All of the above? Plus maybe a few more? Or… there isn’t an election anytime soon, is there?
At least, until a prominent Republican kills someone.
This thread has magic shoes.
It started out in MPSIMS, and got moved to GD. Why? Who knows, maybe the mod went nuts, it doesn’t matter. Maybe the Pit is next, but it’ll need some luck, and a couple of f***ks to get there.
My momma said they’d take me anywhere.
Well, they’ve hit the “live boy” barrier, it’s only a matter of time until some damn Pubbie tries the “dead girl” thing …
Oh, yeah. That was Kennedy … :eek:
Maybe it should click those shoes together three times while saying: There’s no place like The Pit. There’s no place like…
The funny thing is that we’re now seeing tons of “Democrat does Xbad thing!” stories. The Republicans and their apologists are trying dig up dirt, any dirt, so they don’t get slaughtered in the next election. Hell, the stories are practically hourly right now, as the Pubbies try to find anything that’ll stick and distract the voters from their screwups.
The sad thing is, it’ll probably work. The average American voter has an attention span of… oooh! Bright shiny!
News flash: Some Politicians, be they ® or (D) or (Other) do bad things. The good ones, the ones worth keeping, own up to their mistakes. It’s our job to vote out the bad ones. Deal. Don’t make excuses for 'em.
I’ve seen quite a few commentators applaud Shays for his “standing up to” the Democrat/MSM smear machine.
I think the point they’re happy about is not so much “see, we’re not as bad compared to the killer there” as much as it’s “hey, Kennedy is still in office, so why should Hastert resign? Wotta buncha hypocrites!”
Of course, this “logic” would render both parties unable to point out any bad behavior on the other side ever, but apparently for some, that’s neither here nor there.
Cheney almost bagged an old man earlier this year. Does that count?
Sorry Frosty, close only counts in horseshoes.
Hey, good argument. Let me try it on:
“I immediately sort anyone who brings up Bush’s National Guard record into the idiot pile. It was 1969. It wasn’t covered up. The voters know but obviously don’t care. And it’s arguable how much the incident reflects on his political career anyway. He’s a President, not an F-106 pilot.”
What do you think? Does that pass the smell test?
As for not covering things up, please. Kennedy’s statements that night were a load of crap. According to him, he tried to get out of the car, but he doesn’t remember how he got out. He says he repeatedly dove down to the car to see if the passenger was in it, but doesn’t remember much about that. Then he walked back to the party, and got someone to drive him back to town. Then he apparently ‘wandered around’ until the NEXT DAY when it occurred to him that maybe he should contact the police. He said it took him until the next day to call the police because he was ‘confused and in shock’. Uh huh. He certainly had the presence of mind to talk to his lawyer right away, and his lawyer claims that Kennedy was looking for excuses and for help to make up a story that Mary Jo was driving.
It seems pretty clear to me what probably happened: Kennedy was drunk, and went off the bridge. He got out of the car, and thinking only of protecting his fat ass, proceeded to make his way home and wait until he was sober before he called the cops. Had he not waited, he might have done 8 years or more for vehicular manslaughter or a similar charge. But then, Mary Joe might still be alive. But hey, you’ve gotta break a few eggs to make a Kennedy Omelette.
Investigators have said that Mary Joe Kopechne may have survived for as long as two hours in an air bubble in the car. If that’s the case, then Kennedy traded her life for his political career. There was plenty of time to call the cops, get an emergency crew to the scene, and rescue her. Too bad Kennedy was too ‘dazed and confused’ to call for help.
I think that’s a little better test of character than whether or not a guy tried to use influence to cut some hours off his national guard service.
You’ve elided one important difference: Kennedy admitted wrongdoing in his failure to call the cops and apologized for it, publicly stating that “I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately”.
Bush, AFAIK, has never admitted any wrongdoing in his conduct while in the National Guard; in fact, the White House has continued to insist that he met all his service requirements.
If you want to be able to put your mistakes behind you, you first have to admit that you made mistakes. If you don’t, you really can’t blame your opponents for continuing to bring up the issue.
Your unsupported speculation doesn’t count as evidence, though, no matter how clear it may seem to you.
