Any of you read the Michael Moore letter to Bush?

[Flea-x]

As for Moore, he's a reactionary, looking to create yet another reaction.

I like that in a man

[ViRGo_RK]

Either way, the world will still most likely be spinning tomorrow.

Is that a pun?

[hurricaneone]

Originally posted by Ultima Designs
Perhaps so, or perhaps because people find them the least biased, most reliable, factual based news organization? Regardless, the point is that it isn't only conservatives or liberals that watch it, meaning that Fox News obviously must be doing something balanced.

So you said. Twice.

Originally posted by Ultima Designs
Err...Moore is a revolutionary. Reactionary is the other side of the spectrum.

Moore is a revolutionary if I'm Babe Ruth. Yasunobu had it right, I meant he's looking to stir a reaction.

Originally posted by XU1
Ahhhh...you gotta love it..to quote Winston Churchill.." if by the time your 16 30 your not a Socialist theres something wrong with you...if your still a Socialist by the time your 31 and over theres something wrong with you"

I think by that time a person realises that other people are not idiots.....

Tony

Do us all a favor and at least try and write something that makes sense.

Originally posted by ViRGo_RK
Is that a pun?

No.

[ViRGo_RK]

You could of said yes and taken all the credit for being clever.

[XU1]

Originally posted by hurricaneone


Do us all a favor and at least try and write something that makes sense.

No.

Dont take it personaly, try and read the context....cause your just showing your ignorance.

Tony

[hurricaneone]

Be my guest, Virgo. I hereby sign over all assigned credit for cleverness associated with that phrase to yourself.

[hurricaneone]

Originally posted by XU1
Dont take it personaly, try and read the context....cause your just showing your ignorance.

Tony

In this particular case, said ignorance is more clearly demonstrated in what is written, not what is understood. If the original message holds no creedence, how can the reader be held responsible for not understanding the writer's intent?

[XU1]

Originally posted by hurricaneone
In this particular case, said ignorance is more clearly demonstrated in what is written, not what is understood. If the original message holds no creedence, how can the reader be held responsible for not understanding the writer's intent?

If you remember carefully...you referred to fox viewers being idiots cause fox packages their snippets that way.

My quote was to signify the typical attitude of people -generaly liberals-who seem to think that any one who watches pro conservative news are brainless idiots.

Winston Churchill just hit it on the head with his quote....that when they get to a certain age... they finally wake up to the realities.. and they are not as you say idiots.

Now it wasnt that hard was it??..

Tony

[hurricaneone]

Originally posted by XU1
If you remember carefully...you referred to fox viewers being idiots cause fox packages their snippets that way.

My quote was to signify the typical attitude of people -generaly liberals-who seem to think that any one who watches pro conservative news are brainless idiots.

Winston Churchill just hit it on the head with his quote....that when they get to a certain age... they finally wake up to the realities.. and they are not as you say idiots.

Now it wasnt that hard was it??..

Tony

Which end of the political spectrum FOX News favors or does not is irrelevent, per the content of my posts in this thread. I was clearly referring to the their insistence of candy-coating news bites to make them more palatable for morons, nothing more. How you manage to infer that I'm a die-hard liberal from that comment on their packaging, I cannot imagine.

[Visionray]

wait a sec, why does everyone always bash Fox, as if other news organizations don't candy coat their soundbytes? Please, I really hope that's not what you're talking about.

[XU1]

Originally posted by hurricaneone
I was clearly referring to the their insistence of candy-coating news bites to make them more palatable for morons, nothing more. How you manage to infer that I'm a die-hard liberal from that comment on their packaging, I cannot imagine.

Which none the less you called their viewers iditos by inferrence.

Hence my quote, and if you read carefully my last reply I put the -usualy liberals- between a dash....thereby trying not to imply that you are a die hard liberal...but the point being that this is a held view of liberals...

Tony

[hurricaneone]

Originally posted by Visionray
wait a sec, why does everyone always bash Fox, as if other news organizations don't candy coat their soundbytes? Please, I really hope that's not what you're talking about.

