"I support George W Bush and we are gonna go through those democrats like crap through a goose."
Posted on 08/31/2004 2:30:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
NEW YORK CITY - At last month's Democratic convention, former Navy Lt. John Kerry projected himself as ready for duty in the White House, standing alongside his band of brothers from Vietnam and boasting testimonials from no less than four former generals.
Now it's George W. Bush's turn to trumpet military toughness. As the Republican National Convention unfolds in New York, the wartime president and commander in chief is firing back against Kerry with a parade of veterans that includes a former rival, his own father and legions of ex-servicemen from World War II to Iraq.
Kerry has already been thrown on the defensive with a series of ads from other Vietnam-era Swift boat commanders who have accused the decorated Vietnam veteran of lying about his service.
Although the Bush White House has disavowed a connection with the ads, Bush-Cheney campaign strategists believe the commercials have damaged Kerry's credibility and hope to use the four-day convention in New York to further blunt the Democratic nominee's appeal to veterans.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who opposed Bush for the GOP nomination during the 2000 presidential race, set the tone for the convention by endorsing Bush's leadership in pursuing the war in Iraq.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of veterans gathered on the deck of the USS Intrepid, now a floating museum moored on the Hudson River, where Bush's father paid tribute to U.S. combat forces and warned that harsh attacks on his son's policies could be undercutting troop morale.
"The personal attacks directed against the commander in chief go far beyond the pale in my view," said the former president, a decorated Navy pilot in World War II who was shot down on a bombing mission in the Pacific.
Democrats have accused Bush of dodging service in Vietnam by using his family's influence to get into the Texas Air National Guard. Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes, a leading fund-raiser for the Kerry campaign, has said that he helped place Bush in the Guard unit and told a Kerry rally that he was ashamed of his action. Barnes' remarks surfaced this summer on a Kerry Web site.
A key voting bloc
The dueling and increasingly bitter charges surrounding the candidates' Vietnam-era service reflect the importance of the vet vote in the close race for the presidency.
From the outset of his candidacy, Kerry has sought to undercut Bush's perceived strength on national security by touting his own military service in Vietnam. Republicans have likewise portrayed Bush as a tough and decisive commander in chief and warn that a change in leadership would hurt national security.
Recent polls suggest that the Massachusetts senator has been hurt by the Swift boat controversy and show Bush with a comfortable lead among veterans. A preconvention poll released last week by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey showed that veterans prefer Bush over Kerry by 56 percent to 38 percent.
Many veterans at the Republican convention express anger at Kerry's anti-war stance after his Vietnam service. Some say his statements bordered on treason.
"He's definitely unfit for command," said Eric Bagwell, an alternate delegate from Winnie in southeast Texas, and a third-generation Marine. Bagwell, repeating a commonly held view among other veterans at the convention, also said he had no quarrel with Bush's Vietnam-era service as a reservist.
"Any reservist can be called up at any time," Bagwell said. "It wasn't his choice not to go. His unit wasn't called up."
Responding to Kerry's early campaign overtures to veterans, Bush-Cheney operatives have countered with a well-coordinated campaign to identify and register pro-Bush veterans. Republicans have also recruited military heroes such as Scott O'Grady, an Air Force pilot who was shot down in Bosnia in 1995, to crisscross the nation organizing veteran support for the president.
Veterans working independently of the campaign also spread the Bush message through e-mails and telephone calls. Retired Air Force Gen. Jimmy Dishner, 66, a commander of Pleiku Air Base in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive, is waging such an effort in Kerry's home state, from Dishner's home in Cape Cod, Mass.
"We're in the minority up there," he acknowledges. But in carrying out his e-mail campaign to shore up support for the president, Dishner says he "hasn't found a vet yet" who plans to vote for Kerry.
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Dave Montgomery, (202) 383-6016 dmontgomery@krwashington.com
We will not quickly join those who march on Veterans' Day waving small flags, calling to memory those thousands who died for the "greater glory of the United States." We will not accept the rhetoric. We will not readily join the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars-in fact, we will find it hard to join anything at all and when we do, we will demand relevancy such as other organizations have recently been unable to provide. We will not take solace from the creation of monuments or the naming of parks after a select few of the thousands of dead Americans and Vietnamese. We will not uphold traditions which decorously memorialize that which was base and grim. It is from these things the New Soldier is asking America to turn. We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years.
Those comments came in the epilogue to "The New Soldier," the book put out by Vietnam Veterans against the War. The book's cover features a group of not-particularly sober-looking antiwar protesters (vets, presumably) flying the American flag upside down, with the hygene associated with the protesters in New York City right now.
When the speech was announced August 18, Kerry's communications director, Stephanie Cutter, told reporters that Kerry is a member of the American Legion.***
"I support George W Bush and we are gonna go through those democrats like crap through a goose."
The Facts about Bush and the National Guard - The Democratic charges fall apart.*** Lost amid all the charges are the facts about Bush's time in the Guard. When did he serve? What did he do? Did he fulfill his responsibilities? Was he in Alabama? In the March 8, 2004, issue of National Review, Byron York investigated and found the answers. ***
Swift Vets about to unleash ad #4 in Florida.
I love that expression.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Patton
"Swift Vets about to unleash ad #4 in Florida."
Is that the one about Kerry throwing away 'his'medals?
These guys are good!
Bump!
I'm hoping they'll eventually get to Kerry's Paris dalliances with the North Vietnamese communists while he remained a commissioned United States Naval officer in 1971.
The Rats are still pushing the line that 1971 was a "break in service", which it was not. Kerry was continuously in the Naval Reserves from 1966 to 1978.
I do no such thing.
I say they were treasonous.
And let's not forget how Kerry lumped National Guardsmen in with draft dodgers this year when badmouthing the president. I know a few million Guard and Reserve family members who might have a problem with this one.
GWB had over 500 missions flown in the F-102, yet my local news editor said to me the other day, "But Bush didn't serve..." Are they really that ignorant? Yes. We have to explain to them that just because a fighter pilot hasn't been in combat, it doesn't make them LESS of a fighter pilot. MY GAWD, people are so ignorant of the military.
And the real kicker is when I see Kerry in that flight jacket -- UNEARNED!!! That's a slap in the face to all you pilots. A prop. Just like he uses his "band of brothers" -- as props.
I would like to see some data regarding what percentage of journalists have served in the military. Bet it's in the low single digits.
Bump and support the SWIFT VETS...see the new ad here http://swift3.he.net/~swift3/medals.mov
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