Nobody knows how he filled his last year of service.
What? Of course we know how he fulfilled his last year of service. We have his personnel cards. They tell us exactly what he did and how many points he earned (56, if you wanna know).
There are questions.
Not really. There are unfounded allegations by people with a grudge. That's not enough to add up to "questions" unless somebody can shit some kind of plausibility to go along with the rumors. Thus far, nothing like that has come up...and it's been a whole decade since these rumors first came up.
If there were a story to be told, somebody would have told it by now.
Do you have the foggiest idea of what these four memos alleged? First, the memos were trotted out as proof that Bush pulled strings to get his spot in the Guard, allegations that were floated and debunked in 1994, 1998 and 1999. These memos were supposed to be a smoking gun, proof--finally! --of the allegations. But the memos are fakes. So that story sinks without a trace for the fourth consecutive time.
The second thing the memos alleged was that then-Lieutenant Bush was given a direct order to take an annual flight physical, an allegation that's stupid on its face. That's not the sort of thing that's ordered. If you skip it, you lose flight status. Since Bush was moving to Alabama where he didn't have a spot on the flightline anyway, there was no need for him to keep his flight status. A flight physical is not a fun test. It's...invasive, if you know what I mean. It's not the sort of thing a person would undertake just for the hell of it. Bush has never denied skipping his physical, nor has he ever denied transferring to Alabama, nor has he ever denied dropping out of flight status for his last 18 months in the Guard. These are all matters of public record.
These memos were purported to dredge up all sorts of deep, dark secrets. Problem is that they did no such thing because they are forgeries.
I don't care if it dated back to Hammurabi, it was expressly prohibited under the 1991 cease-fire. And yet somehow, somehow it ended up being shipped to Rotterdam in 2003.
Still, "in this context" is just your definition for WMD.
Um. No. It's the definition put forth in the Safwan Accords, reinforced by the United Nations Security Council, and used as the standard to which Iraq was held accountable.
If, by challenging this definition, I become a "radical leftist," we have just ceased to have any grounds for a meaningful dialogue.
We never had any such grounds. You started out with "Only working nuclear bombs are prohibited," which is nothing more or less than the insane ramblings of a crazy man.
Feel free to call me other names you feel like, but I'll have been forced to stop taking you seriously.
I'm all broke up.
I'm concerned about the redefinition of language used in a bunch of those justifications.
Then stop doing it.
But it seems to me that it's not the "radical leftists" who have tried to redefine what the Administration was talking about when they raised the spectre of WMDs.
See? That's my point. You're all about "oooh, they raised a specter!" When in truth, it was simply a matter of a cease-fire violation. You like the idea of hopping up and down on the "raised a specter" thing, though, because it (1) makes it sound like the Bush administration was trying to persuade somebody of something --they weren't --and (2) it makes it easier for you to deny that prohibited materials have been found in vast quantities in Iraq.
Whatever you say, man. No war, all a big lie, no moon landing, fluoride in the water is a form of mind control. Whatever.
Ah, yes. Kevin Drum. Always first in line to try to wage the last campaign. Hint, Kevin: Nothing you have to say is (1) true or (2) new since 1994. It didn't work in the '94 gubernatorial race, it didn't work in the '98 gubernatorial race, and it didn't work in the 2000 presidential race. Let it go, you dumbass.
That's such a sad story. I know the kid who runs that site, William Ardolino. I've had the occasion to work with him a couple of times. He embodies everything that's bad about blogs. He accuses people and newspapers of lying-- most recently the Boston Globe -- and is just generally distasteful.
Which is a damn shame, because he used to be so reasoned and thoughtful. I guess he decided he could get more site traffic by being a dick.
pay to play: ironic? no, he's just to busy to respond to anonymous comments
LOL. That's a fascinating way to spin the facts. The truth is that when Chomsky the America-Hating Idiot launched his site, he was immediately swamped by THOUSANDS of comments -- not anonymous ones, but rather signed ones --from people who weren't prepared to let him get away with his particular brand of mid-Atlantic bullshit.
