Democratic Party Chief Attacks Bush on Military Record | New York Times

[Ediacara]

Democratic Party Chief Attacks Bush on Military Record
By KIRK SEMPLE

Published: February 1, 2004

Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, harshly attacked President Bush today on his military record, as the party's presidential candidates campaigned in most of the seven states that will hold primaries or caucuses on Tuesday.

Mr. McAuliffe criticized President Bush for reporting late for his National Guard duties during the Vietnam War. The comments delineated a line of attack that Senator John Kerry, the front-runner in the campaign and a decorated war veteran, will likely adopt should he be the party's nominee and face Mr. Bush in a one-on-one race.

"I look forward to that debate when John Kerry, a war hero with a chest full of medals, is standing next to George Bush, a man who was AWOL in the Alabama National Guard," Mr. McAuliffe said in an interview on the ABC News program "This Week." "George Bush never served in our military in our country. He didn't show up when he should have showed up. And there's John Kerry on the stage with a chest full of medals that he earned by saving the lives of American soldiers. So, as John Kerry says, `Bring it on!' "

More at the New York Times

[alittlelark]

1. This is great!!

This story MUST be kept out in front and waved in the right-wingers faces. Not all, but many will turn on *. The true patriots certainly will

Moore, Clark, McAuliffe :yourock:

[FlyingEagles]

53. It's nothing

No republican will turn on President Bush for anything.
Waiving anything in faces wont work.
It's the undecided people that would go back and forth.
Besides, this is being made into way more than it is.
Clinton never had military service and it didn't contribute to his ability to wage or direct war as the Commander In Chief.
Everyone is focusing on something that will puff away in no time at all. It is a goofy tactic.
If you want to reach republicans, look at spending and immigration.
That is the sore spot.

[Shadder]

54. One minor difference

Clinton never lied about it.

[Catherine Vincent]

55. Thanks for the tips on how to reach republicans.

Are you a republican?

[Old and In the Way]

2. "Where Was George?"

A legitimate question that every candidate should be raising.

[jbfam4]

3. Good

thanks to Michael Moore we are hearing about * being AWOL more now than we did at the last " selection."

[mouse7]

13. And Wes Clark

Clark basically tossed his campaign out the window in order to refuse to deplore Micheal Moore for calling Dumbya a deserter.

Everyone in the 2004GD forum knows I''m not a Clark supporter, but Wesley Clark was a true patriot for defending Micheal Moore right to free speech, and he's paid the price those who speak out usually pay.

We owe Wes Clark a debt of gratitude.

[BeyondGeography]

14. Thanks for that, from a Clark supporter

Michael Moore's right to his opinion was indeed a principle worth fighting for.

[dennis4868]

41. The General....

took a bullet for all of us!

[chelsea0011]

46. The general views the military with respect, not an anytime club

Clark was in a tough position to flat out separate himself from Moore and completely take back the deserter charge. He is a man who takes the military in a responsible, respectful nature. Not the club Bush thought he was in. Come and go as one pleases. AWOL, deserter.... in a time of war you are splitting hairs.

[SalParadise]

4. Good.

Hope they keep this up.

[aquart]

5. NEVER served?

I don't like that kind of too simple mistake. George was there, in the reserves, for all but 18 months of required service. The 18 months is a very big deal, but it does not mean NEVER.

McAuliffe just gave the Republicans a wedge instead of a wedgie.

[ChompySnack]

6. Never served in the military

Even though it is being used as it right now, the national guard is not the military. It's like the farm teams in baseball.

[0007]

49. Farm team, main team, A" team - the rules are still the same

[indypaul]

7. But not showing up for 18minutes, 18 hours or 18 months

doesn't matter which. When you are AWOL you are AWOL period.
You cannot be just a little bit AWOL any more than you can be
a little bit pregnant or have a small dose of gonorrhea.

[Warren Stuart]

38. Actually AWOL is 24 hours

Less than that the charge is "Failure to Report", which can still involve significant penalties. But nothing like AWOL, every day you are AWOL is a day added to your ETS date (estimated termination of service).

Anyone looking at your induction and discharge dates would know automatically, if you had gone AWOL.

[Barkley]

32. Clever Move by McAuliffe

I think McAuliffe knew what he was saying wasn't
quite accurate but he's wants to elicit a response
and engage from the White House.

He wants Bush to make a clarification.

In this way the Dems set the tone about what's debated.
It puts Bush on the defensive; responding to everything.

That partly explains why Bush has been 'silent' so as
not to get into the fray.

[BruinAlum]

8. Good point to keep in the forefront

Time to bring it up is now and keep it in the news and in peoples minds up until November. Bush got a free pass on this in 2000.

[Ernesto]

9. Response from white house!

DEAFENING SILENCE

[question everything]

11. But, but... he did wear a flight suit on that carrier

and declared the war was over...

