Posted on 01/15/2009 3:55:19 PM PST by doug from upland
FR EXCLUSIVE: "Mission Accomplished" banner was ordered by the Navy, not by the White House
NAVY WEBSITE ^ | 5-1-07 | DFU
Posted on 05/01/2007 2:40:20 PM PDT by doug from upland
Because today is the fourth anniversary of the commander in chief landing aboard the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN with the famous "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner, the enemies at home are going to attempt to use it for political purposes. I don't think I need to name the enemies at home. We all know them well. They are the ones who see defeat as politically beneficial to them and will do whatever they can to embolden the enemy and hurt our troops.
To get to the truth of the story, I phoned the media office of the 2nd Fleet in Norfolk, VA. The man who had the answers for me and graciously returned my call was Captain Conrad Chun.
"When something of such high level is planned, such as the landing of the commander in chief on the ship," said Chun, "there are several planning meetings. At one of the meetings was the idea for a banner that said MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." The mission in this case, was the mission of the USS ABRAHAM LINCOLN. The men and women aboard the nuclear-powered carrier accomplished their mission and stayed out for a record time -- 290 days. It was a very long cruise for them.
The banner specifically was designed to celebrate and memorialize the ship's successful deployment. According to Chun, they had no way to make the banner aboard the ship, so the White House was asked to have it made for them.
"There are still those who will doubt the story," said Chun, "but after speaking to those on the ship, I have no doubt that is how it happened."
On a side note, Godspeed to my former son in law Josh who is on the Nimitz now. Go, Navy!
That is the way I’d heard it, as with all of us at FR. But it didn’t suit the @#$%$# MSM.
I could have sworn I read that on a military site a long time ago. Naturally the truth is not interesting enough for the media to take time getting the story right plus kicking GWB has been so good for them.
Instead he admitted the banner was a "mistake". Why?
bump
Because republicans have no guts. Liberals repeat a lie over and over till everyone believes it. Republicans simply give up and apologize.
Thanks for doing this btw. Your time and effort in all your work on FR is truly appreciated.
I don’t know why he called it a mistake, but the media has its “gotcha” moment.
:)
Republicans might consider becoming a bit more PR savvy.
ALOT more PR savvy.
Most of us here knew from the beginning that this, or something like this was what transpired. There has been a long tradition of navy ships returning from successful missions displaying some type of banner or talisman. There were accounts of submarines in WW II returning to port with a broom tied to the mast to indicate a “clean sweep”.
What was maddening about this episode was the incredibly passive and mind-bogglingly incompetent way “our side” refused to fight back and thus allowed the media and their political opponents to wrest control of the dialogue from them and re-shape public opinion.
This could all have been explained easily and simply to the American people, but it would have required the President or his designated surrogates to stand up to the media and his political opponents and directly call them the liars that they were. Unfortunately, as subsequent events showed it was an ominous foreshadowing of repeated public relations debacles yet to come...
The greatest failure of George Bush was to stand up to the media.
I agree, and I understood what you meant. Hope you don't mind my slight clarification.
Doh! Thanks for the clarification. :)
And did you notice how our Commander in Chief said nothing to protect the integrity of his men. He stood and took all the scorn for this in the MSM for all this time. Truly a Leader...not like what we are in for with Bambi....Bambi would have brushed it off his shoulders as just another one of those things “he was not involved with and had no knowledge of.”
After all, the carrier was returning from its deployment, its mission accomplished. How this became a kerfluffle is beyond belief.
I’ve been a fairly frequent critic of Bush. This sign issue was always a really stupid gripe from my point of view. We had made good progress in Iraq, and then the terrorists marched in.
It was the folks who didn’t want us in Iraq in the first place who thought this was a real issue.
Of course taking out terrorists and their supporters in Iraq wasn’t important, but damn, the sign was a huge issue for them.
You’ve really got to wonder sometimes.
Ships coming off station often had such a banner in VietNam Times.
Thanks for bringing it up, but this was public many years ago. An Ungrateful America didn’t care and the traitors of the media ignored it and thus hid it.
I remember Pres. Bush flying from San Diego to just a ways off the coast to the carrier.
You are correct about the banner.
BTW the Nimitz and Reagan are based here and adding another carrier in a few months.
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