#1
Posted: 2/24/04 at 10:10pm
I know there was another thread about this, but damn if I can find it...SO...
Talking Points Memo, by Joshua Micah Marshall
(February 23, 2004 -- 11:03 AM EDT // link // print)
Just when you start debating how much or whether the president's
military service record should be an issue in this campaign, you realize
that the main reason it's an issue is that the president and his surrogates
just won't stop lying about it.
This morning Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot was interviewed by Juan
Williams on NPR. When asked about the president's Air National Guard
service he said, the president's and John Kerry's service "compare very
favorably... He (i.e. the president) signed up for dangerous duty. He
volunteered to go to Vietnam. He wasn't selected to go, but nonetheless
served his country very well Š"
He volunteered to go to Vietnam?
Marc, no he didn't.
Does he think no one is listening?
(For some reason Williams, made no effort to call him on it.)
Let's set aside the fact that pulling strings to get into the Air
National Guard in 1968 is, on its face, quite the opposite of
volunteering to go to Vietnam. When the president signed up for the
National Guard there was a check box asking whether he wanted to
volunteer for overseas service. And he checked off "do not volunteer."
Now, the president's defenders have tried to explain this in various
ways, hypothesizing that some unknown other person checked off the box
or, more plausibly, that he was instructed to do so since what he was
actually signing up for was to fly planes in Texas. Of late, they've
brought forward friends or fellow Guardsmen who say -- with no
documentary evidence whatsoever -- that Bush at one point or another
asked about serving in Vietnam.
(There is also the president's claim that he volunteered for something
called Palace Alert, a program that would have taken him to Thailand.
But I believe there is no record of this. And as noted in this
Washington Post interview from 1999, if he did sign up, it would have
been within a week of the program's being shut down -- a fact that
points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that if he did sign up, he did
so to sign up, not to go.)
But however that may be, it is awfully hard to turn the "do not
volunteer" into "do volunteer."
This is just a preview of what we're certain to see from the Bush
campaign this year since it follows past practice so closely: Wait till
the brouhaha subsides and then hopscotch over the remaining unanswered
questions about the president's service by making stuff up that is
flatly contradicted by the record.
Who's going to call them on this?
-- Josh Marshall
Talking Points
Talking Points Memo, by Joshua Micah Marshall
(February 23, 2004 -- 11:03 AM EDT // link // print)
Just when you start debating how much or whether the president's
military service record should be an issue in this campaign, you realize
that the main reason it's an issue is that the president and his surrogates
just won't stop lying about it.
This morning Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot was interviewed by Juan
Williams on NPR. When asked about the president's Air National Guard
service he said, the president's and John Kerry's service "compare very
favorably... He (i.e. the president) signed up for dangerous duty. He
volunteered to go to Vietnam. He wasn't selected to go, but nonetheless
served his country very well Š"
He volunteered to go to Vietnam?
Marc, no he didn't.
Does he think no one is listening?
(For some reason Williams, made no effort to call him on it.)
Let's set aside the fact that pulling strings to get into the Air
National Guard in 1968 is, on its face, quite the opposite of
volunteering to go to Vietnam. When the president signed up for the
National Guard there was a check box asking whether he wanted to
volunteer for overseas service. And he checked off "do not volunteer."
Now, the president's defenders have tried to explain this in various
ways, hypothesizing that some unknown other person checked off the box
or, more plausibly, that he was instructed to do so since what he was
actually signing up for was to fly planes in Texas. Of late, they've
brought forward friends or fellow Guardsmen who say -- with no
documentary evidence whatsoever -- that Bush at one point or another
asked about serving in Vietnam.
(There is also the president's claim that he volunteered for something
called Palace Alert, a program that would have taken him to Thailand.
But I believe there is no record of this. And as noted in this
Washington Post interview from 1999, if he did sign up, it would have
been within a week of the program's being shut down -- a fact that
points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that if he did sign up, he did
so to sign up, not to go.)
But however that may be, it is awfully hard to turn the "do not
volunteer" into "do volunteer."
This is just a preview of what we're certain to see from the Bush
campaign this year since it follows past practice so closely: Wait till
the brouhaha subsides and then hopscotch over the remaining unanswered
questions about the president's service by making stuff up that is
flatly contradicted by the record.
Who's going to call them on this?
-- Josh Marshall
Talking Points
Sueleen Gay: "Here you go, Bitch, now go make some fukcing lemonade." 10/28/10
Updated On: 2/24/04 at 10:10 PM