Should count for something, right ;-)

A fighter pilot wannabe and a president wannabe, perhaps even a governor wannabe

[4dsc]

10. Tell Bush to release his military record!!

Quit beating around the bush on this. Tell the deserter bush to release his military record for ALL TO SEE!! What is he hiding??

[Just Me]

27. I am sure Cheney will "arrange" the investigative committee *LOL*

:bounce:

[IndianaGreen]

12. Is that the Democratic platform: "my dick is bigger than yours?"

This shows how bankrupt and devoid of ideas the Democratic establishment has become that all they have to offer the voters is who did what 30 years ago, while ignoring what they have done in public office.

Kerry is the DLC candidate and he is following the DLC agenda and strategy.

How is Kerry's "war hero with a chest full of medals" going to convince the public that they need to remove a Commander-in-Chief right in the middle of a war?

I am sure McCauliff has a winner right there, just as he did in 2002!

[Dr Fate]

18. its just more of the "drip-drip" effect...

I think it's good that DEMS are finially bringing it up!

DEMS finially do somthing right. This talking point certainly helps Clark too.

[IndianaGreen]

25. Except that this was Wes Clark's talking point

and Kerry did not pursued it.

Knowing Kerry's affinity for testing the wind, I am sure that the DNC ran a focus group and that it showed it was safe to discuss Bush being AWOL.

Fair enough!

Now, let's discuss Kerry being AWOL on Iraq...

[The Magistrate]

29. Unfortunately, Perhaps, My Hoosier Friend

Elections have a good deal more in common with the competition of a pair of chimps for dominance over the rest than we clever monkeys like to admit. Your condensed and unvarnished version of this truth in No. 12 above is not really such a bad platform for election at all; it is what a good many of them boil down to. It is essential, in contesting a war time election, that the people be convinced the challenger has not equal but greater credential as a fighting man than the current occupant of the office. Pointing out that the current occupant fled the colors while the challenger stood to a gun on the burning deck will resonate with many.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[Cocoa]

19. the Republicans were attacking Kerry for supporting defense cuts

they are also contemplating attacking him for protesting Vietnam.

This is McAuliffe neutralizing the national security thing for Bush. It's not an attack, it's a defense.

[IndianaGreen]

26. I am so scared of McCauliff.... Ooooooooooh!

McCauliff hasn't even explained his role in Global Crossing, and now this chickenhawk is talking about ribbons.

[Guaranteed]

20. It does seem that way.

Kerry supporters are going to be disappointed when Rove reminds everyone of how easily he bulldozed Kerry, repeatedly, over the past two years.

[IndianaGreen]

28. McAuliff is embracing the militarist nationalist PNAC agenda

The Democrats are going to repeat the mistakes of the 1960s when they became Cold Warriors, giving us Vietnam in return.

Vietnam War is over!

Vietnam won the war!

The Vietnamese people are better off with us gone!

Vietnamese are now living in peace despite our best efforts to murder them 40 years ago!

The Vietnamese were fighting against a foreign oppressor. Anyone with a knowledge of Vietnamese history knows that America had replaced the French as a colonial power. No one should have gone to Vietnam anymore than they should have gone to Iraq. America was not made "safer" by the American and Vietnamese blood that was needlessly shed over there.

If nothing else, this is why Kerry is unfit for the Presidency. He has turned his back on who he was when he opposed the Vietnam War, and he has become an accomplice in a new war.

[ConcernedCanuk]

36. remove a Commander-in-Chief right in the middle of a war ?

.
.

good point, although scary....

I believe that no President has ever been voted OUT while IN a war, and the general consensus of public opinion in the US is that this is NOT a good idea?

I don't agree with the above concept, but the fact that Bush is AT war may help to keep him in office, unless of course the electorate can be convinced that this war IS and WAS unjustified, illegal and immoral.

Hopefully, by this Chrismas, Junior and his gang will just be a bad memory....

(sigh)

[IndianaGreen]

37. The real issue is that the US should have never gone to war!

The Democratic Party is as guilty as the GOP when it comes to PATRIOT and the war in Iraq. The Democrats are another wing of the same bird of prey, as Pat Buchanan used to say.

The message I am getting is that the Democratic establishment will pursue Bush's war of imperialist expansion, the PNAC-agenda for short, just as vigorously as Bush has. The only different is that the Democrats will sugar coat the imperialist medicine so that it doesn't taste as bitter as it did under Bush.

I am particularly disturbed about the consequences of electing a Democrat like John Kerry President. Kerry represents the same elites that Bush does, without the religious mumbo-jumbo.

I no longer have faith that any of our bourgeois parties can extricate this nation from the quandary in which we find myself, the Greens included.

