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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe NYC who wrote (200830)	9/8/2004 10:50:41 AM
From: Road Walker	Respond to of 1574826

Missing in Action By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: September 8, 2004 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. Mr. Mintz says he had heard that Mr. Bush - described as a young Texas pilot with political influence - had transferred to the base. He heard that Mr. Bush was also a bachelor, so he was looking forward to partying together. He's confident that he'd remember if Mr. Bush had shown up. "I'm sure I would have seen him," Mr. Mintz said yesterday. "It's a small unit, and you couldn't go in or out without being seen. It was too close a space." There were only 25 to 30 pilots there, and Mr. Bush - a U.N. ambassador's son who had dated Tricia Nixon - would have been particularly memorable. I've steered clear until now of how Mr. Bush evaded service in Vietnam because I thought other issues were more important. But if Bush supporters attack John Kerry for his conduct after he volunteered for dangerous duty in Vietnam, it's only fair to scrutinize Mr. Bush's behavior. It's not a pretty sight. Mr. Bush was saved from active duty, and perhaps Vietnam, only after the speaker of the Texas House intervened for him because of his family's influence. Mr. Bush signed up in May 1968 for a six-year commitment, justifying the $1 million investment in training him as a pilot. But after less than two years, Mr. Bush abruptly stopped flying, didn't show up for his physical and asked to transfer to Alabama. He never again flew a military plane. Mr. Bush insists that after moving to Alabama in 1972, he served out his obligation at Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Montgomery (although he says he doesn't remember what he did there). The only officer there who recalls Mr. Bush was produced by the White House - he remembers Mr. Bush vividly, but at times when even Mr. Bush acknowledges he wasn't there. In contrast, Mr. Mintz is a compelling witness. Describing himself as "a very strong military man," he served in the military from 1959 to 1984. A commercial pilot, he is now a Democrat but was a Republican for most of his life, and he is not a Bush-hater. When I asked him whether the National Guard controversy raises questions about Mr. Bush's credibility, Mr. Mintz said only, "That's up to the American people to decide." In his first interview with a national news organization, Mr. Mintz recalled why he remembered Mr. Bush as a no-show: "Young bachelors were kind of sparse. For that reason, I was looking for someone to haul around with." Why speak out now? He said, "After a lot of soul-searching, I just feel it's my duty to stand up and do the right thing." Another particularly credible witness is Leonard Walls, a retired Air Force colonel who was then a full-time pilot instructor at the base. "I was there pretty much every day," he said, adding: "I never saw him, and I was there continually from July 1972 to July 1974." Mr. Walls, who describes himself as nonpolitical, added, "If he had been there more than once, I would have seen him." The sheer volume of missing documents, and missing recollections, strongly suggests to me that Mr. Bush blew off his Guard obligations. It's not fair to say Mr. Bush deserted. My sense is that he (like some others at the time) neglected his National Guard obligations, did the bare minimum to avoid serious trouble and was finally let off by commanders who considered him a headache but felt it wasn't worth the hassle to punish him. "The record clearly and convincingly proves he did not fulfill the obligations he incurred when he enlisted in the Air National Guard," writes Gerald Lechliter, a retired Army colonel who has made the most meticulous examination I've seen of Mr. Bush's records (I've posted the full 32-page analysis here). Mr. Lechliter adds that Mr. Bush received unauthorized or fraudulent payments that breached National Guard rules, according to the documents that the White House itself released. Does this disqualify Mr. Bush from being commander in chief? No. But it should disqualify the Bush campaign from sliming the military service of a rival who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh. E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com

To: Joe NYC who wrote (200830)	9/8/2004 11:32:36 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574826

Do you need me to translate this to you to simpler English, or can you handle it on your own? Excuse me? When did English become your first language? Read it a few times if you have any problems, call for help. Yeah, right......with your spelling and grammatical errors, I'm going to ask for you help. LOL. It is routine for people who speak the language of the right (in economic terms) to call countries like Austria Socialist, because of large number of people and economic activity working as part of the government, either providing services that could very well be done by private sector, or in ever growing administration, or working in state owned enterprises (nationalized or otherwise). Frankly, I don't give a damn what the perceptions are.......Arnold misspoke. The Austrians got it and so did I......if you're confused, then so be it. I think you may be hanging out at RNC party headquarters too much.........you're beginning to spin your way out of everything! Ease up! Here is an example I just came across: OLD EUROPE ON THE BRINK: Will Hutton rightly observes the slide toward steep decline in France and Germany. But he's wrong about Europe as a whole. Britain, unshackled by Thatcher from socialist economics, is as vibrant as it's ever been in the past fifty years - culturally and economically. Hutton, of course, frets that this coud mean the end of the EU as a viable institution. Man, I hope so. andrewsullivan.com Clearly, you don't get it. Thatcher was an ultra conservative who made some significant changes to Brit.'s economic infrastructure. Prior to her arrival, Brit. was considerably more socialist than when she left. Here's a brief description of what we changes she made: <font color=brown>"As Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher privatised numerous state industries, liberalised the labour market, initially implemented a monetarist economic policy and curbed the power of the trade unions. These economic reforms are largely seen to have produced Britain's strong economic performance over the last decade, since governments' post-Thatcher (which include John Major's Conservative administration and the New Labour government of Tony Blair) have by and large embraced, accepted and instituted such policies."<font color=black> uk.geocities.com So, Joey, save your hubris and spin for the boys at RNC headquarters.......it ain't going to fly over here. Have a good one! ;~)