, to say that a handful of conservative blogs “Bullied” Dan Rather into being fired seems a bit silly, like claiming an elephant was “Bullied” by a couple of mice.

Conservatives blogs then, and now, function as an auxiliary of the “Republican Nose Machine” which serves as a means of bullying people into submission for saying things considered out of bounds of the delicate sensibilities of conservative thought and for the purpose of transmitting a set of fixed talking points that are supposed to be repeated on the public airwaves. Picking on “but blogging was in its infancy” as an argument is fairly disingenuous, if not outright ignorant.

Why CBS pursued this story in the first place seems rather pointless, and that they were willing to stake their reputation on what was likely a hoax suggests they were obsessed with “Getting” Bush in an election year as opposed to simply practicing responsible journalism.

It’s relevant b/c W started a war of aggression for no goddamned reason, except to enrich Cheney et. al. and prove that he was a better War Pretzeldent than Poppy.

It’s relevant b/c W sent our forces into Iraq with insufficient armor, refused to increase their pay 3.5% (3% was more than enough), and continually cut services to our soldiers, all while being GUNG HO WAR PRETZELDENT!

The Codpiece.  He wore a fucking flight suit and declared “Mission Accomplished”.  That was such a complete fuck up that people don’t even use the phrase “mission accomplished” anymore.  (Check out kiddie shows—it’s “mission completion” or “mission complete”)

He couldn’t be bothered to show up for his champagne fleet/get out of Viet Nam gig, yet he was a war hawk for that war and quite happy to send others to die or to be maimed.

It matters.  It mattered then and it matters now.  Go, Dan, go.

Tyro, I"m a little frightened of the “Republican Nose Machine”.  Though “Auxiliary of the Republican Nose Machine” might be a good name for a band.  ;o)

Zinfab wrote:

Hasn’t years of Katie Couric in the anchor chair been punishment enough for CBS?  I think they could all do themselves a favor if they shit canned blondie, rehired Rather, made a quiet apology, and let the ensuing right-wing shit storm “ZOMG!  Dan Rather is back!  Evil!  Evil!  Evil!” pump up their ratings.

Mrs Couric was hired in the hope that she could raise the ratings for the CBS Evening News out of its solid lock on third place.  It didn’t work, but it should be remembered that CBS was trailing the pack in the ratings for several of the last years of Mr Rather’s tenure, including well before the “Rathergate” episode.

Mnemosyne, the point is that the firings, forced resignations and Mr Rather’s eventual departure weren’t forced by Little Green Footballs or Powerline (the blogs first on the forgery stories) but by CBS reaction to the independent commission that they set up themselves.

“Just as an aside, how many of you believe there was a mystery woman named “Lucy Ramirez” who passed the documents to Col Bill Burkitt ?”

Just as an aside, corwin, do you really believe those documents are the only proof that has ever existed showing that Junior deserted his post?  Do you believe there are no living persons who (given sufficient protection from political/personal/financial retribution) could testify to the truth behind whether Commander Codpiece “served” honorably or not?

What do you think the truth of Bush’s service really is?

And as a test question determine where you are on the spectrum of wingnuttia: Do you believe Barack Obama is an American Citizen and was legally elected President of the United States of America?...

Zinfab wrote:

Rather backed up Kerry and Kerry’s shitty campaign failed to back up Rather.  So the Democratic Party really just shot itself in the foot as per it’s usual habit.

But that’s just the problem: CBS News purports itself to be an independent, objective journalism source, not an adjunct of the Democratic Party. 

I remember watching the coverage on election night, and was flipping channels between CBS, NBC and Fox.  When it became obvious that President Bush was going to carry Ohio, there were no more hangdog faces in the country than those of Dan Rather and Ed Bradley.  Mr Rather kept asking Mr Bradley if there were any scenarios left in which Senator Kerry could pull out a victory.  It could be argued that that was simply CBS’ way of trying to keep the outcome in suspense, to keep viewers watching, but it came off as pathetic.

NBC played the coverage straight, and if the anchors had a favored candidate, it didn’t show; they did a fine job.

”...but by CBS reaction to the independent commission that they set up themselves.”

