Maybe they need one of those fax machines hooked up to the news wire, like the Democrats have. |
Posted on 05/06/2003 3:12:42 PM PDT by GeneD
Filed at 5:36 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Questioning the motives of a ``desk-bound president who assumes the garb of a warrior,'' Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd on Tuesday reproached President Bush for flying onto an aircraft carrier last week to declare an end of major fighting in Iraq.
``I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan, and yet that is what I saw,'' Byrd said on the Senate floor.
Byrd, 85, of West Virginia, is the Senate's most senior member and was one of the most outspoken critics of the Iraq war.
Dressed in a flight suit, Bush was flown onto the USS Abraham Lincoln on Thursday, his small S-3B Viking jet making a tailhook landing. The ship was near San Diego on its return from action in the Persian Gulf.
With the sea as his backdrop, Bush announced that the United States and its allies had prevailed against Saddam Hussein.
Byrd contrasted the speech with the ``simple dignity'' of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address during the Civil War.
``I do not begrudge his salute to America's warriors aboard the carrier Lincoln, for they have performed bravely, ... but I do question the motives of a desk-bound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech,'' he said.
He said American blood has been shed defending Bush's policies. ``This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial,'' he said.
``To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the president to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech,'' he said.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer has rejected any suggestion that the landing was intended to provide campaign footage for Bush's re-election campaign.
On Tuesday, before Byrd's speech, Fleischer said Bush wanted ``to see an aircraft landing the same way that the pilots saw an aircraft landing. He wanted to see it as realistically as possible.''
Who was that other guy that loathed the military?
If the Commander-in Chief can't arrive on to an aircraft carrier by way of a fighter jet, then I have to immagine the Senator would have a bird if a civilian was buried at sea, say John F. Kennedy on the destroyer USS Briscoe, jr. Now just what did Bryd say about this matter to the fat senator from Massachusetts?
Byrd contrasted the speech with the ``simple dignity'' of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address during the Civil War.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but Byrd was supporting the brave Union troops but against Lincoln's Unjust War-For-Slaves too. Probably got on his soapbox about that too. "No Blood for..."fill in your favorite Byrd slur here.
In all seriousness, WV isn't my state, and the Democrates aren't my party, but this corrupt good Old Boy is affront to America being in the Senate.
Maybe they need one of those fax machines hooked up to the news wire, like the Democrats have. |
Excerpt from Ann Coulter's column called "The Robert C. Byrd Bridge To Poverty" on February 14, 2002:
Evidently what the people-in-need are asking for is a lot of federal projects named after Senator Byrd.
Some items funded by taxpayers – but still somehow named after "Robert C. Byrd" – are: The Robert C. Byrd Highway; the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam; the Robert C. Byrd Institute; the Robert C. Byrd Life Long Learning Center; the Robert C. Byrd Honors Scholarship Program; the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope; the Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing; the Robert C. Byrd Federal Courthouse; the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center; the Robert C. Byrd Academic and Technology Center; the Robert C. Byrd United Technical Center; the Robert C. Byrd Federal Building; the Robert C. Byrd Drive; the Robert C. Byrd Hilltop Office Complex; the Robert C. Byrd Library; the Robert C. Byrd Learning Resource Center; the Robert C. Byrd Rural Health Center.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Doesn't sound political to me....
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I guess these things go right out of the fax machine in the Democratic cloakroom straight onto the AP wire. I bet the Republicans wish they could say something and have it printed.