Posted on 02/09/2004 3:28:15 PM PST by rocklobster11
I just saw Chris Matthews on Lester Holt, and Lester asked him whether the National Guard issue would continue. Chris said that it would because Bush didn't answer the question.
Lester mentioned Terry McAuliffe's statement about Bush being AWOL. Chris brought up the president's answer about people not bad-mouthing the National Guard, and said that Terry McAuliffe had not said anything bad about the National Guard. Well, Russert did not ask Bush to comment on Terry McAuliffe, he asked Bush to comment on the National Guard issue. I've seen many stories in the press about how the National Guard is not real service and that people enlisted in the National Guard as a way of avoiding going to Vietnam. Thus, I think Bush's statement was right on.
Then Lester asked Chris about Bush getting out of the Guard 8 months early in order to go to HBS. Chris responded that HBS started in September and the period in question was from May of the previous year to May of that year. Well, that may have been Chris's period in question, but Tim Russert specifically asked the president if he had gotten out of the Guard 8 months early in order to attend HBS, and the president said yes.
So it seems that we have people saying three things about Bush's service
Here's the text of the Russert interview, and I think the president answered the questions fully.
President Bush: Political season is here. I was I served in the National Guard. I flew F 102 aircraft. I got an honorable discharge. I've heard this I've heard this ever since I started running for office. I I put in my time, proudly so.
I would be careful to not denigrate the Guard. It's fine to go after me, which I expect the other side will do. I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard, though, and the reason I wouldn't, is because there are a lot of really fine people who served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq.
Russert: The Boston Globe and the Associated Press have gone through some of their records and said there’s no evidence that you reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972.
President Bush: Yeah, they re they're just wrong. There may be no evidence, but I did report; otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged. In other words, you don't just say "I did something" without there being verification. Military doesn't work that way. I got an honorable discharge, and I did show up in Alabama.
Russert: You did were allowed to leave eight months before your term expired. Was there a reason?
President Bush: Right. Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military.
Russert: When allegations were made about John McCain or Wesley Clark on their military records, they opened up their entire files. Would you agree to do that?
President Bush: Yeah. Listen, these files I mean, people have been looking for these files for a long period of time, trust me, and starting in the 1994 campaign for governor. And I can assure you in the year 2000 people were looking for those files as well. Probably you were. And absolutely. I mean, I
Russert: But would you allow pay stubs, tax records, anything to show that you were serving during that period?
President Bush: Yeah. If we still have them, but I you know, the records are kept in Colorado, as I understand, and they scoured the records.
And I'm just telling you, I did my duty, and it's politics, you know, to kind of ascribe all kinds of motives to me. But I have been through it before. I'm used to it. What I don't like is when people say serving in the Guard is is may not be a true service.
Russert: Would you authorize the release of everything to settle this?
President Bush: Yes, absolutely.
We did so in 2000, by the way.
Does anyone have the article, a link, anything? The first thing to do is start at the beginning and then systematically tear this absurd arguement down.
Wouldn't most people agree that after 2 terms of X42 that the whole military service issue would be a non starter anymore? I can't believe that we still have to rehash this stuff.
MoodyBlu
Unbelievable isn't it? COULD so many Americans be so completely stupid that they can't retain information for more than 30 days? Modern, short-term memory has an expiration date?
You're right about the NEA and dumbing down of America of course. This brings me to Clinton. Clinton could talk on TV for hours - he did that during his STOU addresses - and nobody knew what he was saying. Everyone who listened to him for any period of time went mentally numb.
So all the puff pieces his supporters in the media wrote about him during that 8-year black mark in our history were completely based on interpretation, the author's interpretation of Clinton's meaning. Oh yeah, his little word bytes, later termed talking points were always faithfully quoted, but the rest was interpretation, because they didn't get what he said any more than the rest of the public.
WE the public seem to have become used to the media's creative interpretation over those past 8 years. In fact, most of us are so used to it we accept and expect it as normal journalism. Well, it may be the norm NOW, but it's neither normal for us, nor good journalism.
The press really seems confused by President Bush's straight talking style. President Bush expects you to listen closely to what he says, because he says what he means. No interpretation is necessary.
So the media's interpreting his statements. They all think the worst of him and so put the worst interpretation on what he says. From those creative interpretations have sprung such gems as 16WordGate (the sentence he didn't say but the press said he did) and the newest addition to the Gate line of media products, ImminentThreatGate.
StockpileGate is a little more complicated because it involves creative interpretation of David Kay's words as well as the president's.
He specifically mentioned those too. This is an urban legend, being foisted on us as fact by the socialist party in charge. Period.
Is it not possible that the fact that he was a YALE GRADUATE was a large mitigating factor?
This is making me ill! The smell of hypocrisy is stronger than usual.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1070876/posts
And guess what Chris Matthews said on his own show about that... he claimed adamantely that young men joined the National Guard to avoid service in Vietnam.
I just listened to him with Max Cleland and Tim Russert discussing "the interview"... it didn't sound like the interview I heard. Also, Max Cleland claimed Bush's dad helped him get into the Guard and at first, it seemed Matthews was going to let him get away with that claim without asking for his source. But he did as him "how do you know that?" McCleland's answer? He told Chris Matthews he should read Mollie Ivans' book. That was his answer. And Chris let it ride as though the answer was reliable. Mollie Ivans is a loud mouth obnoxious democrat that has written all kinds of hate-filled garbage about the Bush's. She is anything *but* a reliable resource. I'm so annoyed I could spit. It appears Matthews is going to pound this issue and make it a major one.
This started in 1996 I believe. Remember how Saddam used carefully controlled rumor to keep the population confused adn not knowing what to believe so they'd do his bidding? The microgates the Dems have been trying to hatch against Bush forcibly remind of of that.
It became overt with the onset of the Democratic primaries. It's shameful. Nothing objective about his show when discussing politics any more.
Livid is not strong enough.!
Matthews thinks by being "honest" about joining the Peace Corp to avoid the draft, gives him cover, and calls Cleland a war hero. Cleland lost his limbs by mishandling his own grenade, and if he had not received grievous injuries, he would have become a pariah, within his own company. These libs just astound me, they can make a hero out of whole cloth when he is one of their own, and defend a true draft dodger through the gates of hell. The hypocrisy and the bias of these supposed journalists, is beyond the pale.
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