Of course it goes without saying, but the best “independent” commission to judge whether or not your organization did something naughty is one your organization set up yourselves.  Much less chance of reaching a conclusion you don’t like that way…

Mr Ess asked:

What do you think the truth of Bush’s service really is?

The truth is that he gave this country eight fine years of leadership as President of the United States.

The election of 2004 was not about the respective Vietnam era military services of Lieutenant Bush and Lieutenant Kerry, but on the record of George Bush as President of the United States.  If more of the voters approved of his record than disapproved, he’d be re-elected—and he was.

And as a test question determine where you are on the spectrum of wingnuttia: Do you believe Barack Obama is an American Citizen and was legally elected President of the United States of America?

I had a joke posting with Barack Hussein Obama’s Offisial Birth Certioficat pictured in it, and it was amazing how many people thought that, oh my God, I must be some kind of Birther/Truther. 

I assume that he is a citizen, but that assumption has nothing to do with whether he was legally elected or not.  The Constitution’s requirement for the president to be a natural born citizen has no enforcement mechanism: If the Electoral College decided to select a 17 year old Tibetian boy, who spoke no English and had never been out of his native land, to be President, and the Congress accepted that decision, than said 17-year-old Tibetian boy would become our next President, and there’s not one damned thing anyone could do about it.

Mr Ess, you can read the report here

The commission established by CBS consisted of former Attorney General (and former Governor) Richard Thornburg, and Louis Boccardi, retired president and chief executive officer and former executive editor of the Associated Press.  These guys aren’t hacks.

“If the Electoral College decided to select a 17 year old Tibetian boy, who spoke no English and had never been out of his native land, to be President, and the Congress accepted that decision, than said 17-year-old Tibetian boy would become our next President, and there’s not one damned thing anyone could do about it”.

...only if 5 justices on the SCOTUS can’t figure out somebody they rather have instead.  Or have you forgotten 2000 already?

OTOH, my guess is the average 17-year old Tibetan boy would do at least as good a job as Bush Jr. did, especially considering every day produces more proof that Dick Cheney was the actual president, whose only major policy defeat was failing to convince Bush to give a full pardon to Libby on his way out the door…

Can GWB *prove* that he was legally discharged?  Has anyone seen his DD 214?

Anyone who’s running around saying that Obama has to prove his birth in Hawaii any more than he already has (hint: what party is the HI Governor from again?) should be just as loud about asking where Bush’s discharge papers are, since by those standards all anyone needs to do is come up with some scenario where it’s *possible* that he didn’t get an honorable discharge (I suspect the odds of that are higher than the odds of Obama’s mother sneaking off to Kenya to have a child, then sneaking back into the US).

Well?

the point is that the firings, forced resignations and Mr Rather’s eventual departure weren’t forced by Little Green Footballs or Powerline (the blogs first on the forgery stories) but by CBS reaction to the independent commission that they set up themselves

Dana, that is a fine assertion to make, but the truth is that the point of this lawsuit is to uncover the memos to demonstrate that this was not, in fact, the case, and that the point was to placate various factions within the Republican Noise Machine. Though I kind of have to agree with Stephen Colbert’s take in 2004: Rather was the commander in chief who majorly screwed up based on false intelligence. The logical thing would be for him to resign.

I had a joke posting with Barack Hussein Obama’s Offisial Birth Certioficat pictured in it, and it was amazing how many people thought that, oh my God, I must be some kind of Birther/Truther.

There’s very little humor involved in the joke unless you are some kind of Birther/Truther. But that’s not really the point. Very few “birthers” are bona-fide birthers. The guy making fun of Obama’s supposed “lack of a birth certificate” or guy forwarding you the e-mail to sign a position to demand that “Obama release his birth certificate” is generally a liar and engaging in this sort of kabuki because they think it “annoys liberals.”  While I have no doubt that there is a wide swath of ignorant Republicans (part of the crazy 27%) who might hear the story that Obama isn’t a citizen and believes it, the people propagating the meme are simply people who know it’s not true but think that it’s fun to continually harp upon because they think it undermines Obama and angers liberals.

