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NORFOLK EVEN FIGHTER PILOTS need some help carrying their luggage when they're embarking on a six-month cruise. Lt. William Fincher, assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 15, had his mother help carry his gear to the aircraft carrier Bush on Tuesday afternoon. The Bush and its sister ships in Carrier Strike Group 2 leave today for an expected six-month deployment to the Mediterranean and Arabian seas.

It’s interesting how irrelevance manifests itself. Like the Democrats this week. They’ve been parading up and down, making speeches in Congress and holding press conferences, complaining about the president’s flight out to that aircraft carrier last week. They’ve called it a waste of money. They’ve said it delayed the return of the vessel to port. They’ve said it was all a publicity stunt. They’ve been full of crap. And shown their complete disconnect with the American public and the American military. Because we loved it. We cheered it. Not because we are partisans, but because we are Americans. If the...

<p>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.</p> <p>Comptroller General David Walker, head of the General Accounting Office, said yesterday it would cost too much and take too long to do the study.</p>

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...

But some politicians on the mainland, and on the other side of the political aisle, criticized the president's tail-hook landing as an overpriced photo opportunity. Word about the partisan sniping traveled fast throughout the ship. Many sailors couldn't quite believe it was happening, that the historical presidential visit was becoming cheapened by talk that it was just a well-choreographed display that would win the president votes in the next election. It was the latest example. On ship or on shore, a person's position shapes their perception. Bush didn't need to land on the Lincoln's flight deck, or use it later...

I have had it! Can you believe the liberal Democrats are so desperate after the successful war that they had to stoop so low to make something out of President Bush's landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln? They claim to be worried about Bush using footage of this in a campaign commercial, but by bringing this up, they were counting on their liberal buddies in the Mainstream Media to keep replaying the images. It did, over & over again! It's like the relentless attacks over conservative Republicans like Sen. Rick Santorium (over his opposition to gay Marriage) and Bill Bennett....

Sometimes the best political strategy is simply to stand still and allow yourself to be attacked by the wrong guy.snip We are witness to such a phenomenon as George Bush -- cheered, regaled and not-bad in his Top Gun duds -- finds his form-fitting aviator pants leg in the clenched teeth of Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., playing the Taco Bell Chihuahua to Bush's Rin Tin Tin.snipAs one-two punches go, the Byrd/Waxman sally was a bad day for nerds everywhere. Performing a whiney duet of the desperate, they managed to evoke images of skinny boys studying the quarterback's swagger for clues...

There is vice as well as virtue in the presence in most American homes of several flavors of 24-hour cable news channels. The vice is that we are doing to ourselves electronically and institutionally what Winston Smith observed at the Ministry of Truth in the novel 1984. We are sacrificing both the past and the future to the moving moment – we are throwing facts down the "memory hole." The Democrat-sponsored mini-flap over President Bush's speech aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln is a case in point. The two main attackers of the President's "photo-op" speech aboard the carrier which was...

From the dawn of their species, White House press secretaries have sought to cast their boss in a positive light. Perhaps not since Ron Zeigler made inoperative statements on behalf of Richard Nixon, however, has a press secretary exhibited such a brazen and cavalier disregard for the facts. Before President Bush rode a Navy jet onto the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, press secretary Ari Fleischer informed the world, inaccurately, that the carrier would be hundreds of miles offshore. That distance over water, Fleischer suggested, would be too long for the president to safely make the hop...

PRESIDENT BUSH drew a line under the two wars of his presidency yesterday, shuffling US military might around the globe to reflect Washington’s new world order. Hours before Mr Bush declared major hostilities over in Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, issued the same message in Afghanistan. To deliver his own message, Mr Bush made a dramatic landing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, from where he addressed the American nation. Approaching the USS Abraham Lincoln at more than 125mph, Mr Bush sat in the co-pilot’s seat of a snub-nosed S3B Viking as it was jerked to...

