I believe Mr. Thorlow has remarked that the citation was somehow in the possession of his ex-wife, with whom he has has no contact. At least this last claim is entirely credible and understandable.
(Ahhh, love! Between the magic moment of first meeting, and the issuance of the restraining order…)
[Babs]
Memories…light the coroners of our lives…
[/repulsive diva I wish were a Pubbie]
Oh shit, I forgot to include ad hominum attacks.
Anyone have an idea what the record is for number of pages in a single thread?
Have we set a new record?
(And the election is still more than 2 months away! Any bets on how long this mess will last?)
The famous Guy Stuff thread lasted 23 pages and 1113 posts.
But at 107 pages and 5338 posts a looks like the winner.
Aaah. Good times, good times. And like all such times, if you can actually remember it you weren’t there, man! Which is why I remember it so well.
To achieve that lofty goal, the thread would need a title like "What if J.R.R. Tolkinn Had Been a Member of Swift Boat Veterans For Truth?"
More on the rebuffing of Cleland.
Although Cleland was unsuccessful in getting anyone to deliver the letter to Bush, the Bushies did send some Land Commssioner to take the letter (note, his job was simply to “take” the letter, not to deliver it to Bush) and hand another one to Cleland with some childish remarks from the Bush campaign.
As you can see, this letter, in typical Bushista fashion, is based on a false presentation of the facts. As a matter of fact, Kerry is not criticizing veterans who support the Chimp, he is criticizing veterans who lie about his record. The rest of the letter employs similar misdirection, prevarication and grandstanding. At no point does the letter address any of the slanders made towards John Kerry’s service record and tries to pretend that Kerry’s anger is all about political disagreements rather than a Rove directed slander campaign.
The text of the entire letter can be found right here.
I hope that Kerry keeps hammering away at this garbage until W is forced to actually make a staement about the slander itself. The letter they tried to give to Cleland was smug, but it was a gutless kind of smug. They’re pretending they’ve addressed an issue that they haven’t addressed.
The guy Bush used to protect himself from Cleland Jerry Patterson turns out to have scored $150,000 from Bob Perry. Bob Perry of course, is one of the deep pocket republicans bankrolling Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
Here’s a first shot at it (with sincerest apologies to JRRT):
Three Hearts which we attack with lies based on lies,
Seven <crap, I need a 7, now that I found that there were 9 Senators>,
Nine veteran Senators “Condemn” to Bush advise,
One chance to get Kerry back for for his anti-war tone
In the state of Texas, where the money lies.
One chance to fool them all,
One chance to blind them,
One chance to tell the “facts” (as we have defined them).
In the land of Texas, where the money lies.
[Note: Someone said before there were 7 Senators signing the letter to Bush, but CNN says Cleland says 9]
ALL? All American soldiers???
Including me? (I really don’t remember any except going into Laos.)
Including himself? What war crimes did he admit to?
Must be more conservative lies.
See it HERE in the Wall(eyed) Street(walkers) Journal - oops, I didn;'t MEAN to make an ad-hominem attack, but I guess it’s OK, they’re not dopers…
emphasis mine:
Very droll. Pretending to be so ill-informed as to actually believe that the Wall Street Journal editorial page is a bastion of non-partisan, utterly objective reporting of fact.
I had no idea that you had such a gift for post-modernist irony!
I’m curious.
I’m on the pro-Kerry/anti-Swifties side of things, and there seems to me to be parallels between this situation and the Abu-Ghraib prison scandal.
I look at Kerry testifying before congress in 1971 that the war was immoral, and that soldiers were asked and ordered to commit war crimes - soldiers may or may not have knowingly committed war crimes, but I see the brunt of responsibility with the commanders-in-chief, joint-chiefs-of-staff, and military higher-ups.
I see Abu-Ghraib and personally hold accountable W, Rumsfeld, and the top military echelon much more than the rank-and-file soldiers who were actually humiliating and torturing the prisoners.
Do the people on the other side of the fence, who believe Kerry was condemning the soldiers and that you can’t “have it both ways,” believe the whistle-blowing soldiers in Abu Ghraib are unpatriotic? Or who do they hold accountable?
Must be. After all, they’re giving Aid And Comfort To The Enemy, aren’t they?
I wonder how long until the man who burned a Marine van (sorry, link requires registration) is sent to Gitmo.
Then again, I think they have something legit to charge him with, so maybe they won’t need to do with that.
-Joe
As regards Mr. Thurlow’s alibi: he claims that he did not know that his Bronze Star was awarded for valor under fire (apparently, he thinks the award is commonly given for extraordinary efforts as a life guard and water safety instructor).
Joe Conason points out that if this were so, he must have failed to notice that his medal is embossed with a “V”, which is specificly appended to the medal for valor under enemy fire. Mr. Thurlow therefore has some extraordinary and eccentric form of cognitive dissonance, or he is a lying sack.
(Your correspondent does not claim any vast expertise regarding military awards and commendations. I accept that this is probably true because Mr. Conason is pretty reliable. If contradictory information is available, hokey-dokey.)
I think whistle-blowing is absolutely fine and patriotic thing to do.
But I’m curious too.
Is Kerry a whistle-blower or self-aggrandizing schmuck, caught spinning tall tales for political and personal advantage?
Kerry needs to learn a lesson that will remain forever seared - seared! - in him and the time is now, especially if he is to become a POTUS.
What lesson would that be?
Elucidator, may I place your definition of to snake in my sig with appropriate homage to the originator (though not specifically the origin)? “Snaking” is right up there with “See What You Made Me Do” in my list of posting irritants. It has needed a name.
O’Neil on his own experiences in Cambodia:
“I was in Cambodia, sir. I worked along the border,” – June 16, 1971 to Presiden Nixon
“Our boats didn’t go north of, only slightly north of Sedek,” which he said was about 50 miles from the Cambodian border. – August 22, 2004, in an interview on ABC’s This Week
“I think I made it very clear that I was on the border, which is exactly where I was for three months. I was about 100 yards from Cambodia,” O’Neill said in clarifying the June 16, 1971, conversation with Nixon – interview with Associated Press, August 25, 2004
Zoe:
I take a collectivist approach to SDMB drollerys. You can’t steal what is freely given. If one of my lines will get you a laugh, laid, or all lickered up, go for it. As a general rule, Wodehouse, I borrow, Vonnegut, I steal, Twain, I plunder.
How about this? Any additions? Corrections?
snake – vb (21c) : SDMB slang meaning to proactively complain about martyred misunderstanding and abuse in advance of anyone actually giving a shit. (origin: use by elucidator, 8/25/2004
(Just saving the Oxford people a little trouble)