Posted on 08/28/2004 12:48:54 AM PDT by ambrose
Barnes says he's ashamed for getting Bush into Texas Guard
Associated Press
AUSTIN - In a video posted on the Internet, former Democratic Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes said he is ashamed that he helped President Bush and the sons of other wealthy families get into the Texas Air National Guard in 1968 so they could avoid serving in Vietnam.
"I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard when I was lieutenant governor of Texas, and I'm not necessarily proud of that, but I did it," Barnes said in the 45-second video, which was recorded May 27 at a meeting for John Kerry supporters in Austin.
Barnes, who actually was Texas House speaker when Bush entered the Guard, said he became ashamed after walking through the Vietnam Memorial and looking at the names of people who died.
"I became more ashamed of myself than I've ever been because the worst thing I did was get a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance into the Guard and I'm very sorry about that and I apologize to you and the voters of Texas," Barnes said.
President Bush has denied that family influence got him into the Guard.
"It is no surprise that a partisan Democrat is making these statements," Bush spokeswoman Claire Buchan told the Houston Chronicle. "This was addressed five years ago, and there's nothing new."
According to the New York Times, the video was posted June 25 on the Web site Austin4Kerry.com. It didn't get much attention until Friday, when Jim Moore, an Austin-based author of books about Bush, sent out e-mail messages calling attention to it.
The clip was moved to another Web site - 69.59.167.160 - on Friday after the original site crashed from overuse.
"I got a lot of other people in the National Guard because I thought that's what people should do when you're in office: You help a lot of rich people," Barnes said.
It was the first time Barnes, a Kerry supporter, has discussed at length his role in getting Bush into the Guard. In 1999, he said he recommended Bush for a pilot's position at the request of a Bush family friend.
zot this is a repost like 3 times already
No... same story me spready through MSM land...
WPost, AP, NY Times... all slightly different, but the same story... probably gonna hit hard over the weekend.
AWOL is back...
No... same story being spread throughout MSM land...
WPost, AP, NY Times... all slightly different, but the same story... probably gonna hit hard over the weekend.
AWOL is back...
Arm yourself with ALL the facts to defuse this issue.
Stay Strong
Fuzzy
The real story is that Jim Moore, who co-wrote Bush's Brain, used his media contacts to propel this non-story. And it is a non-story -- Barnes testified differently under oath about this, and Barnes couldn't even remember what political office he held at the time of when he supposedly helped the Bush family.
A Pilot has to earn his wings and George W. Bush spent 5 1/2 years serving in the Texas ANG, 4 more years than Kerry spent in the Navy, and President Bush never based his qualifications on his Texas ANG service. Unlike John Kerry has on his 132 days in Vietnam
I have never ever ever
seen an "old media" news story that lists
a numbers-only URL site!
Conservative sights are not even mentioned in "old media" articles, yet this "journalist" at AP goes to great lengths to make sure people go to the website.
Amazing - but predictable.
Hmmmm...
OrgName: ServePath, LLC OrgID: SERVEP Address: 650 Townsend Street Address: Suite 252 City: San Francisco StateProv: CA PostalCode: 94103 Country: US NetRange: 69.59.128.0 - 69.59.191.255
San Francisco. Why oh why am I not surprised?
I'm repeating this from what I said in an earlier post in a seperate board because this is important for everyone to realize, and even Bush supporters may not even know.... so here goes...
......During the Cold War Era, including Nam, if you really truly wanted to put your life on the line in the Armed Services, here's what you would likely go into, depending on which branch you went into.
Army or Marine Corps--Most likely an infantry man, parachute jumper in the 82nd or 101st Airborne (before the latter became chopper assault), or in forward recon, or even a green beret. Ie. cannon fodder, died quickly if unlucky, but glorious heroics if you made it through, silver star or medal of honor material.
Navy--more than likely you were an infantryman, albeit in a navy jumpsuit, in what was the predecessor to the SEALs, the Sea-Bees.
here's the important one...
USAF or Air National Guard--During this time the United States was seriously threatened by the possibility of a sudden launch of (pre ICBM) heavy bombers from the Soviet Union to bomb the US of A into the stone age. Often they would fly large squadrons of 50 blackjack bombers to the border on the bering strait and fly in circles, seeing if we would counter them with anything. Sometimes they would do this a few times a week. To counter this we had subsonic and supersonic interceptor jets, the F-111 and F-102 (may be forgetting a few more, but those are the ones I recall), and they were designed to go after the bombers. They were not like fighters of modern era, they had no air-to ground capability, and were not very good at strafing for close air support either, but they were good at bringing down heavy bombers--designed for air to air interdiction. Now we knew the likely route they would take would be across the bering strait or over the arctic circle, and rather than risk engaging them over Chicago, Detroit or other cities, we would engage them well outside our borders and major cities. Those planes were basically flying gas cans with explosives, and if one had to bug out, if they managed to before it went up in smoke, the likelihood of the life expectancy of a person on one of those going in the drink in the Bering strait or the Arctic ocean would be about three to four minutes, before they would freeze to death. To say the least very risky. In the military of course pilots are usually certified to fly one, maybe two or three aircraft at most, but a bomber pilot one day is not likely to be another day in a dogfight in an F-14, then or now, the next day. Guess who flew one of the interceptor jets in their service? Lt. George W. Bush.
