If he really thinks the CIC deserves a Purple Heart for getting criticized, he’s an asshole (and he didn’t make the same offer to Clinton, did he?). It’s anti-American to compare political criticism of leadership to getting wounded in a war and his offer is grossly inappropriate. I don’t think he’s being “nice,” I think he’s grandstanding.
Yeah, but it’s silly to dump on ordinary people for being idiots and douchebags. You can always find lots of people on either side who are a total embarrassment to that side, if you go digging hard enough. The question is, are we talking about Joe Blow, or someone holding high office or whatnot?
If his sense of tact and irony were truly sublime, he’d hand them to Kerry.
The most amazing thing, to me, is that this is the issue the OP chooses to criticize Bush about. To paraphrase Jon Stewart, it’s a bit like criticizing Charles Manson for ruining the carpets at the Tate and LaBianca houses.
You’re making assumptions about my general opinion of Bush that aren’t accurate. A lot of the things most of the SDMB reviles about Bush, I have no problem with. That being said, I do find many flaws in the man, this particular error in judgment (if he went through with it) is one that I felt was pitworthy.
I just think this bears repeating.
Which negates nothing at all about my post.
The fact that, of all of Bush’s flaws and errors in judgment, this is the one that you find most contemptible, beggars belief.
Your* fling poo * is strong…
Not that it matters, but John Kerry might think that one has every right to make a political statement with any honor honestly earned and conferred. Thanks to Shodan for again giving us a cite that says a lot less and a lot more than the Google blurb he actually read did.
If a decorated veteran thinks that the non-wounded non-combatant George Bush deserves a Purple Heart for his non-efforts, he is free to give him one, though it would be more in keeping with the philosophy of the proposed giftee for the thing to be sold or stolen. The honoree can only give the object as a thing, after all, he cannot award it as an honor, because it is not within his authority to do so. George Bush can buy or borrow himself a fight suit and strut about the deck of an aircraft carrier, and he might even be able to award himself the Purple Heart for a stubbed toe looking for a photogenic spot around the ruins of the World Trade Center, and I don’t doubt that he will someday do so.
I would have been left without any criticism to offer had there been any message declining the offer because a decent honesty, never mind modesty, forbids the acceptance of unearned plaudits or their symbols. But then again, this is a guy who managed not to drop a sheepskin from two ivy league schools.
Okay, we’ll compromise. The admiring vet can come to D.C., meet with Dubya, and blow him for the photographers.
**Martin Hyde ** is/was a military man, he might be able to forgive Bush many other things, but issues like Purple Hearts obviously run with a deep sense of what is right and wrong and what is honorable. It makes sense to me.
Jim
And again, i’ll say that if anyone—military man or not—thinks that this is the most dishonorable thing Bush has done, he needs to extract his head from his ass. And i wouldn’t have made the point if the poster in question hadn’t spent so much time on these boards over the past few years defending almost everything Bush ha done.
Who said he found it the “most contemptible”? MH might merely feel that Bush’s other flaws have been quite adequately pitted by others; a view not without considerable merit, one feels.
Really, must there always be someone who carps about all the other things the OP is failing to pit at this precise moment? It’s incredibly tiresome.
Presidents receive gifts all of the time. By law, the vast majority of them remain the property of the American people, and typically are retained in the archives and displayed or stored at presidential libraries or associated records stores.
This isn’t much of a big deal, if it was a low key event. It will be a curiosity akin to Elvis’s gift of a Colt .45 pistol and photos to President Nixon. Now, if it were blown up into a big to-do, that would be a big political mistake.
Right, and as i said, if he hadn’t put so much time and effort into defending Bush from just about every single one of those, then i wouldn’t have made the point.
Well if Bush accepts/ed the medal the only way to justify it would be to have him earn it after the fact.
Anybody want to drive me to DC?
Well, you can’t swing a dead possum around here without hitting some other thread criticizing Bush for something or other. I think criticizing Bush for this is perfectly reasonable. For someone who asks a lot of our military, like their lives, limbs and health, it is just an extra little slap in the face to accept a medal that he hasn’t earned.
My father was injured in combat in WWII, he wasn’t shot but he received a back injury which plagued him the rest of his life. He didn’t feel like he really earned a purple heart even though he was injured in combat. I can’t imagine what he’d say about Bush even being offered this medal, let alone accepting it. Well, I can imagine it but I probably can’t even say some of it in the pit and it’s hard to reproduce the yelling, spitting and bulging forehead veins in print.
From everything I can see, it appears that this is the general plan.
Can you direct me to whatever is leading you to infer that it’s not?
Well maybe this is his first step for accepting the truth that Bush has been a terrible president and hurt the US around the world, far more than he has helped us.
Okay, probably not.
I defend Bush where he deserves defending and I will criticize him where he deserves criticism. That’s about as simple as it gets. I’m a conservative, I have a whole different political viewpoint than most of the people on these forums, and for that reason I defend things which you find indefensible. If you want to open up a dialog on how you dislike that I’ve defended Bush on a wide range of issues, you can certainly pit me yourself. I fail to see what it has to do with this thread.
As I said, I certainly hope that’s what happens (although I’d still prefer he turn it down.) The general tone of the article, the fact that the veteran wrote up a citation that he passed on to his congressional rep who then passed it on to Bush who then invited the veteran to the White House to present the award to Bush is what makes me infer that isn’t happening.
This is the single news article available at present on this whole event, so I’m not ready to get married to any single interpretation, but just based on this single article (which is all we have at the moment, maybe it’s all we’ll ever have) I interpreted it the way I did.