His solution? Shut the comments down.
God forbid you challenge Chomsky's beliefs. Never, ever forget that he knows more than you.
Okay, I guess that's kind of a dumb question. Everybody is monitoring the political slant of CBS News now that they've been outed as a bunch of lying partisan fucks. But my point is, who was monitoring CBS News before they perpetrated their big lie?
Radical leftists, "activists" and other revolutionary types love to make stink about FOX News, but you don't see them being caught trying to influence the outcome of the election by passing off counterfeit documents, do you?
The Daily Kos (liberal, had a quick but unfortunately wrong analysis of the now-thoroughly-discredited Rather memos)
Never retracted it, either. Which is a damn shame and more than a little ironic, if you think about it. I mean, even CBS has retracted their story now, but Markos Zuniga can't be bothered to retract a full-throated defense of something that turned out to be a massive lie.
Whatever you do, don't go to Markos' site looking for things that are true.
Bush hasn't denied anything that is in these memos.
Bush has denied, over and over again in public statements going back to 1994, that he failed to fulfill his obligations. He renewed that denial just about two hours ago.
It's real easy to hang on to your irrational hate if you don't pay attention to the facts.
Lots of evidence exists that he didn't complete his commitments, and that he tried to scam the Texas ANG into letting him out of his service requirements.
That is simply, bottom-line, no-kidding untrue. You're spreading falsehoods.
The secretary that would have typed these memos said there were memos that were substantially the same as these that she did type.
No, she certainly did not. Read the fucking transcript of the interview.
This is not the only evidence that he didn't complete his commitment.
Well, it's not evidence at all. But if it were, yes, this would have been the only evidence.
The story should not be "put to bed" because Bush is still lying about it, just like he lies about everything else.
Ah, yes. See? That's the great thing about the rabid, frothing Bush-haters. They can't compose more than about two paragraphs without spinning off into irrational hatred.
What you're saying is, "There's no documents saying he wasn't there, so he must have been there."
No, what I'm saying is that claims that he was not there have not been supported by any facts, therefore those claims are baseless.
You can give me dental records and pay stubs, but all that tells me is that he got work done and a paycheck on the taxpayers' tab.
Actually, what it tells you is that he was where he said he was and that the people who say that he wasn't are flat-out lying. But please don't feel an obligation to believe that or anything. Feel free to continue to be a dipshit.
Yellowcake uranium from pre-Gulf War I does not qualify as a WMD
That's not a correct statement. In this context, "WMD" means anything that was prohibited by the terms of the 1991 cease-fire agreement. Lots of radical leftists want to re-define the term so that "WMD" only means working nuclear bombs or whatever. That's just silly.
A Boston Globe story? You've got a lot of balls posting that link in here.
In fact, there is no evidence to support that Bush was not AWOL.
Except, you know, for the fact that he was honorably discharged, not an honor conferred upon them what don't show up. And the public record of Bush's attendance. And the expert opinion of Lt. Col. Lloyd given upon examining the records. And the dental check-up that you guys love to forget about.
Except for all that evidence, there's no evidence at all.
Hell, even CBS News admits that ample evidence of the president's honorable service exists.
Here, we have evidence to specifically incriminate him, and none to save him.
Oooh, one quote taken out of context and misrepresented. (He was talking about an event that happened in the winter of 1968, dumbass.)
You baffle me. "There's no evidence at all! Except for all that evidence, which doesn't count because the Boston Globe which never, ever lies told me so!"
Agreed, but it cuts both ways. The "blogger" that almost immediately exposed the fraud turned out to be a big GOP Hack.