The left is livid at the political masterstroke that was President Bush's visit to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on Thursday - with some complaining it was a cynical misuse of military personnel and equipment. But Bush isn't the only president to attempt to use the powerful imagery of a flight deck lined with saluting troops to burnish his image as commander-in-chief. In fact, Bill Clinton tried to do the same thing in March 1993, when he and his White House entourage visited the USS Theodore Roosevelt. However, instead of creating the inspiring image of a commander-in-chief adored...

Flying Bush to Carrier 'Just Awesome' .c The Associated Press Navy pilot John ``Skip'' Lussier has made hundreds of aircraft carrier landings but none to compare with his latest, a picture-perfect touchdown that could have come from the movie ``Top Gun.'' ``The pressure was ratcheted up just a little bit, but I tried not to think about it,'' Lussier said Friday on ABC's ``Good Morning America.'' ``I just wanted to focus on it as a mission and make sure I got the president aboard safely.'' Lussier was at the controls of the Navy S-3B Viking jet that ferried President Bush...

Last night, standing on the deck of the supercarrier USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush declared an end to "major combat" in Iraq. After his speech a clearly emotional Bush toured the audience of naval aviators and sailors. Watching him do so, I felt so proud of our president. I used to get this feeling a lot when Ronald Reagan was in office. I have not felt it since--until last night. Ronald Reagan made me feel good about the presidency. He made me realize that we should all be proud of America. Whereas Jimmy Carter made us feel ashamed in so...

Today's wars don't end with the drama or finality of yesterday's conflicts. There are no swords to be surrendered, no documents to be signed. Heck, no one even knows if Saddam Hussein is alive or dead and surely his signature on a piece of paper couldn't make his complete and utter defeat any more real than it is at this moment.<!ENDSUMM!> Last night, from the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, President Bush made it as official as this war's end can or will get. It was a moment fraught with symbolism - 5 acres of sovereign...

efreedomnews         WAR ON TERRORISM - AN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE Bush's Bold Policy3 May 2003Jonathan Rhodesefreedomnews.comIn his speech announcing the end of major military operations in Iraq, President George W. Bush, bold in his policy while humble in this moment of victory, summed up the obvious but previously unspoken - given the leadership of this Commander in Chief, judiciously employing the unparalleled might of the US military, the United States has brought about a new day for freedom and liberty in the world. With these words, President Bush defined the future: "The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to...

U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) gives a thumbs-up as he walks with Vice Admiral Mike Malone (C), Commander Naval Air Forces and Captain Dave Landon, commanding officer Naval Base Coronado, upon arriving at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego May 1, 2003. The President will board an S-3 Viking to fly out to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to greet the 5,000 sailors aboard the Lincoln as they return home from the war in Iraq (news - web sites). REUTERS/Mike Blake Wearing a flight suit, U.S. President George W. Bush walks with NFO...

ASHINGTON, May 1 — President Bush landed safely on the deck of an aircraft carrier this afternoon, no doubt to the great relief of his security people, and prepared to speak to the American people tonight about the future of Iraq.The four-seat, jet-powered S-3 Viking warplane, with Mr. Bush in the co-pilot's seat, touched down uneventfully on the Abraham Lincoln about 3:18 p.m. Eastern time after a short flight from San Diego.Mr. Bush, himself a fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard in his younger days, was clad in a flight suit and helmet. After alighting from the...

President Bush (news - web sites) lands in a U.S. Navy (news - web sites) S-3B Viking on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, in this image from video, Thursday, May 1, 2003, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. The S-3B Viking is dubbed Navy One because of its presidential passenger. (AP Photo/APTN)

With sailors, marines and a flight deck full of fighter jets on a US aircraft carrier as his backdrop, President George W. Bush will on Thursday night declare the triumph of US forces in Iraq. With sailors, marines and a flight deck full of fighter jets on a US aircraft carrier as his backdrop, President George W. Bush will on Thursday night declare the triumph of US forces in Iraq.With sailors, marines and a flight deck full of fighter jets on a US aircraft carrier as his backdrop, President George W. Bush will on Thursday night declare the triumph of...