On the Buddhist Temple thing: Gore has said several times that he didn’t know it was a fundraiser, while, IIRC, some emails he had received said that it was. I don’t know much about the story other than that.
Do you see how shallow your attacks are?
How many succesful people were not accepted to every school they applied to? If you think getting denied to a school is a valid weakness in somebody’s history, we are all in trouble.
Now if Bush had flunked out or dropped out…Maybe that would be an issue. (oh…I’m sorry…that was Gore)
Attacking Bush for getting “the bare minimums” on the flight test is laughable. There are standards, you either pass them or you do not. I assume that to score the minimum that means the AF still thinks you are smart enough to be a fighter pilot. You make it sound like he scored the bare minimum to be a janitor for the AF and then they made him a fighter pilot anyway.
He was not only governor of Texas, he was a RE-ELECTED governor. Now, you may think that is a powerless entry level position, but I bet you the people of Texas probably look at it a little differently. Gore obviously disagrees with your assesment of how powerful the Texas Governorship is, since he seems to hold Bush personally responsible for every imperfection in the state.
So which is it? Is Bush responsible for the problems in Texas, or was the position so powerless that Bush has no responsibilty? You can’t have it both ways, please choose one.
The shallowness of your attacks only bolster Bush. If you hate a man enough to drag this trash out, then it helps assure me that there isn’t really anything all that bad in Bush’s closet.
**ElvisL1ves
**
I know you want an actual quote, but if you are ignorant enough to think that Gore has not lied about soliciting campaign donations from the Communist Chinese Government, then I can be to lazy enough to go find the ice tea excuse.
Here is a little more light to shed on this story:
When they throw dirt like this so late in a campaign, it means several things.
-
The accusation is a lot worse than the truth. If the truth was so bad, we would have heard about this months ago. They release crap like this now so that we won’t get the full truth until well after we have to vote.
-
Gore is desperate. He knows that if something drastic doesn’t happen, he is going to lose. Since he knows he has pretty much lost, he has nothing further to lose by using trash like this.
**IMHO…This was timed in order to bury Perot’s endorsement of Bush, and to not allow enough time for the facts to come out. **
With the fact being that many people already knew about this in Texas, and it had already been officially confirmed by his staff years ago.
Since we all know that the corporate special interests have our personal choice foremost in their hearts (as do the pro-life crowd, BTW). Why, look at health care, the health care industry warned us that if we went to a national health care system, we’d have government bureaucrats making our health care decisions for us. And, now, because we saved ourselves from that fate, we have corporate HMO bureaucrats making our health care decisions for us! But, the plus side is that at least those CEOs are getting paid a lot more handsomely than people in public service. Cool!!!
The DUI “revelation” came out over an hour before Perot endorsed Bush. Granted, people could have known that was who Perot was endorsing (it wasn’t that hard of a stretch to think so), but I seriously doubt the Fox News station in Maine that “broke” the story put that into consideration.
On Bush being a fighter pilot: the problem with that is that he bypassed a 100,000 person waiting list with only minimal qualifications. Now, I’m sure there was at least one person out of the many in front of him with higher scores than the 25th percentile.
Bush was rejected from UT Law School after having gotten the Harvard MBA, proving that a Harvard MBA isn’t a 100% indicator of whether one is qualified or smart enough for something. I’m sure Mr. Bush is intelligent. I just don’t think he’s good enough to be President. YMMV. You, Freedom2, would probably do as well as he would.
I do not think that the governorship of Texas is an entry-level position, but President of the United States is a giant step up. Bush has said that the things he likes least to do are read long papers on policy. He admits to taking a nap every day. Only a few hours of work are needed in his job. Sure, it can be tough at times (like when he worked to get the vouchers legislation passed and it failed), but nowhere near as demanding as the Presidency.
Truly shocking…He had gotten some details wrong! Well, George W. has avoided that pitfall, by never giving any details!
Freedom2,
Your posts on this subject (and how it has changed your vote) got my wheels a-turning…And, here’s what I came up with. (I’m not saying I believe this wild theory, but hey, it’s got about as much evidence behind it as that the Gore campaign is responsible for this.)
Now, let’s take a little trip into the future…
Yeah, you’re right, he had no choice at that point. To expect him to exercise better judgment than a twenty-something intern is unreasonable.
Where I work, we in management have been instructed (in HR classes) that any sexual interaction with a person who is an underling is a de facto act of harrassment. Period. Places the firm in danger. Don’t do it, regardless of the circumstances. The greater the gap in authority between the parties, the more egregious the offense. Let’s see, the President of the United States getting a bj from a White House intern, hmmm, what could be worse? I’ll have to give that some thought.
