I’m not sure what “the Libertarian movement” is, but I think the reason the Libertarian Party can’t raise funds is that it is unappealing to big business and special interests, which naturally prefer a party that will grant them legislative favors in return for votes.
I appreciate that. Since coming back, I’ve made peace with a lot of members whom I had in some way wronged in the past. Y’all are good people.
ETA:
I guess another way of looking at my position is that Bush isn’t accepting a medal; he’s accepting a gift. And to me, there’s a world of difference.
Wile E, I sometimes get too caught up in the idea that everyone will realize how terribly clever I’m being. I meant not to treat your post as a serious criticism with which I wanted to argue (I mean to say, I got what you meant), but the plain text was a good springboard for another point I wanted to make, and so I hopped on it. I meant you no harm, but the tactic, made without a wink, wasn’t fair to you, and I apologize.
Diogenes has it just right: to murmur that you’re undeserving of an award is (and is meant to be taken as) persiflage, mere false modesty, and none too convincing, either, in the context of a ceremony which your own office has arranged for you to accept the damn award. I mean, it’s good to say that he doesn’t deserve it, but since he really doesn’t, why didn’t he say so in a letter to Mr Thomas explaining why he can’t take it, instead of in front of photographers whom, like the Thomases themselves, he has summoned for the purpose of publicly receiving the thing and announcing Mr. Thomas’ odd rationale?
Caesar refused the crown three times, but only because he knew it would be offered to him a fourth. Bush hasn’t even that much modesty. Blah.
On preview: Liberal, I never said you were wrong, I only said you’d disagreed with me. They’re only almost always the same (okay, if I wasn’t so stiff-necked about never using smilies there might, just might, be one here). Anyhow, at this juncture I’ll merely suggest that since a medal is an object whose meaning and purpose is entirely symbolic, that accepting one as a gift is impossible to do without endorsing the symbolism (expressed and implied) that comes with it. Otherwise, as I said, the president is taking twenty minutes out of his day to let someone tip him in an awkward fashion.
I agree with that, too, but I do believe that the person who has earned the medal is entitled to invest it with whatever symbolism he wishes. It may mean one thing to the Pentagon, but the donor has decided it means something to him personally. I think a thing can have more than one symbolic meaning, and as far as I’m concerned, Bill Thomas gets to decide what the medal means to him, and gets to do with it whatever he wishes. And I feel the same way about Kerry and his medals. If they mean nothing to him, they mean nothing to me. I thought that whole thing was no big deal.
Well, I kind of knew that but I was afraid maybe luci would misinterpret and think I was mocking him. I wouldn’t want to look like a doofus in front of luci.
Oh god! Do you think he might be reading this now? :smack: I’m such a doofus!
George Bush is the President of the United States. Nobody just happens to meet him. For every person who gets to talk to him, there are a thousand other people who wanted to and were turned away. So Bush wasn’t just being gracious by arranging to meet Bill Thomas and accept his Purple Heart - there were hundreds of other gifts that were sent to Bush that week that got nothing more than a written note of thanks signed by Bush’s auto-pen. The Bush administration deliberately chose to make a public ceremony out of Bush accepting Thomas’ medal - as in “I’m George Bush and I approved this message.”
My belief is that every moment that Chimpy is not committing ritual suicide in an attempt to atone for his crimes against humanity constitutes a disingenuous implication that he feels deserving of continuing to breathe. Having thus established my Bush-hating credentials, I feel qualified to state that forebearing to create an awkward moment and hurt the feelings of a sentimental (and deeply misguided) veteran amounts to somewhat small potatoes.
I’d be interested in learning who picked up the tab for travel and accommodations for Mr. and Mrs. Johnson.
A new thought occurs to me: Martin Hyde’s OP began this pitting. Mr. Hyde is not among our more notable Bush-Bashers, having expressed in the past, IIRC, an opinion that it’s possible for hatred of the Shrubster to be irrational. :dubious: Perhaps he knew that the actual outrage potential for the issue was severly limited, but suspected that it might draw some attention for a few days. I wonder if there’s something in the offing that he would prefer we not scrutinize too closely.
Probably not. Anyone without the good sense to detest Bush wholeheartedly isn’t likely to have the mental horsepower to act so subtly.
You could look at it that way, or you could look at it Bill Thomas’s way.
According to the Cove Herald, he and his wife conceived the idea themselves because of what the medal — and the president — meant to them. They enlisted the assitance of their Congressman, John Carter, to whom they presented a citation they drew up themselves and signed, along with the medal, and asked him to forward it to President Bush.
You’re wrong about the public ceremony, but you’re right about the fact that meetings with the president are rare. Few ever get into the Oval Office. But then, gifts to the president aren’t frequently delivered in person by a Congressman either. But when they are, I doubt that brokering a private meeting is anything unusual.
Honestly, the only thing unusual about this is its irony — the Purple Heart and President Bush. He certainly hasn’t earned any sort of recognition along those lines from the military. But this wasn’t from the military. It was from Bill Thomas of Copperas Cove, Texas, who lives about 50 miles from Crawford. It seems to me that a meeting, which Thomas called “one of the highlights of our life”, was the least the president could have done to thank him for the gesture.
