Posted on 05/13/2003 6:44:23 PM PDT by Utah Girl
Congress' investigative agency won't look at the costs of President Bush's "Top Gun" flight to an aircraft carrier to declare an end to major fighting in Iraq.
Comptroller General David Walker, head of the General Accounting Office, said Tuesday it would cost too much and take too long to do the study.
He also would have to look at similar actions by other presidents and possibly federal lawmakers "in order to do this kind of work in a professional, objective, nonpartisan, fair and balanced manner," Walker said.
"In my view, it does not pass a cost-benefit test," he said.
The requests were submitted by Reps. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, and Mark Souder, R-Ind., chairman of a Government Reform subcommittee. Waxman said the trip had "clear political overtones."
Bush, who was an officer with the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War, landed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, at sea off San Diego, in an S-3B jet piloted by a Navy flier. Wearing a flight suit, with his flight helmet under his arm, Bush hopped onto the flight deck and walked among the gathered sailors, welcoming them home from the Iraq war.
Some Democrats, like Waxman, called the trip political rather than presidential.
"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," said the Senate's most senior member, Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer initially said Bush had to use a plane rather than his helicopter because the aircraft carrier was going to be hundreds of miles offshore. It turned out the ship was just 39 miles from shore at the time of Bush's visit, an easy flight for a helicopter.
Fleischer then 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."
A day after Bush's visit, Fleischer dismissed any suggestion the trip was designed to boost Bush's re-election.
"This is not about the president," he said. "This is about thanking the men and women who won a war."
It didn't pass the "smell test" either. LOL! Prairie
Go Dubya, it's your birthday, Go Dubya, it your birthday...
NFP
Well, Robert KKK Byrd has no grounds to be getting affronted on behalf of anyone else. As for the trip being political, all trips by politicians are political in one way or another, and I'm sure "KKK" and "Pious" Waxman have taken a few of those themselves, too. Besides, Bush conducted official business on the trip - giving a national address - so it passes the smell test anyway.
I notice no wounded soldiers, whom the former head Klansman is shedding such crocodile tears about, have claimed the trip was an affront. I have not heard any active soldiers at all claim that. As for what may or may not affront the dead, that is all in Byrd's octogenarian imagination.
I was kinda hoping he woulda used a catch-phrase like, "This doesn't pass the smell test." Or, "The President is thumbing his nose at the taxpayer." Or, "My nostrils are so huge he could've landed in one and walked to the carrier in the other."
Ah, well. Maybe next time.
I was kinda hoping he woulda used a catch-phrase like, "This doesn't pass the smell test." Or, "The President is thumbing his nose at the taxpayer." Or, "My nostrils are so huge he could've landed in one and walked to the carrier in the other."
Ah, well. Maybe next time.
What's up with this guy?
Bottom line ....lets see the photos and video clip ONE MORE TIME.
Should keep it in the news till Christmass.
Not to mention the smell test.
Excellent point. Remember that US submarine that surfaced directly underneath a Japanese fishing boat killing a bunch of people? Weren't there a bunch of reporters on that sub? How come Nostrisaurus Rex didn't ask how much it cost to house reporters on board that sub?
"In my view, it does not pass a cost-benefit test," he said.
And if he did that, he'd have a can of worms with the Clinton Administration. Even if the GAO was left-leaning, he's obviously not going to go there.
(1) To me, it is an affront to American killed or injured to have a Klansman acting as our spokesman. Respectfully Senator, we fought Nazis -- we don't ask for them to do public relations work for us. But then, I guess having never served in the KKK but never in the military you might not understand this. In 1942, when my grandfather volunteered to servce in WWII, you, an able-bodied American male, instead joined the Klan. You are a disgrace to every American male.
(2) Ignore the last remark: The whole Democratic Party and every thing it stands for is an affront to our servicemen. You're just one growth of this stubborn cancer.
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