Clinton, though, is clearly a special case. How such a fine, morally upstanding Christian gentleman has continued throughout his life to be such a magnet for sexual provocateurs is almost beyond belief. Clearly, it is never his fault. I don’t know how he has been able to endure it.
jshore:
Dude, your grasping at staws. I feel certain that the Gore campaign didn’t do this (because it could backfire.) Nevertheless, it was an overzealous democrat who broke the news, and the timing is highly suspect, especially as the story was plopped down as one big package, complete with documentation and corroboration. Had it been a nonpartisan investigation, some of the more mitigating circumstances would have come out as well. I.E. MADD and the fact that the incident was no secret in Texas.
Hmmm. I take it back. Maybe Gore’s campaign is responsible after all.
Let’s clear some things up about Bush’s Fighter Pilot days.
First of all, it’s true that he scored in the bottom 25th percentile on the aptitude test. HOWEVER, he also scored in the top 5% on the officer’s qualification test. I’m sure that was considered.
Now, there are a lot of ways you can go once you are accepted to basic flight school. First, you can wash out. A LOT of candidates wash out. Second, you can wind up passing, but with a grade low enough that you are assigned to fly support aircraft like cargo airplanes. That way, you can fly as co-pilot and gain experience, and the Guard can then assess your performance again in relative safety.
Generally, only the best performing students in basic flight school get a shot at fighters, because fighters are single-seat and there’s no one to supervise you (other than a few two-seat trainers which are used for fighter qualification).
Once you’re in fighter school, there are still a lot of ways to wash out, and a lot of students do.
It’s certainly possible that Bush used political pull to get him assigned to the guard, but I guarantee you that he made it into the F-102 purely on his skill. Political considerations go out the window here, because putting a poorly qualified pilot into the seat of an F-102 is a sure way to send him home in a box. Those fighters were hard to fly and very dangerous. BTW, it takes high intelligence to pass fighter school. You not only have to learn the stick-and-rudder skills, you have to learn all the aircraft systems, aerodynamics, meteorology, instrument flying, etc. More people probably wash out from their inability to learn the concepts quickly enough than wash out from being unable to handle the aircraft.
Finally, Bush volunteered for a tour of Vietnam. He was turned down because at that time they were only taking pilots with a minimum of 500 hours time in type, and Bush had 300. Cynics among you may suggest that he knew this when he volunteered, but that would suggest that Bush was smart enough to know that one day he would need to show such a thing on his record, AND somehow knew that there was no way he’d be accepted. That doesn’t jibe with the ‘dumb guy’ persona Bush’s enemies are trying to smear him with.
Frankly, I think it’s amazingly shallow to consider Bush dumb because the pundits are using that to pigeonhole him. Why don’t you evaluate him on his record? This is a guy who was a party animal, and no doubt didn’t try very hard when he was in school. Nevertheless, he managed to get a graduate degree from Yale. Hands up, all you detractors who have Ivy-League Graduate degrees. I’ll wait.
Oh, you don’t have one? Okay. How many of you managed to get elected governor, and get re-elected in a landslide? How many of you managed to run a campaign that has gotten you to a stone’s throw from the presidency?
I’m being a bit flippant here, because I think the topic deserves it. The bottom line is that this is a guy who is NOT dumb. He may not be a rocket scientist, he may not be a scholar. But he’s certainly well above the average in intelligence.
Absolutely not!!
Have you ever been a 20 year old girl? I have. Sexual harassment my ass.
I’m a sick to death of the society making women into “victims” in every sexual situation in which there is the slightest disparity of power between her and him. It demeans the women in question.
stoid
Agreed…Mainly I’m just toying with ya folks! (You know, getting a little punchy before the election.) But, I have also learned that if you have a bizarre idea occasionally, why not go on record wiht it? You don’t lose much if you are wrong and, if by some strange chance, you turn out to be right, you seem fucking brilliant! [hijack](A few years ago here in Rochester, a man in a nice suburban family disappeared while going to the store to pick up something. The radio was full of news of the police asking for info on his whereabouts, including a clip from his wife saying something about how wonderful a husband and father he was. The minute I heard it, I suddenly thought, “This just all sounds too pat…I bet she did it.” Two days later, she was arrested for ordering the hit on her husband. I think I’ve sometimes regretted that I didn’t tell people of my suspicions at the time, since the turn of events truly did seem to catch most people I’ve talked to by surprise! I’ve also been on the other side, of course…When I was in Ithaca, there was a gruesome murder of a wealthy suburban family. When the police went to arrest the black suspect, he had a gun and they shot him dead. His mother was put on trial as an accessory to the crime because he had gone back later to set the house on fire, and she was with him as evidenced by her fingerprints on the gas can. At the time, some in the African American community there were complaining that she was on trial for the sins of her son. But, even bleeding-heart liberal me was not too sympathetic to this view, since they had her prints on the freaking gas can for God’s sake! Well, it turns out that a few years later, a State policeman who was involved in the case admitted to fabricating evidence in several cases including the fingerprints in that case. So, it now appears there is no reason to believe the woman was ever at the scene of the crime after all. [She’s still guilty as some sort of accessory because she used the dead families’ credit cards…But apparently this is a considerably less serious offense than what she was charged with based on the gas can evidence.] Sometimes, truth is stranger than a good mystery novel!)[/hijack]
::High Five::
Where I work, if you have relations with an intern, you will be fired.