Um, no. See, part of Bush’s appeal to the voter was as the hotshot flyboy pilot. Remember him piloting his jet onto the aircraft carrier with the now incredibly ironic “Mission Accomplished” banner behind him in the suspiciously bulgy flight suit? So the fact that he was AWOL and so forth during his brave defense of the skies over San Padre Island from the Vietnamese (while John Kerry was actually gettting shot at in Vietnam) is directly relevant to that part of Bush’s image. Whereas I don’t think Kennedy’s driving was ever brought up as part of him image.
Doesn’t even come close to passing the smell test.
Words are cheap. I think it stinks that our celebrity/political culture makes such a big deal out of public apologies these days.
I agree that apologies can be overdone, but after all, they do have a necessary function, don’t they? If a public figure wants me to even think about forgiving them for something bad they’ve done, they’ve got to start out by admitting it was bad and apologizing for it. Too much apologizing is at least better than no apology at all.
No, and I doubt you do either. The navy is kinda picky about who they allow to pilot multi-million dollar aircraft, and even pickier about who they allow to do carrier landings. Bush rode in the back seat of a fighter piloted by someone else (probably an instructer pilot for that aircraft type). The navy does not put flight controls in the back seat of its aircraft.
I still don’t see a debate, particularly regarding the OP.
Off to the Pit (where the entrance lines have shortened up).
[ /Moderating ]
What you never heard of “learner planes”? The ones with an extra set of training wings?
Anyway, he was in the bulgy flight suit. Explain it away if you can. My point is still valid, your quibble is just that.
Oh, please. He couldn’t avoid making an apology, since he was actually convicted of the crime. What was he going to say? “You’re damned right I waited a day! What’s it to you?”
Please, tell me: Do you honestly believe his story? Do you believe that he drove off that bridge, then somehow became too ‘dazed and confused’ to call the police about it until the next day?
It’s not like he had head trauma and passed out or anything. He walked back to the party, collected a couple of guys, and went back to the accident scene. They were pressuring him like crazy to call the police, and he kept dodging it, until finally he said he would do so right away, then left them - and went home and sat there until the next day, because he was ‘confused’.
Come on. Anyone who believes that story is an idiot. He managed to dodge the police long enough that he couldn’t be convicted of anything but a relatively minor offense. The rules of evidence in court are strict, and he saved his ass. That doesn’t mean his story is believable, any more than OJ’s was. Seriously. Put yourself in Kennedy’s position - let’s say you weren’t drinking, and had nothing to hide. Your car goes off a bridge. There’s a woman trapped inside. She may be alive and breathing in an air pocket. Do you:
A) run for the nearest house, yelling, “Someone call the police and fire department!”
B) Wander back to a party, climb in the back seat of a friend’s car, and wait for the friend. Then tell him that you had an accident, and take him to the scene. All the while, refusing to call the authorities and yammering on about how maybe you should tell the police that she was driving the car. Then you go home and sit in your apartment, wondering whether the girl might still be alive or not. Oh well. Time to get a good night’s sleep before you call the cops in the morning.
Does that sound like the actions of someone who had nothing to hide?
Either he was drunk and waited until a blood test couldn’t convict him (which is what pretty much every cop who dealt with the crime thought), or he’s a pathetic coward who let the girl die just because he thought it might hurt his political career, so he froze while trying to finagle a way out. Either way, he’s scum.
What he did was orders of magnitude worse than anything Bush ever did before becoming president. I find it amazing that Democrats are willing to give him a pass because he ‘apologized for waiting to call the cops’ and because he’s a Kennedy.
Actually, Bush was in the right seat, because it wasn’t a fighter and wasn’t tandem seating. And he did get some stick time in the airplane while en route, but of course he never went near the flight controls once the airplane was in the vicinity of the carrier group, let alone shooting a carrier approach and landing (which he was never qualified for in the first place).
I stand corrected. Was thinking it was an F-14. Turns out it was an S-3B Viking.
They have a function, but these days they’re an end unto themselves. And it’s a useless end. People apologize and think the slate is clean. An apology doesn’t mean anything unless it marks a change in behavior. What’s Ted’s apology good for, given what happened and how he didn’t pay a thing for it aside from his Presidential hopes?
“Yes she deserved to die, and I hope she burns in hell!” 