When dealing with these jokers, I generally console myself in the knowledge that these people have friends, coworkers, and family who hate them for their mindless right-wingerism.

I love the way that Dana is trying to recreate in micro here the macro tactic used in the Rather debate:

Well, we’re pretty much boned on defending Bush on this.  It can’t be denied that he used political influence to get into TANG, a haven for privileged cowards.  It can’t be denied that Bush refused his chance to use his skills in Vietnam; that signed paper exists.  It can’t be denied that Bush was cut much slack on attendance; the pay rolls show that.  It can’t be denied that he went off flight status at the time that drug testing came in; the records are clear on that, too.  It can’t be denied that his transfer to an out-of-state station was for politics; that’s established too.  It can’t be denied that he barely showed up at his new posting; liberal sites have been offering thousands of dollars cash to <u>anybody</u> who can prove that they saw Bush doing regular duty there, and nobody has come forward to collect nor is there any documentation showing that he was there.

So what’s left?  Move to the petty stuff.  Scream blue bloody murder about one possibly forged document on one newscast and use that to discredit the whole story.

“Wait”, sez I.  “Are you seriously propounding the nonsense that if Rather brought forward one elm leaf then that disproves the existence of the oak tree that he’s talking about?”

Nonsense?  It <u>worked</u>, fool.  How can it be nonsense?

Seeker: None of that matters.  George W Bush was president for eight years, and retired as constitutionally mandated after his second term expired.  Mr Bush was a less than perfect human being, but, in that he has something in common with all of the rest of us. 

Just what difference do you think it makes, today, if everything you said was true?

Just what difference do you think it makes, today, if everything you said was true?

And this, my friends, is why you don’t see conservatives involved in science and research: because they don’t believe that the truth and the facts are their own reward and that lies are inherently offensive. Rather, they believe in the truth of power. Bush was president. Bush won. So what does it matter if he engaged in a coverup about what he claimed was his military background.

Rather counterintuitively, this was the same line of reasoning they had with Kerry and Obama—“what does it matter that the claims conservatives make about Kerry’s service are lies or that the claims about Obama’s citizenship are made up? The important thing is to keep them out of power or to cast doubt on them.”

Dana is simply arguing from the perspective of his authoritarian culture and mindset: if Bush says that the sky is green and has a set of supporters who insists that for 8 years that the sky is green, and he wins the election, then it doesn’t matter that the sky is blue?

Here’s what matters, Dana: since we know that you sacrificed yourself to espouse the Bush party line, it means that we know you’re reliable and morally dubious, along with your arguments. And not only that, your attempts to criticize others for any mistakes they make in trying to point out that your faction is based on lies and falsehoods are equally dubious. In short, what matters is that you can’t expect to be taken seriously, now. Republicans have Bush’s taint all over them. What is matters is that Republicans were participants in dishonesty for its own sake. Now, I’ve always known that, but it’s interesting to see it play out. And it’s interesting to see Dana say, “well, what happened, happened. Let me tell you about my very serious arguments that we should all listen to and take seriously.”

Shorter Dana:

All departments of history can shut down right now.  We of the right have no need of objective truth, nor is it worthwhile learning from the past.

“What do you think the truth of Bush’s service really is?”

That he went into the Texas Air National Guard after completing his flight training, did his duty as required, and that’s it. But, that aside, even if the CBS News story were true, so what? All it would have meant was the young Lt. Bush committed an infraction sufficiently minor that the military itself never bothered to take any formal disciplinary action against him.

In short, this story would have barely been relevant in 2000. By 2004, it was entirely pointless.

(Sighs)

First of all, EricJG, the evidence is that he didn’t do his duty as required.  So right away you are starting from a false premise.  His attendance at TANG was spotty and he arbitrarily removed himself from flight duty.  He was arguably a deserter by definition of US military law, something that the White House was never able to disprove despite eight years of effort.

Second, he was a child of privilege and politically protected, grandson of a senator, son of an up-and-coming congressman who was clearly going places.  (The White House, as it happens.) If there had been an attempt at a court-martial then whoever had been responsible would have been guarding latrines for the rest of their sorry career.  Nobody would make a fool decision like that, and nobody did.