Um. That statement is completely false. You know that, right? I'm just wondering if you're posting out of malicious intent to lie or out of shameful and disgusting ignorance.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of non-absence
It most certainly is when you're talking about things like military service where dereliction of duty is documented. If (1) George W. Bush failed to carry out his assigned duties, and (2) no documentation to that effect can be produced, you have to conclude that (3) a ridiculously complex plot was carried out inside an Air Force warehouse in St. Louis involving the meticulous scouring of thirty-year-old records. That's a silly conclusion, so one of the two premises must be false. Since we know that #2 is true...well, you can suss it out from there.
If every shit-for-brains dickhead who threatened to move to Canada actually would, this country would be a much nicer place.
I think we should establish a "Get The Fuck Out" fund, a non-profit charitable organization whose purpose is to help liberal crapweasels and libertarian freaks secure the funding they need to pay for a one-way ticket to wherethefuckever.
That's not at all what "reckless disregard" means. It means that you'd have to demonstrate that CBS News entertained serious doubts about the truthfulness of their story and that they went ahead with it anyway. Times v. Sullivan.
In New York in particular, where any civil claim against CBS News would have to be heard, it's essentially impossible to demonstrate reckless disregard. You have to have some kind of documentary evidence that the possibility of falsehood was seriously entertained before putting the story on the air, and that kind of thing just doesn't grow on trees.
(You may be a lawyer, but I question whether you're a very good one.)
Slashdot Mirror
You know Bush went AWOL. In your heart, you know it.
LOL. Insight into the mind of an insane, frothing Bush-hater, boys and girls. You can't buy that kind of candor at any price.
Nobody knows how he filled his last year of service.
...and it's been a whole decade since these rumors first came up.
What? Of course we know how he fulfilled his last year of service. We have his personnel cards. They tell us exactly what he did and how many points he earned (56, if you wanna know).
There are questions.
Not really. There are unfounded allegations by people with a grudge. That's not enough to add up to "questions" unless somebody can shit some kind of plausibility to go along with the rumors. Thus far, nothing like that has come up
If there were a story to be told, somebody would have told it by now.
God, your ignorance is fucking blinding.
...invasive, if you know what I mean. It's not the sort of thing a person would undertake just for the hell of it. Bush has never denied skipping his physical, nor has he ever denied transferring to Alabama, nor has he ever denied dropping out of flight status for his last 18 months in the Guard. These are all matters of public record.
Do you have the foggiest idea of what these four memos alleged? First, the memos were trotted out as proof that Bush pulled strings to get his spot in the Guard, allegations that were floated and debunked in 1994, 1998 and 1999. These memos were supposed to be a smoking gun, proof--finally! --of the allegations. But the memos are fakes. So that story sinks without a trace for the fourth consecutive time.
The second thing the memos alleged was that then-Lieutenant Bush was given a direct order to take an annual flight physical, an allegation that's stupid on its face. That's not the sort of thing that's ordered. If you skip it, you lose flight status. Since Bush was moving to Alabama where he didn't have a spot on the flightline anyway, there was no need for him to keep his flight status. A flight physical is not a fun test. It's
These memos were purported to dredge up all sorts of deep, dark secrets. Problem is that they did no such thing because they are forgeries.
Got it now?
But the yellowcake in question was pre-91!
I don't care if it dated back to Hammurabi, it was expressly prohibited under the 1991 cease-fire. And yet somehow, somehow it ended up being shipped to Rotterdam in 2003.
Still, "in this context" is just your definition for WMD.
Um. No. It's the definition put forth in the Safwan Accords, reinforced by the United Nations Security Council, and used as the standard to which Iraq was held accountable.
If, by challenging this definition, I become a "radical leftist," we have just ceased to have any grounds for a meaningful dialogue.
We never had any such grounds. You started out with "Only working nuclear bombs are prohibited," which is nothing more or less than the insane ramblings of a crazy man.
Feel free to call me other names you feel like, but I'll have been forced to stop taking you seriously.
I'm all broke up.
I'm concerned about the redefinition of language used in a bunch of those justifications.
Then stop doing it.
But it seems to me that it's not the "radical leftists" who have tried to redefine what the Administration was talking about when they raised the spectre of WMDs.
