[opendtv] Re: SINCLAIR TO AIR "A POW STORY: POLITICS, PRESSUREANDTHE MEDIA"

  • From: Tom Barry <trbarry@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 20:50:42 -0400

Ralph P. Manfredo wrote:

> This is getting a little old and tiresome, but here is my two cents. 

...

Yes, it is.  I enjoy this list and I hope I have not overly contributed 
to polarization and bad feelings that will continue after the next 
couple weeks.

So I guess I'll also try to refrain from further political commentary here.

- Tom



  How
> come no one complained about the intimate draft dodger, Bill 'Slick Willie"
> Clinton????  I know Kerry brought his Viet Nam record up at the Democratic
> Convention, but how come no one has questioned his direct disobedience of
> the UCMJ re: unauthorized meeting with the enemy which Kerry did in Paris
> twice, and the his numerous sessions bad mouthing the US Government and
> military leaders and his disgraceful claim the US military were rapist and
> child killers which is also against the UCMJ.  He enlisted in Feb 1966,
> order to active duty in August 1966.  How come he didn't get his discharge
> until Feb 1978?  In addition, commitment to the active reserves which
> requires at that time weekly drill meetings, three weekend meetings and a
> two week tour of active duty.  There is no record of him ever attending any
> of these drills and yet no one questions his reserve record.  Remember, he
> only spent four months in combat for which he received a Silver Star, a
> Bronze Star and four Purple Hearts.  All these medals are a military record
> and even Audie Murphy, who is the most highly decorated GI of record, did
> not amass that many medals in such a short time.  In addition, all that
> without ever spending one day in the hospital, VERY interesting.
> 
> Ralph
> 
> Ralph P. Manfredo
> President & CEO
> 
> rmanfredo@xxxxxxxx
> 
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
> Behalf Of Bob Miller
> Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2004 10:26 AM
> To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [opendtv] Re: SINCLAIR TO AIR "A POW STORY: POLITICS,
> PRESSUREANDTHE MEDIA"
> 
> Craig Birkmaier wrote:
> 
> 
>>At 1:07 AM -0400 10/21/04, Bob Miller wrote:
>> 
>>
>>
>>>There were no slots. There was only long list of guys who had signed up=20
>>>long before Bush and who he simply cut in front of because of his=20
>>>connections.
>>>   
>>>
>>
>>I too would like to see this thread end, however I cannot let this 
>>misrepresentation stand.
>>
>>In order to get into the Air National Guard you had to pass a test to 
>>qualify for training as a pilot. Bush took and passed this test while 
>>he was still in Yale. There was not then, or ever that I am aware of 
>>during the VietNam war a waiting list for entry into the Air National 
>>Guard as a pilot trainee. Just the opposite was true, as they were 
>>having a hard time finding enough pilot candidates during the peak of 
>>the war when Bush enlisted. There are MANY places where this can be 
>>verified.
>>
>>It was the regular Nnation Guard (essentially infantry training) that 
>>had a waiting list.
>>
>>Regards
>>Craig
>> 
>>
> 
> Well Craig I would like to see one where the lack of a waiting list can 
> be verified.
> 
> Bush's grades on his AFOQT test taken at Yale were
> 
> Pilot Aptitude 25
> Navigator Aptitude 50
> Officer Quality 95
> Verbal Aptitude 85
> Quantitative 65
> 
> http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/3-Grade_Determination.pdf
> 
> And these articles and my VIVID memory is that there were waiting lines 
> for ANG. I was too tall to be a pilot they told me, plus the six year bit.
> I was told the line in Michigan was more like over a thousand, ANG not NG.
> There were a lot of us looking at all the options over a long period of 
> time. Minds were focused memories still keen.
> 
> This article is from AirForce Times....
> 
> http://www.airforcetimes.com/story.php?f=1-AIRPAPER-357916.php
> 
> "Bush did not get drafted. Instead, two weeks before graduation, he 
> joined the Texas Air National Guard - a so-called "champagne unit" that 
> included other sons of rich and influential Texans. He signed up for a 
> six-year term. There was a waiting list, as was the case at most Guard 
> and Reserve units throughout the country, because such service was 
> generally considered a likely way to avoid combat (5,977 reservists and 
> 101 guardsmen died in Vietnam). But according to one highly visible 
> source, Bush didn't have to wait.
> 
> Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes told the CBS program "60 Minutes" on 
> Sept. 8 that he'd used his political influence to jump the young Bush 
> ahead of "hundreds" of others to get the Guard slot. He'd first said 
> this publicly after testifying in a 1999 federal court deposition, 