4 out of 5 dentists say that FOX News will give you cavities.

Sure, everyone paints a vaguely altered picture, depending on their assigned agenda, but if you were to remove the political, I'd have to say FOX is the most abrasively MTV-like news service.

Along the lines of 'here's some more news - it's important. How can you tell? I'm not smiling.'

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - I hate Murdoch and his News Corp empire.

[XU1]

Originally posted by hurricaneone


Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - I hate Murdoch and his News Corp empire.

..like...it dosent show..

Tony

[hurricaneone]

I just can't keep a secret.

...as for Michael Moore, I like the guy well enough, I think he has something to say, it's just unfortunate that once he's made a decent point that might make you think, he can't leave well enough alone and shut his flapping trap, which only serves to dillute his message and just piss people off.

[XU1]

Originally posted by hurricaneone
I just can't keep a secret.

...as for Michael Moore, I like the guy well enough, I think he has something to say, it's just unfortunate that once he's made a decent point that might make you think, he can't leave well enough alone and shut his flapping trap, which only serves to dillute his message and just piss people off.

..

Tony

[Hellsbellboy]

how about reading a letter from someone that was actually their with Bush..

'Bush and I were lieutenants'

George Bush and I were lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron (FIS), Texas Air National Guard (ANG) from 1970 to 1971. We had the same flight and squadron commanders (Maj. William Harris and Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, both now deceased). While we were not part of the same social circle outside the base, we were in the same fraternity of fighter pilots, and proudly wore the same squadron patch.

It is quite frustrating to hear the daily cacophony from the left and Sen. John Kerry, Massachusetts Democrat, et al., about Lt. Bush escaping his military responsibilities by hiding in the Texas ANG. In the Air Guard during the Vietnam War, you were always subject to call-up, as many Air National Guardsmen are finding out today. If the 111th FIS and Lt. Bush did not go to Vietnam, blame President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, not lowly Lt. Bush. They deliberately avoided use of the Guard and Reserves for domestic political calculations, knowing that a draftee only stirred up the concerns of one family, while a call-up got a whole community's attention.

The mission of the 147th Fighter Group and its subordinate 111th FIS, Texas ANG, and the airplane it possessed, the F-102, was air defense. It was focused on defending the continental United States from Soviet nuclear bombers. The F-102 could not drop bombs and would have been useless in Vietnam. A pilot program using ANG volunteer pilots in F-102s (called Palace Alert) was scrapped quickly after the airplane proved to be unsuitable to the war effort. Ironically, Lt. Bush did inquire about this program but was advised by an ANG supervisor (Maj. Maurice Udell, retired) that he did not have the desired experience (500 hours) at the time and that the program was winding down and not accepting more volunteers.

If you check the 111th FIS records of 1970-72 and any other ANG squadron, you will find other pilots excused for career obligations and conflicts. The Bush excusal in 1972 was further facilitated by a change in the unit's mission, from an operational fighter squadron to a training squadron with a new airplane, the F-101, which required that more pilots be available for full-time instructor duty rather than part-time traditional reservists with outside employment.

The winding down of the Vietnam War in 1971 provided a flood of exiting active-duty pilots for these instructor jobs, making part-timers like Lt. Bush and me somewhat superfluous. There was a huge glut of pilots in the Air Force in 1972, and with no cockpits available to put them in, many were shoved into nonflying desk jobs. Any pilot could have left the Air Force or the Air Guard with ease after 1972 before his commitment was up because there just wasn't room for all of them anymore.



http://www.washingtontimes.com/func...10-082910-8424r

[Hellsbellboy]

Sadly, few of today's partisan pundits know anything about the environment of service in the Reserves in the 1970s. The image of a reservist at that time is of one who joined, went off for six months' basic training, then came back and drilled weekly or monthly at home, with two weeks of "summer camp." With the knowledge that Mr. Johnson and Mr. McNamara were not going to call out the Reserves, it did become a place of refuge for many wanting to avoid Vietnam.

