Cecil has examined Bush’s Vietnem era behavoir:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030411.html
He supported the Vietnam war. He did not oppose the draft.
The BC link is a heavily biased anti-Clinton site which blames war protesters for the loss in Vietnam. It makes a lot of completely unsupported claims that BC used family and political influences to lobby the draft board. BC grew up dirt poor in Arkansas. He didn’t have any family or political connections.
Anyway, avoiding the draft isn’t the issue. Avoiding the draft is a worthy and commendable thing to do…as long as you are opposed to the war.
Can you back this statement up?
And yes, I know the link is as biased as the awolbush site. However, I don’t have archive access to the Post for the 10.5 year old article cited at the link. I’d like to see if the link’s author took the article out of context (like you are doing now). Again, I didn’t find anyone defending Clinton’s Vietnam-era behavior, including using influence to avoid the draft.
DtC, there is much to call President Bush out for, just as there was much to do the same for President Clinton. However, when everything gets painted, “Bush bad, Clinton good” or vice versa, people will stop listening to you.
For the record, at my last job, I worked with someone who was as anti-Clinton as you are anti-Bush, and I spent what little effort I would debating politics defending 95% of his accusations against Clinton, and agreeing with the 5% he got right.
Just a clarification…
When I say taking out of context, DtC, I mean President Bush’s trip to the aircraft carrier, and also his position on Vietnam and the draft.
DtC: Just admit that the rope breaking comment was vicious and ill-advised. Do not attempt to justify it in any way. After all, had the cable (“wire”) broken, other people could’ve died–unpleasantly.
About the Washington Post articles:
I pulled up what looks to be the correct one through LexisNexis. This was on page A1 of the September 13, 1992 Post. I’ll put up the link, but I don’t know if it’ll work outside of my IP. link
Some highlights:
"…Clinton’s draft record for the 21 months between March 1968 and the draft lottery in December 1969 has long raised questions. How was he able to avoid being called for his pre-induction physical for 10 1/2 months after being reclassified 1-A? How could he be 1-A for 17 months during a period of large draft calls and never get called? Did he get into an ROTC program at the University of Arkansas in the summer of 1969 without telling officials there he had already received an induction notice? How could he get a deferment from the University of Arkansas ROTC program that summer when he planned to return to Oxford that same fall?..
…
For young men like Clinton, college still afforded a comfortable and not dishonorable escape. Even after graduation, Clinton, who by then knew he had been awarded a coveted Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford University in England, could look forward to continuing deferments as a graduate student.
All that changed on Feb. 16, 1968, when the Johnson administration unexpectedly abolished graduate deferments. To the college graduating class of 1968, the class most directly affected by Johnson’s order, the day was remembered as “Black Friday.” Within five weeks, Clinton had been reclassified 1-A (eligible for induction), in anticipation of his graduation that summer. Still, he went off to Oxford that fall as planned…
…
“Then I decided to go into the Army ROTC and go to law school [at the University of Arkansas] and then do my service,” Clinton continued in the December interview. "The way I got back into the lottery was, at the end of the summer I just decided that was not a good thing to do, you know. I’d already had one good year at Oxford, but by then four of my classmates had died in Vietnam, including a boy that was one of my closest friends when I was a child.
“And so I asked to be put back in the draft,” he continued. "I didn’t know anything about any lottery and I sure as hell didn’t know what my number was. And the guy that was head of the ROTC unit really tried to talk me out of it. He said, ‘You don’t need to do this.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I just can’t put it off. Call me. Let’s go.’ I told my draft board. They said okay, if that’s what you want to do we’ll do it.
“The guy at the draft board then said they were going to call me in January. Then when this lottery came in and I got a high number [311], I asked what does this mean, and they said we’re still going to call everybody but you’ll be called in May [1970]. I said okay, I’ll be there in May. Then Nixon – we didn’t know any of this at the time – that was the year Nixon deescalated the war so they never got to that number. It was just a fluke.”…"
Well, that’s some of it, anyway. Let me add that I think this whole Vietnam debate is a waste of time, for Clinton, Bush, and whatever Baby Boomer president comes next.
Thanks, asterion. I always question how highly biased sights like the one I posted spin their information. Of course, I also always question how political figures spin their information.
The Gloat on the Boat.
Point one: I will call The Craphat in Chief whatever I fucking well please. If I want to call him Commander of Goat Felching I will cheerfully and quite happily do so, as is my right.