During the Vietnam war, we had none of these interceptors in country because neither the VC nor the NVA had heavy bombers, and they only got MIGs later on when the Soviets and ChiComs started to provide more assistance to them. But during that period the President was flying interceptors, with the purpose of, if the order came, to splash any soviet bombers attempting to bomb us into oblivion. So remember the importance of his position, before denigrating or trivializing his service compared to someone who ordered their swiftboat to scatter before pulling the guy out of the water.
As for what Kerry did, by the way, my dad served in the USCG servicing the Swifties in the Mekong delta region on a high endurance cutter (USCG Taney), as well as providing shore fire support against VC shore targets with the 5" .38, but he told me that (no offence to anyone in Swiftboat Veterans for Truth) that the senior officers and skippers on the swiftboats they serviced, more often than not, came across as whiny lil bi***es, complaining about this and that little scratch they got and wanting to get sent home, so some of this may be not simply limited to Kerry but perhaps endemic of a handful or more persons in this position.
How hard would it be to run a poll to see if we can some numbers on Massachusetts residents who are ashamed of John Kerry...
If it works for us we can publish it and get the AP to run it under the headline, "2/3 of Massachusetts Ashamed of John Kerry".
I can dream can't I?
Work on your facts just a tad.
Seals were active in cold war.
Sea Bees were never forerunner of Seals.
I don't know anyone who characterized Swift Boat officers as 'whiney'...maybe upset that they got to sleep between sheets most of the time (like pilots) but not 'whiney'.
And then there's:
"large squadrons of 50 blackjack bombers ... a few times a week. To counter this we had subsonic and supersonic interceptor jets, the F-111 and F-102 (etc.)...designed for air to air interdiction."
Well, OK.
Last subsonic interceptor was the scorpion, F-89 (?) which was also the poster child for all-missile armament. An interesting dead end in evolution pending the advent of un-manned aerial vehicles.
Fifty Blackjacks would probably represent the entire Soviet Strategic force and was well into F-89's obsolescence.
(Bison = the B-29 clone??)
Century series was all supersonic or capable, not all interceptor. The Aardvark not technically century series and was never, ever, nohow, used as an interceptor. (Admitted, the original Navy version and the original green eyeshade concept was different but the thing was air-to-ground from day one in reality.)
And:
"no air-to ground capability, and were not very good at strafing for close air support either..."
Think about that one for a minute.
I think your point is .... you could quite easily get dead in an ANG F-102, which was actually deployed to, but useless in, Indo China, during the mid sixties. Also, that titles and biased recollections do not heros make.
250+ Swift Boats Vets say Kerry weaseled out of Vietnam by falsly claiming Purple Hearts.
Press reaction;
ZZZZZ. Must be Republican plants. ZZZZZ.
The vice chair of Kerry's campaign says Bush weaseled out of going to Vietnam.
Press reaction;
Get this on the front page! NOW!
Too late...distraction to Bush's record will not work.
It has already been digested by the majority of people.
No matter how Bush got into the guard (and this guy was an elected Democrat, so we don't have to wonder where his loyalties lie), Kerry still has questions to answer.
O'Neill's editorial in the WSJ yesterday was excellent.
It's interesting that Barnes is claiming this, since he didn't become Governor until 1969. and Bush had already been inducted into the Air National Guard in 1968. Here's a brief excerpt from a website biography:
He was a member of President Johnson’s Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, U.S. representative to the NATO Conference in 1967, and United Nations Representative to Geneva, Switzerland, in 1968.
In 1969, Barnes was elected lieutenant governor of Texas and served from 1969 to 1973.
Here's the link to the webiste:
Does he have PROOF? I think the Swiftys have raised the bar a little bit with all the documentation in their book. It's not enough now for one man to SAY something did or did not happen.
See my post #15. Barnes wasn't even Lt. Governor in '68.
Well, well, well...yet ANOTHER lying Demoncrat! Funny that the "reporters" at AP couldn't figure out the timeline.
Naturally, the Leftist press will never issue a retraction.
Kind of hard to help Bush as Lt. Governor when you're actually in Switzerland for the U.N.
Have you sent your findings to the lead editor at AP? I'd say he's got a reporter that needs firing.
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