Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (1754)	2/12/2004 9:24:20 AM
From: PROLIFE	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

LOL---your pinheadism is reaching new heights shinu, get a clue: A tip for the Democrats: It's not about Vietnam DALLAS — It's as if common sense has gone AWOL from the presidential campaign. Some media players and Democratic Party operatives are painting President Bush as nothing less than a deserter amid questions about whether he fulfilled his obligations to the Air National Guard 30 years ago. No surprises here. Democrats and a lot of folks in the Fourth Estate who are cozy with them would like to give Bush a first-class ticket out of Washington. Besides, a lot of the people raising concerns about Bush's service record are baby boomers, whose defining experience in early adulthood was opposing the Vietnam War. That the National Guard accusations have any traction at all has a lot to do with what Democrats have up their sleeve. Judging from primary returns, the plan seems to be to nominate John Kerry and sell him as a rare breed of Democrat: a warrior-statesman with oodles of experience in national security and foreign policy. It's all about Vietnam. Democrats will transport us back to the late 1960s and early '70s and recount stories of Kerry's heroic stint in Southeast Asia. And there'll be no peace signs on this ride. Some of the same folks who once marched for peace are now consumed with acts of long-ago heroism during the war. Luckily for them and the Madison Avenue ad agencies they'll be employing, parts of Kerry's adventure have been captured on film. For that, they can thank the senator who, as a young man, had the foresight to take 8 mm movies of his time on a Navy gunboat. Out with the Man from Hope. In with our Man in Saigon. The Kerry candidacy is the perfect tribute to self-absorbed baby boomers. Many have spent the past three decades using Vietnam as a measuring stick to assess everyone who lived through it, whether they spent those years protesting the war or fighting in it. Just don't expect much of this to resonate with my generation of Xers, or the generation that follows it — those now in their teens and 20s. We have had different experiences, and we've emerged with a different measuring stick. For my part, the decisions made by a George W. Bush as a young man — or, for that matter, by Bill Clinton or John Kerry — are of little consequence. If the pitch is national security, all that matters is how they responded to the events of Sept. 11, 2001. Before 9-11, the baby-boomer obsession with Vietnam may have been tolerable. Now it just seems trivial. My generation and the one that follows don't need John Kerry's home movies. The measuring stick of Vietnam was OK for a generation that didn't live through Pearl Harbor, didn't win World War II, and didn't defeat fascism on two continents. But it doesn't do much good for those who watched as their country was brutally attacked, thousands of its people slaughtered on their own soil. I'm sick of Vietnam being the centerpiece of presidential campaigns. The only thing that candidates in both parties should be obsessed with at this point is ensuring that Americans never again feel what they did on the terrible September morning. And is Kerry up to the task? It is hard to tell with the flip-flops. Kerry opposed the first Gulf War but voted to authorize the second. Then he criticized the second war. Later he cheered the capture of Saddam. Now, amid questions over intelligence, he's back to criticizing. All the while, Team Kerry has pushed the machismo. The candidate rides motorcycles, talks up hunting and poses with fellow vets who — he assures us — "still know how to fight for (their) country." It's a good line. But a tad dated. What we need is someone who knows how to defend our country, and who recognizes that the first line of defense is here at home. President Bush understands this. Here the media are going nuts over Bush having called himself a "war president" — presumably because they think he failed the test of Vietnam. He is a war president, not because he fought in a war but because we are now a nation at war. If Kerry thinks he can do better, he should put away his scrapbook and start telling Americans what he plans to do to spare future generations the anguish and the cost of war. seattletimes.nwsource.com Ruben Navarrette Jr. / Syndicated columnist

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (1754)	2/12/2004 9:57:03 AM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 81568

"For that, they can thank the senator who, as a young man, had the foresight to take 8 mm movies of his time on a Navy gunboat. Live Shot living up to his name! LOL!

To: ChinuSFO who wrote (1754)	2/12/2004 10:01:54 AM
From: PROLIFE	Respond to of 81568

AWOL attack off target Linda Chavez February 11, 2004 Any hopes that the press would give President George W. Bush a fair shake in the coming election were dashed this week when the White House press corps reacted to the release of the president's National Guard records like raw meat thrown into a tank of barracudas. The controversy surrounding the president's service in the National Guard from 1968 to 1973 surfaced briefly during the 2000 election but quickly disappeared. It became a hot topic again during the 2004 campaign when Leftist filmmaker Michael Moore endorsed General Wesley Clark for the Democratic nomination (Clark quit the race on Wednesday), saying the election would come down to a face-off between the general and "a deserter." Not content to let Moore's libelous accusation sink into the cesspool of oblivion where it belongs, Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe then revived it -- this time on behalf of another Democratic candidate. On ABC's "This Week" on Feb. 1, McAuliffe said: "I look forward to that debate when John Kerry, a war hero with a chest full of medals, is standing next to George Bush, a man who was AWOL in the Alabama National Guard. George Bush never served in our military in our country" -- a claim that is patently untrue. And Sen. Kerry didn't do much better two days later, when he responded to criticisms about the McAuliffe canard by saying on Fox News Channel's "Hannity and Colmes": "I've never made any judgments about any choice somebody made about avoiding the draft, about going to Canada, going to jail, being a conscientious objector, going into the National Guard. Those are choices people make." On Tuesday, the White House released records that show Bush put in the requisite number of hours in the period in question when he was assigned to the Alabama National Guard, while he worked on a political campaign, in 1972 and 1973. What's more, Bush didn't sit around "with nothing to do ... (taking) turns delivering antiwar lectures," as columnist Richard Cohen described his own time in the Guard during the Vietnam War. "The National Guard and the Reserves were something of a joke. Everyone knew it. Books have been written about it," claims Cohen. Bush, on the other hand, learned to fly one of the most difficult fighter jets of the era, an F-102 -- an exercise fraught with danger. Two men from Bush's unit crashed during the period he was flying these aircraft, according to William Campenni, a retired Guard pilot who served with Bush. Nor did enlisting in the National Guard guarantee that a soldier would not be sent to Vietnam. National Guard units were sent to Vietnam, and certainly Bush had no way of knowing before he enlisted whether his unit would be one of them. But the White House press corps wasn't interested in these details. No, they were hungry for blood. In one of the more acrimonious press conferences in recent memory, reporters lashed out at press secretary Scott McLellan, repeatedly questioning the president's veracity and the factual record presented at the press conference. "You keep saying he served -- he fulfilled his duty, he met his requirements. You're not saying he drilled, he showed up, he attended. Is that intentional?" one reporter asked accusingly. To which, McLellan responded. "No, he recalls performing his duties, both in Alabama and Texas. I said that in response to (another) question." "Define that," pushed the reporter. And so it went -- for 15 pages of official transcript. This tempest in a teapot is all about undermining the president's credibility. It is being waged not only by Democrats, whose tactics are questionable but also whose motive -- regaining the White House -- is legitimate, but by the press as well. And that is not acceptable. When those in the press corps behave like partisan attack dogs, the public suffers. The Boston Globe, which raised questions during the 2000 election about the president's service in the National Guard, now admits that its source of information is a man named Bob Fertig, a founder of Democrats.com. This vitriolic Web site accuses the president of everything from drug use while in the National Guard to current insanity -- for which it recommends invoking the 25th Amendment to remove him from office and actually offers a petition that visitors can sign to that effect. No wonder Americans increasingly do not trust the news media townhall.com