There was one big exception to this abusive use of the Guard to avoid the draft, and that was for those who wanted to fly, as pilots or crew members. Because of the training required, signing up for this duty meant up to 2½ years of active duty for training alone, plus a high probability of mobilization. A fighter-pilot candidate selected by the Guard (such as Lt. Bush and me) would be spending the next two years on active duty going through basic training (six weeks), flight training (one year), survival training (two weeks) and combat crew training for his aircraft (six to nine months), followed by local checkout (up to three more months) before he was even deemed combat-ready. Because the draft was just two years, you sure weren't getting out of duty being an Air Guard pilot. If the unit to which you were going back was an F-100, you were mobilized for Vietnam. Avoiding service? Yeah, tell that to those guys.

The Bush critics do not comprehend the dangers of fighter aviation at any time or place, in Vietnam or at home, when they say other such pilots were risking their lives or even dying while Lt. Bush was in Texas. Our Texas ANG unit lost several planes right there in Houston during Lt. Bush's tenure, with fatalities. Just strapping on one of those obsolescing F-102s was risking one's life.

Critics such as Mr. Kerry (who served in Vietnam, you know), Terry McAuliffe and Michael Moore (neither of whom served anywhere) say Lt. Bush abandoned his assignment as a jet fighter pilot without explanation or authorization and was AWOL from the Alabama Air Guard.

Well, as for abandoning his assignment, this is untrue. Lt. Bush was excused for a period to take employment in Florida for a congressman and later in Alabama for a Senate campaign.

Excusals for employment were common then and are now in the Air Guard, as pilots frequently are in career transitions, and most commanders (as I later was) are flexible in letting their charges take care of career affairs until they return or transfer to another unit near their new employment. Sometimes they will transfer temporarily to another unit to keep them on the active list until they can return home. The receiving unit often has little use for a transitory member, especially in a high-skills category like a pilot, because those slots usually are filled and, if not filled, would require extensive conversion training of up to six months, an unlikely option for a temporary hire.

As a commander, I would put such "visitors" in some minor administrative post until they went back home. There even were a few instances when I was unaware that they were on my roster because the paperwork often lagged. Today, I can't even recall their names. If a Lt. Bush came into my unit to "pull drills" for a couple of months, I wouldn't be too involved with him because I would have a lot more important things on my table keeping the unit combat ready.

Another frequent charge is that, as a member of the Texas ANG, Lt. Bush twice ignored or disobeyed lawful orders, first by refusing to report for a required physical in the year when drug testing first became part of the exam, and second by failing to report for duty at the disciplinary unit in Colorado to which he had been ordered. Well, here are the facts:

First, there is no instance of Lt. Bush disobeying lawful orders in reporting for a physical, as none would be given. Pilots are scheduled for their annual flight physicals in their birth month during that month's weekend drill assembly -- the only time the clinic is open. In the Reserves, it is not uncommon to miss this deadline by a month or so for a variety of reasons: The clinic is closed that month for special training; the individual is out of town on civilian business; etc.

If so, the pilot is grounded temporarily until he completes the physical. Also, the formal drug testing program was not instituted by the Air Force until the 1980s and is done randomly by lot, not as a special part of a flight physical, when one easily could abstain from drug use because of its date certain. Blood work is done, but to ensure a healthy pilot, not confront a drug user.

Second, there was no such thing as a "disciplinary unit in Colorado" to which Lt. Bush had been ordered. The Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver is a repository of the paperwork for those no longer assigned to a specific unit, such as retirees and transferees. Mine is there now, so I guess I'm "being disciplined." These "disciplinary units" just don't exist. Any discipline, if required, is handled within the local squadron, group or wing, administratively or judicially. Had there been such an infraction or court-martial action, there would be a record and a reflection in Lt. Bush's performance review and personnel folder. None exists, as was confirmed in The Washington Post in 2000.