> saying he'd done the favor at the request of a Bush family friend. At 
> the time Bush joined the Air Guard, his father, George H.W. Bush, was 
> serving his first term as a congressman from Texas.
> 
> AND...
> 
> Secretary of State Colin Powell's 1995 book "My American Journey" put it 
> eloquently:
> 
> "The policies - determining who would be drafted and who would be 
> deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who 
> would live - were an antidemocratic disgrace," Powell wrote. "I am angry 
> that so many of the sons of the powerful and well placed . managed to 
> wangle slots in reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies 
> of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most 
> damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal 
> allegiance to their country."
> 
> And
> 
> http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/09/13/bush.professor/
> 
> "He admitted to me that to avoid the Vietnam draft, he had his dad -- he 
> said 'Dad's friends' -- skip him through the long waiting list to get 
> him into the Texas National Guard," Tsurumi said. "He thought that was a 
> smart thing to do."
> 
> Tsurumi said Vietnam was a top topic among the 85 students in his class, 
> when he was a visiting associate professor at Harvard from 1972 to 1976. 
> He now teaches at Baruch College in New York.
> 
> "What I couldn't stand -- and I told him -- he was all for the U.S. to 
> continue with the Vietnam War. That means he was all for other people, 
> Americans, to keep on fighting and dying."
> 
> Tsurumi said he remembers Bush because every teacher remembers their 
> best and worst students, and Bush was in the latter group.
> 
> "Lazy. He didn't come to my class prepared," Tsurumi said. "He did very 
> badly."
> 
> And
> 
> http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/12/news-dubose.php
> 
> "The Bush campaign claimed their hands were clean because there was no 
> direct appeal from the Bushes. Again, the story was advanced through the 
> queer syntax of George W. Bush. "All I know is that anybody named George 
> Bush did not ask him for help," Governor Bush said at the time. His 
> father wasn't so cocksure, saying he was "almost positive" he hadn't 
> discussed his son's draft status with Adger. Then both Bushes began to 
> argue that Adger's appeal to Barnes was done without their "knowledge or 
> consent."
> 
> So this is what we're supposed to swallow:
> A close friend of the Bush family took it upon himself to get G.W. Bush 
> a billet in the Air National Guard. A Democratic House Speaker who had 
> nothing to gain from helping a two-term Republican from Houston did so 
> because it was the right thing to do - while he was, in the Wild West of 
> campaign finance, raising money to run for statewide office. And the 
> younger Bush, after scoring the absolute minimum on his flight test, was 
> moved to the top of the recruiter's list by Guard officers who 
> recognized his potential as a flyer.
> 
> If you buy that, then you'll buy my Enron stock."
> 
> 
> Bob Miller writes...
> So Craig the Bushes seem agree that Adger helped get Bush junior in the 
> Guard. They just deny that they talked about it to Adger about it even 
> though he was a main contributer. They also therefore agree that help 
> was obviously needed to get in the Guard.
> 
> He scored a low PILOT APTITUDE 25 on the flight test you mention. I 
> guess it was the 95 he scored on OFFICER quality that got him in.
> 
> And from the proud history of the ANG...
> http://www.ang.af.mil/history/Forging.asp
> 
> "Vietnam revealed a negative aspect of relying on reservists. For 
> largely domestic political reasons, President Johnson chose not to 
> mobilize most of the nation's reserve forces. The 1968 callups were only 
> token affairs. Johnson's decision to avoid a major reserve mobilization 
> was opposed by the senior leadership of both the active duty military 
> establishment and the reserve forces, but to no avail. The Reserves and 
> the Guard acquired reputations as draft havens for relatively affluent 
> young white men. Military leaders questioned the wisdom of depending on 
> reserve forces that might not be available except in dire emergencies"
> 
> Bob Miller writes...
> They searched and they searched but they couldn't find one black or 
> white US citizen in the state of Texas for that last slot in the ANG. 
> But there was this one white guy, hero type, who stepped up and 
> volunteered. The only man in line for a job no one wanted, fighter pilot.
> 
> I won't even comment just send me a dozen or so credible sources that 
> say there were no lines for the ANG. That was the PRIMO line in 1968 as 
> I remember it. Everyone wanted to be a fighter pilot not an infrantryman 
> even in the Guard.
> 
> Absolute last post on the subject.
>  
>  
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