This thread pitted Bush “for accepting the Purple Heart”. When I clicked on the thread, I expected to see something about a Bush croney at the Pentagon awarding him a Purple Heart medal, much in the same way he has awared the Medal of Freedom to his cronies. But instead, I found a weird take on a straightforward story, with a righteous indignation not extended to far more bizarre Oval Office shennanigans that preceeded Bush. There’s lots of misstatement of fact in here about the nature of the meeting, and who asked for it, and so forth. It’s all very un-Dopish.
Meanwhile, Bush did nothing wrong here. He handled it exactly right, even stating that he did not deserve it. Keep pushing this one, and it’ll bite you in the ass. Only the most deluded Bush haters will buy it, and they’re already sold. I despise Bush as much as anyone. But even a blind pig finds an acorn once in a while, and he found one here. I believe it is Thomas’s right to decide what to do with his medals. As he points out himself, “I paid for these Purple Hearts with my blood.” Leave him alone to give them to whomever he wishes.
Once again, no one is objecting to Thomas giving away his medal as a gift (as misguided as his gesture may be). It’s Bush arranging to accept it as an award – complete with a mock citation and ceremony – which is offensive. He should have accepted the medal as a gift but rejected the citation along with any pretense that he was personally being awarded.
If these guys had been on their usual game, they would have come out smelling like a rose. Arrange a private meeting between Bush and Thomas, he accepts the gift, etc. And then, by some miracle, the story leaks and The Leader is caught being blushingly modest and unassuming, even putting forth the explanation that he does not feel justified in accepting an award more properly meant for our heroes, but proceeded out of regard for a veteran’s feelings, yaddablah, yaddablah. Needn’t even mention his heroic service protecting the skies above Amarillo from Viet Cong aircraft.
No. That would not be an accurate restatement of my position. I really do think that you’re a pretty smart guy, and I enjoy reading your stuff and whenever I see your name on certain topics I know that I’m going to learn something, but with all do respect and no offense, I think your arguments here are too retarded and contradictory to bother with. I was trying to be polite, but seeing as you’re putting words in my mouth, I thought I’d clarify.
As many of us have said, Thomas has the right to do whatever he wants with his medal, including sending it to George Bush is he chooses. I have no issue with that.
But read the thread title: I pit Bush for accepting the Purple Heart. That’s the topic being discussed - not whether Thomas deserved to give it but whether Bush deserved to receive it.
Some people are acting like Bush had no choice in the matter - that once Thomas offered the medal there was no polite way Bush could refuse it. But as I pointed out, that’s bullshit - Bush if offered hundreds of gifts every week and is able to politely refuse to personally accept virtually all of them. He could have, and should have, treated Thomas’ gift the same way he treats all those other gifts. Instead he decided to accept it in person and publicize the fact that he was being “given” a purple heart.
Cite, please, that the introtuction of this event into the press came about as a result of anything more media-related than the Thomases sharing the information with their friends and neighbors.
But as I said, that title is factually incorrect, and misleading besides. “The” Purple Heart implies that the medal was bestowed by the military. Bush did not receive or accept that sort of thing. He accepted a personal gift. Not THE Purple Heart but a specific Purple Heart. From a man who owned it, and wanted to give it to him. It’s as different as living in THE White House versus a white house.
Sorry, Dio, but that’s just more ignorant bullshit. There was no pretense; indeed, there was the opposite: a disclaimer stating that he didn’t deserve it. The citation was not a “mock” citation, but a heartfelt citation written personally by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas. It’s not like they need authorization to write a citation. And the private ceremony was conceived to honor the couple, not the president. Quite honestly, this is why your comments on Biblical scholarship are so untrustworthy — they are tainted with the same sort of blind prejudice. But in this instance, a timely accounting is there for everyone to see. And your description bears no resemblance to it.
It wasn’t an authentic citation, therfore it was a mock citation.
The issue is not what thomas has the right to do but what is in good taste for the President to accept. Accepting a fake citation and receiving an unearned medal in a mock ceremony was in poor taste.
I might believe this if he had rejected the ciation and hadn’t decided to stage a parody of medal ceremony.
This amuses me. Biblical scholarship is one of the areas where I don’t actually have any bias or prejudice. That’s why I tend to be relatively unemotional in those threads. I have no agenda on that topic. I also don’t make up the scholarship. Just about all of what what I say in those areas represents mainstream scholarship and I will identify that which is not.
I’m interested to know exactly how you think my Biblical posts are biased or prejudiced (other than that I presume the non-existence of the supernatural - a stance which is a sine qua non for any attempt at scientific method).
I appreciate the compliements – and for the record, I don’t think you’re any kind of idiot either – but, come on, when you come into a Dope thread and express a view that political criticism of Bush (even the most wingnut verbal attacks) have injured him in a manner analogous to being wounded in combat…well, it’s hard to take you seriously. I honestly think you were half-way trolling. You can’t possibly really believe that.
Can you agree that it would have been more appropriate for the President to accept the medal as a gift – even to invite the couple to the White House – but to politely decline the citation with the grounds that he did not deserve that kind of comparison to soldiers on the ground?