Really, you’re just like Dana, aren’t you?  If it makes a liberal look bad then it isn’t to be forgotten, ever.  If it makes a conservative look bad, then forget it and move on.

Moral responsibility is important.  A coward and a deserter took his country into a war based on lies.  And you don’t think that’s important??????

Rhetorical question.  I know that you don’t give a damn.  I do know that if Obama uses the military in any way you’ll be screaming about him forgetting to return a guard’s salute in Nebraska or something.

” a haven for privileged cowards.”

Priviliged? Maybe. Coward? I don’t think so. Just flying fighter jets, even in a peacetime environment, was dangerous enough. Here’s Tom Wolfe, from his book ‘The Right Stuff’:

“Being a fighter pilot - for that matter, simply taking off in a single engine jet fighter of the Century series, such as an F-102, or any of the military’s other marvelous bricks with fins on them - presented a man, on a perfectly sunny day, with more ways to get himself killed than his wife and children could imagine in their wildest fears. If he was barreling down the runway at two hundred miles an hour, completing the takeoff run, and the board started lighting up red, should he (a) abort the takeoff (and try to wrestle with the monster, which was gorged with jet fuel, out in the sand beyond the end of the runway) or (b) eject (and hope that the goddamned human cannonball trick works at zero altitude) or (c) continue the takeoff and deal with the problem aloft (knowing full well that the ship may be on fire and therefore seconds away from exploding)? He would have one second to sort out the options and act, and this kind of little workaday decision came up all the time.”

You are so right, EricJG!  Bush Jr. deserves a Medal of Honor just for sitting in one of those deathtraps!

That is way scarier than what Bush Sr. did in WWII.  All he had to do was deal with those wimpy Japanese shooting at him while he flew that slow, radial-engined, aerial-bucket-of-bolts plane of his, while taking off and landing on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the Pacific (and not just off the coast of San Diego)...

EricJG, I think that the term “coward” sits comfortably on the shoulders of somebody who, having received privileged treatment in order to be a fighter pilot, refuses to fight.  Sorry, but the yellow stripe fits; he has to wear it.

You’ll note that as the American right veers increasingly towards being surface, symbol and assertion-based rather than they are more comfortable with people playing a part rather than being real.  Not many 25%ers ever felt comfortable with Colin Powell, even though he had seen the elephant.  They hated Kerry, who was a decorated hero.  Indeed, they liked Reagan, an actor who played heroes, over Bush I, who was an actual war hero.

Weird.

typo correction:
“rather than reality based”

Gravy Train:

if he did ACTUALLY go AWOL, keep in mind this was the 70’s, and it wasn’t uncommon.

Then the response should be that. If it’s “not that uncommon,” the wingnuts could say “well, it’s not the worst thing in th world if Bush had run away, lots of liberals did too.” They could probably even claim it didn’t make him a hypocrite and be superficially believable. “not uncommon” doesn’t call for shouting “LIES! SLANDER! OFF WITH HIS HEAD!”

millie, I’m willing to accept it as metaphor. Now, if he and/or his father actually believe there was literal spitting ...

Dana:

If the Electoral College decided to select a 17 year old Tibetian boy, who spoke no English and had never been out of his native land, to be President, and the Congress accepted that decision

I don’t believe speaking English is actually a requirement. As for the age, citizenship, and residency issues, the enforcement mechanism is Congress refusing to accept it. Checks and balances and all that. That’s like saying laws have no enforcement mechanism, since if you commit a crime and evade police (while they’re off arresting elderly men for living in ther own homes), you’ll get away with it.

Tyro:

Republicans have Bush’s taint all over them

They have his what all over them?

It bears pointing out that it was the desire to show off their legendary Memogate kerning-fu skillz that led the wingnuts, four years later, to “analyze” Obama’s CoLB and declare it a forgery.  As I noted last month in my post “The Birth of the Birthers”.

Tyro: “Republicans have Bush’s taint all over them”
Hershele: “[H]is what?”

Well, guys, after they spent eight years sucking his dick, what would you expect them to smell like?