Point two: I’m supposed to believe the White house when “they” say that a tailhook landing is safer then a chopper landing on an aircraft carrier, rather then the fucking United States Navy?! What are you, high?
Point three: See point two directly above.
Point four: It’s actually a very clever nickname, but since you obviously don’t get it, you call it stupid. I’m so sure that you were just rolling on the floor whenever someone said “Slick Willie,” in reference to Clinton. Gee, that’s so much more clever.:rolleyes: :rolleyes:
You of course have a cite for this, right? One that doesn’t involve Rush Limbaugh, right?
No, you don’t because it isn’t true.
Air Force One never blocked a runway at LAX.
At least not while Clinton was President and onboard.
Shmuck.
Oh, yeah? Well, what about the secret landing field in Arkansas for smuggling cocaine to finance black helicopters! HA! Can’t answer that one, can you? And how about how he corrupted the innocence of poor little Paula Jones, the Heidi of the Ozarks!
The reason he didn’t fly out in a chopper was…
THE CARRIER WAS OUT OF IT’S RANGE!!!
The helipcopter needs enough fuel to make a roundtrip, not just enough to barely make it one way.
Also helicopters don’t have ejector seats.
You are un-smart. Clinton did indeed block LAX, while having his tender locks sheared by ‘Christophe’, hair-dresser to the stars. Here is his former Press Sec., Dee Dee, talking about it.
It’s utterly mindboggling to watch the frothing-at-the-mouth of Diogenes and Payton (and the frothing-at-the-brain of Elucidator). You’d think children like these would learn that their petty, childish, irrational hatred only makes people less likely to agree with them… thus damaging their own cause.
It’s sad, really. Every time I see DtC post, I shake my head and chuckle.
And you don’t get to wear the cool pressure suit.
Sam replied to Shibb: *“The military loves Bush because a) he’s a Republican, and the GOP plays to themes that many if not most military members hold dear and b) he [lets] them use their toys.”
Sure, that’s part of it. But they love him because he loves them. He supports them, he listens to them. He’s one of them. *
All of these statements ring a little oddly to me. Do the military really love Bush so much more than other presidents, or vice versa? I had the impression that top administration officials actually have an unusually hostile relationship with the uniformed branches. For example, consider Rumsfeld’s criticism of the Joint Chiefs, or last year’s widely publicized disagreements between the Administration and the military on the Iraq invasion plans. I don’t see where you’re getting the notion that Bush is widely perceived by the military as “listening to them”.
Also, there are quite a few vocal veterans’ organizations opposed to Bush’s strategy in Iraq, such as Veterans Against the Iraq War, Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War, and Veterans for Common Sense. Soldiers for the Truth, Military Families Speak Out, and National Gulf War Resource Center have criticized the war from the serving soldier’s point of view, as has Couples Company (a support organization for military couples and families:
That doesn’t exactly present Bush to soldiers as “one of them”. (Don’t forget, also, that there has been an unusual amount of opposition to the war among organized labor, a group with a good deal of demographic overlap with servicepeople and their families.) Bush’s proposed ten-year plan for a $15 billion reduction in veterans’ benefits did not seem to play very well with enlisted folks and veterans either.
So where are these heartwarming notions that Bush is uniquely beloved by the average GI Joe/Jane coming from? Some of them doubtless do hero-worship him, and some military leaders doubtless appreciate his weapons spending plans. But he seems to have attracted plenty of criticism and hostility as well.
Look, Bill Clinton used to give the Secret Service conniptions regularly, when he’d stop his motorcade and jump out of his limo to greet well-wishers. All it takes is one psycho in that crowd and Al Gore would have been president.
Say what you will about Bill Clinton, he understood that you can’t let your security personnel decide your agenda. The President is in charge, not the Secret Service. If the President feels it is a good thing to shake the hands of a few hundred supporters on a street corner, or fly out to a carrier to say hello to the troops, that’s his decision.
Look the president is not irreplacable. If the cable had snapped and Bush was killed, it would be sad, but the country would survive. Mr. Cheney would assume the responsibilities for President for the next 20 months. And the Republicans would have to find another front man for 2004. Big whoop. Sure, protect the president, but come on, relax a little.
How it played for me (and I suspect many other Australians):
I always knew Bush was an idiot, but I never really thought of him as a wanker as well. He dropped even further in my estimation after that stunt.
Unless it sets off a random chain of events in which Strom Thermon ends up in the Oval office.
Then we’re fucked. 