See? That's my point. You're all about "oooh, they raised a specter!" When in truth, it was simply a matter of a cease-fire violation. You like the idea of hopping up and down on the "raised a specter" thing, though, because it (1) makes it sound like the Bush administration was trying to persuade somebody of something --they weren't --and (2) it makes it easier for you to deny that prohibited materials have been found in vast quantities in Iraq.
Whatever you say, man. No war, all a big lie, no moon landing, fluoride in the water is a form of mind control. Whatever.
Ah, yes. Kevin Drum. Always first in line to try to wage the last campaign. Hint, Kevin: Nothing you have to say is (1) true or (2) new since 1994. It didn't work in the '94 gubernatorial race, it didn't work in the '98 gubernatorial race, and it didn't work in the 2000 presidential race. Let it go, you dumbass.
I get my news from outside the US
And I only watch PBS, and I only eat organic foods, and I only use gasoline refined from dinosaurs who died a natural death.
I'd rather read the Onion than Drudge.
Sure, 'cause why be informed when you can be an elitist asshole?
Yes, yes, your answer is technically correct but you missed my bigger point. :-)
http://www.indcjournal.com/
That's such a sad story. I know the kid who runs that site, William Ardolino. I've had the occasion to work with him a couple of times. He embodies everything that's bad about blogs. He accuses people and newspapers of lying-- most recently the Boston Globe -- and is just generally distasteful.
Which is a damn shame, because he used to be so reasoned and thoughtful. I guess he decided he could get more site traffic by being a dick.
Translation: "He says things which are true but that I do not like."
That comment was not unmeaningless.
pay to play: ironic? no, he's just to busy to respond to anonymous comments
LOL. That's a fascinating way to spin the facts. The truth is that when Chomsky the America-Hating Idiot launched his site, he was immediately swamped by THOUSANDS of comments -- not anonymous ones, but rather signed ones --from people who weren't prepared to let him get away with his particular brand of mid-Atlantic bullshit.
His solution? Shut the comments down.
God forbid you challenge Chomsky's beliefs. Never, ever forget that he knows more than you.
They monitor the political slant of FOX News.
Who monitors the political slant of CBS News?
Okay, I guess that's kind of a dumb question. Everybody is monitoring the political slant of CBS News now that they've been outed as a bunch of lying partisan fucks. But my point is, who was monitoring CBS News before they perpetrated their big lie?
Radical leftists, "activists" and other revolutionary types love to make stink about FOX News, but you don't see them being caught trying to influence the outcome of the election by passing off counterfeit documents, do you?
Makes you think.
The Daily Kos (liberal, had a quick but unfortunately wrong analysis of the now-thoroughly-discredited Rather memos)
Never retracted it, either. Which is a damn shame and more than a little ironic, if you think about it. I mean, even CBS has retracted their story now, but Markos Zuniga can't be bothered to retract a full-throated defense of something that turned out to be a massive lie.
Whatever you do, don't go to Markos' site looking for things that are true.
Bush hasn't denied anything that is in these memos.
Bush has denied, over and over again in public statements going back to 1994, that he failed to fulfill his obligations. He renewed that denial just about two hours ago.
It's real easy to hang on to your irrational hate if you don't pay attention to the facts.
So this is the best evidence we've found in over a year of having occupied the country that they have nukes?
Um. No. Dumbass.
Lots of evidence exists that he didn't complete his commitments, and that he tried to scam the Texas ANG into letting him out of his service requirements.
That is simply, bottom-line, no-kidding untrue. You're spreading falsehoods.
The secretary that would have typed these memos said there were memos that were substantially the same as these that she did type.
No, she certainly did not. Read the fucking transcript of the interview.
This is not the only evidence that he didn't complete his commitment.
Well, it's not evidence at all. But if it were, yes, this would have been the only evidence.
The story should not be "put to bed" because Bush is still lying about it, just like he lies about everything else.