Finally, the Kerrys, Moores and McAuliffes are casting a terrible slander on those who served in the Guard, then and now. My Guard career parallels Lt. Bush's, except that I stayed on for 33 years. As a guardsman, I even got to serve in two campaigns. In the Cold War, the air defense of the United States was borne primarily by the Air National Guard, by such people as Lt. Bush and me and a lot of others. Six of those with whom I served in those years never made their 30th birthdays because they died in crashes flying air-defense missions.

While most of America was sleeping and Mr. Kerry was playing antiwar games with Hanoi Jane Fonda, we were answering 3 a.m. scrambles for who knows what inbound threat over the Canadian subarctic, the cold North Atlantic and the shark-filled Gulf of Mexico. We were the pathfinders in showing that the Guard and Reserves could become reliable members of the first team in the total force, so proudly evidenced today in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It didn't happen by accident. It happened because back at the nadir of Guard fortunes in the early '70s, a lot of volunteer guardsman showed they were ready and able to accept the responsibilities of soldier and citizen -- then and now. Lt. Bush was a kid whose congressman father encouraged him to serve in the Air National Guard. We served proudly in the Guard. Would that Mr. Kerry encourage his children and the children of his colleague senators and congressmen to serve now in the Guard.

In the fighter-pilot world, we have a phrase we use when things are starting to get out of hand and it's time to stop and reset before disaster strikes. We say, "Knock it off." So, Mr. Kerry and your friends who want to slander the Guard: Knock it off.

COL. WILLIAM CAMPENNI (retired)
U.S. Air Force/Air National Guard
Herndon, Va.5

[Hellsbellboy]

Originally posted by japangreg
Not true when there is an ongoing war. Clinton wasn't hurt because the country was in a state of calm, enjoying a good economy.

Bush is in the White House during a time of domestic and international turmoil, with an open-ended, unconventional 'war' and nation building, and has sat though one of the worst economies in decades.

Clinton didn't have to have any war credentials; the country didn't need a military leader during his presidency.

If Bush is going to keep pushing the war as the main reason to keep him in office, he better be able to show that when given the light responsibility the ANG represented during Vietnam he didn't just act like a spoilt brat and drop the ball.

hmmm mr. I seem to recall when Clinton got in, we were mixed up with Somalia, hmmm and i seem to recall later, Bosnia, and hmm Kosovo.. hmm then some bombing missions over Iraq.. so please.. get ur facts straight.. as someone already said, if this AWOL issue is all u got then u in trouble.. the issue was dealt with in 2000 and is just being brought up again, and being shot down again by the President.. If u also recall when Bush was elected their was no wars going on except some bombins over the No Fly Zone in Iraq, which is probably why that was one of the first things on his mind when he first took office. The democrate favorite Kerry doesn't exactly have a stellar record.. he spent 4 months in Vietnam then got out after being wounded 3 times.. hmmm not exactly the experience needed to be Commander in Chief.. I think Kerry is the man that's running around telling everyone what a Hero he is.. ask him how it was he got out of the Military 10 months before his service was done.. never mind it was a common occurance at the time. Ask Kerry why he talks bad about Special Interest groups and then takes money from such groups. hmmm tell me this, in the early 70's after Kerry got back from Vietnam and started appearing before congress and telling them that 200,000 Vietnamese civilians were being killed in war crimes by the US, why didn't he report them, and because he didn't report them he's a War Criminal, specially since he was a officer and was in a position to do something. Bush isn't pushing that the war is the main reason to keep him in office.. hell the man hasn't even began to campaigne and all the Dems are doing is slinging mud. I think it is absolutely galling that he could throw his medals away when it was poltically expedient and then turn around and promote his service record when that becomes politically expedient.

[XU1]

Wow Hellsbellboy...this may be a bit hard for some to take...cause it sounds like the truth.

Tony

[Loyal Rogue]

Hahaha

When it comes to politicians and movie-makers, there is no place or desire for truth.
They both make their living off of lies.