You are in a position of power compared to the intern, you are receiving the intern’s efforts for free, and you have an ethical reponsibility to provide a positive experience for that intern, and not to take advantage of that position of power.
It has nothing to do with whether the intern is male or female. It has nothing to do with liberation, or sexual rights. It has everything to do with responsibility, basic ethics and the abuse of power.
This is the President of the United States, who we are trusting with National Security and all the power of the leader of the free world, and he has proven himself incapable of self-restraint, common decency, and upholding the most basic fiduciary responsibility.
jshore:
Ok, you’re on the record 
Ya know, I’ve been reading your endless defense of Bush, which amounts to nothing more than regurgitating his stump speeches, but this proves to me how little you actually understand the political process on either side.
GORE didn’t have squat to do with this coming out. Zero. Nothing, nada. why? Because Gore can be accurately called many things, debatably many others, but nowhere on that list can you put “stupid”.
It was certainly the act of people who support Gore and hate Bush, people who may feel desperate. But not Gore himself or anyone close to him.
stoid
Stoid:
That certainly makes sense. I doubt Gore had anything to do with it.
Then again, just because it’s incredibly stupid, didn’t mean it didn’t happen.
It certainly wouldn’t be the stupidest thing that’s been done (on both sides of the partisan fence,) in recent Presidential history.
Is it a dirty trick? Hell, yes. Did Gore have something to do with it? I wouldn’t be suprised.
Was Bush acting deceptively by avoinding the question in spite of consistent interest, and possibly in violation of oath?
Yes.
So I guess that the question really is, “are you angry that you were lied to, or are you angry that an asshole told you the truth?”
Driving under the influence is indeed a serious offense, but not one that (IMO)
disqualifies GWB for the Presidency.
That said, W has been less-than-forthcoming about his past, which makes me wonder
about what else we might learn about the man after the election.
Specifically, (if my sources cited below are correct)
W has refused to release his military records, unlike McCain and
unlike Gore. These records could help clarify the gap W’s bio during
his last 12-18 months of service in the National Guard.
It’s been documented that W was suspended from flying for failing to obey an
order. Apparently, he refused to have a physical in 1972, soon after the
military began testing for drugs during medical exams. Those two facts may very well be
wholly unrelated: again, if he would release his private military records,
all this could be cleared up.
Documentation is available at:
http://www.talion.com/georgebush.html
I admit that I haven’t sifted through all of the information contained therein. I
trust my fellow posters will let us know whether some of these suspicions are
ungrounded.
Or perhaps some may believe that W’s references to past youthful mistakes
are sufficiently explicit.
Oh and FWIW, I agree that these 11th hour revelations are extremely frustrating
and not a little unfair to the voters.
(There’s also another thread on this board relating to W’s
military record.)
Jello
I agree. It was the democrat who released this info. A democrat judge ordered this information to pulled from the basement files 4 months ago. A newspaper in Oregon passed on the story 3 months ago.
The democrat who released this info was a delegate at the democratic convention, and was the democrat’s candidate for governor a couple of years ago. He has admitted that he released this for maximum political damage. As soon as the Fox news station reported this, a blitz faxing campaign happened across the nation. Every news room received a faxed copy of the arrest record within an hour. No one knows who did the faxing.
Go ahead and deny that the DNC was involved. This is the board that LIVES by Occahm’s Razor. My money is that this was approved by the upper levels of the Gore campaign.
Like from governor of Arkansas to president? That kind of Giant step up?
jshore
I have seen that theory floated already. I think you somehow posted on the wrong thread. I think you meant to post over here: Why are Americans in love with conspiracies?
**Stoidela
**
Hmmmm…
I can see we disagree. I’ve never been to his stump speeches, so it would be pretty hard to regurgitate them. I’m sorry that you seem so upset by this, but I hardly think that you can come rushing in and claiming that I have no understanding of the political process.
The best part is, on Tuesday will start to see who was right one way or the other. I said it a long time ago. Bush will win by a landslide. Unfortunately, we may either have to wait a long time, and may possibly never hear the full story on the DUI mudslinging incident.
BTW…Gore is Stupid. Want proof? He sure blew this election.