Ah, yes. See? That's the great thing about the rabid, frothing Bush-haters. They can't compose more than about two paragraphs without spinning off into irrational hatred.
Yet another crazy person.
But shouldn't there be some documents somewhere that show that he did show up? I mean, more than just those dental records?
You mean like personnel cards and service records and pay records?
What you're saying is, "There's no documents saying he wasn't there, so he must have been there."
No, what I'm saying is that claims that he was not there have not been supported by any facts, therefore those claims are baseless.
You can give me dental records and pay stubs, but all that tells me is that he got work done and a paycheck on the taxpayers' tab.
Actually, what it tells you is that he was where he said he was and that the people who say that he wasn't are flat-out lying. But please don't feel an obligation to believe that or anything. Feel free to continue to be a dipshit.
And if CBS gave Burkett money for his role in "bring the documents to light," that would constitute fraud, no?
If Dan Rather were king of the space gnomes, that'd be a hell of a scoop, too. There's no reason to believe either of those things, however.
Yellowcake uranium from pre-Gulf War I does not qualify as a WMD
That's not a correct statement. In this context, "WMD" means anything that was prohibited by the terms of the 1991 cease-fire agreement. Lots of radical leftists want to re-define the term so that "WMD" only means working nuclear bombs or whatever. That's just silly.
Try this.
A Boston Globe story? You've got a lot of balls posting that link in here.
In fact, there is no evidence to support that Bush was not AWOL.
Except, you know, for the fact that he was honorably discharged, not an honor conferred upon them what don't show up. And the public record of Bush's attendance. And the expert opinion of Lt. Col. Lloyd given upon examining the records. And the dental check-up that you guys love to forget about.
Except for all that evidence, there's no evidence at all.
Hell, even CBS News admits that ample evidence of the president's honorable service exists.
Here, we have evidence to specifically incriminate him, and none to save him.
Oooh, one quote taken out of context and misrepresented. (He was talking about an event that happened in the winter of 1968, dumbass.)
You baffle me. "There's no evidence at all! Except for all that evidence, which doesn't count because the Boston Globe which never, ever lies told me so!"
Loser.
Agreed, but it cuts both ways. The "blogger" that almost immediately exposed the fraud turned out to be a big GOP Hack.
Um. That statement is completely false. You know that, right? I'm just wondering if you're posting out of malicious intent to lie or out of shameful and disgusting ignorance.
'Cause it's one or the other.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of non-absence
...well, you can suss it out from there.
...interesting.
It most certainly is when you're talking about things like military service where dereliction of duty is documented. If (1) George W. Bush failed to carry out his assigned duties, and (2) no documentation to that effect can be produced, you have to conclude that (3) a ridiculously complex plot was carried out inside an Air Force warehouse in St. Louis involving the meticulous scouring of thirty-year-old records. That's a silly conclusion, so one of the two premises must be false. Since we know that #2 is true
Poisoning the well... interesting.
Bein' a dumbass
If every shit-for-brains dickhead who threatened to move to Canada actually would, this country would be a much nicer place.
I think we should establish a "Get The Fuck Out" fund, a non-profit charitable organization whose purpose is to help liberal crapweasels and libertarian freaks secure the funding they need to pay for a one-way ticket to wherethefuckever.
Who's with me?
and yet, we're still trudging around Iraq, looking for the Nukes that don't exist.
Oh?
Suggestion: extract head from ass, open eyes, look around.
That's not at all what "reckless disregard" means. It means that you'd have to demonstrate that CBS News entertained serious doubts about the truthfulness of their story and that they went ahead with it anyway. Times v. Sullivan.
In New York in particular, where any civil claim against CBS News would have to be heard, it's essentially impossible to demonstrate reckless disregard. You have to have some kind of documentary evidence that the possibility of falsehood was seriously entertained before putting the story on the air, and that kind of thing just doesn't grow on trees.
(You may be a lawyer, but I question whether you're a very good one.)