Roots of the crisis

It is an illusion to believe that the issues confronting working people can be resolved simply by the removal of Bush. The Bush administration is, in the final analysis, the political expression of the desperation, disorientation and recklessness of the American ruling elite as it confronts a systemic social and economic crisis for which it has no rational, let alone progressive, solution. There is no question that Bush and his associates represent an especially foul, reactionary and even criminal element within this elite. But even if they were to be removed in November, their replacement by the candidates of the Democratic Party would not substantially alter the violent and destructive trajectory of American capitalism, either within the United States or internationally.

In the event of a Democratic Party victory, the campaign promises would soon be exposed as cynical exercises in electioneering demagogy. A new Democratic president would remain subservient to the same corporate interests and pursue the same imperialist strategy of world domination.

<snip>

The Greens play a reactionary political role, opposing the development of a socialist movement based on the working class in favor of the formation of a third capitalist party. As the record of the Green Party in Germany has demonstrated, once the Greens begin to achieve influence in bourgeois politics they quickly discard their initial radicalism. The former pacifists in the German Greens paved the way for the first overseas deployment of German troops since World War II. In California, Green candidate Peter Camejo backed the right-wing-inspired recall campaign and ended up tacitly supporting a vote for the main Democratic candidate, Cruz Bustamante.

In the 2004 campaign, these left-talking politicians will once again seek to put off the critical question of establishing the political independence of the working class from both big business parties. They will seek to divert the mass opposition to Bush behind whichever candidate emerges from the Democratic nomination contest. They all subscribe to the position of “anyone but Bush,” as though Bush were the only weapon of American capitalism, rather than one of many instruments of the ruling elite.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/jan2004/stat-j27.shtml

[grasswire]

15. here's the chant...

W
W
Where were you in seventy two?

W
W
Where were you in seventy two!

[IndianaGreen]

16. Where were you on IWR?

McCauliff is devoid of ideas.

Compare this to John Edwards's speech about the two Americas and you tell me which of the two resonates with the public.

[Chomskyite]

21. Well . . .

. . . how many states has Edwards won?

And how many has Kerry won?

[sal]

43. Terry give back the 18mil to ripped off Worldcom workers

you were bribed with and resign. Let working people run the party. You don't speak for me or my family. The 90's are done and so are you, sport.

[Sibanetta]

17. Bush's Military Record

Um, wasn't it the Texas Air National Guard? ...and a capaign
in Alabama?

Luilu

[Jackpine Radical]

22. Did Bush get a campaign ribbon

for his service in the Alabama Campaign? (Geez--I didn't even know Texas had a war with Alabama.)

[TacticalPeek]

23. LOL!

Let's not start that whole stars and bars thing again.

(But stars-fell-on Alabama bars would have been a likely place for a sheriff to look for aWol back then, had the SOP notice been given.)

[4dsc]

56. When Dubya was AWOL... or was he?

http://goodgrief.typepad.com/goodgrief/2004/01/when_dubya_was_.html

Good read here.

Democrat's should still be DEMANDING AWOLBUSH release his military records!!! Get some backbone!!

[aeon flux]

24. This is great

it needs to be repeated endlessy and loudly.

Something Gore should have done a long time ago. It would have dealt a massive blow to Bush in 2000. If the tables were reversed and it was Gore who was AWOL, you can bet your ass the cons would have utterly destroyed him with it. Let's not re-live the colossal 2000 screw-ups again in 04. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

[Ernesto]

31. af, I hear ya

however, in 2000, the AWOL story had no traction. As a USMC Viet grunt, I can assure you that savvy veterans were waving their hands in the air over this issue..... Since there is now a back drop of 525 GIs dead & NO WMD, the "chicken hawk" issue has sprouted legs.... Only now the (Peterson, Jacko, Rose, Surviver, Koby and Martha influenced) sheeple might connect the dots..... Hey, I can dream, can't I?

[MisterC2003]

51. No more Mr. Nice Guy?

I think it's more like this. In the last election, the Pubbies took the gloves off and the pansy DLC didn't and we lost. Rove knows we're gonna take the gloves off for this one. Which means, he's gonna be strapping on the brass knucks. We better do the same.

[Triana]

30. I saw this...

HA! Great! I hope bu$hit's AWOL and the rest of the story about his privileged elevation into TANG and into the White House gets dragged out too.

Don't look now but little Lord Fauntleroy has no clothes and his winkie is hangin out...

[thebaghwan]

33. Has anyone ever gone and interviewed Bush's peers in the T.A.N.G. and any

other place he was suppose to be serving to see what their recollection were. I know his former commanding general, General Turnipseed (a hard name to forget) said he doesn't recall seeing him but what about the other pilots and crew members? It doesn't seem like it would be too hard to get this information and check these people out to see what they have to say. Oh, Michael, where are you? We have a little gig for you.

[0rganism]

34. Doncha know, dubya's a Lover not a fighter

He really only wants a lasting peace... of the action.

[ConcernedCanuk]

35. As a Canuk, and somewhere on that list of Axis of EEeeeeevil

.
.
I am taking more interest in American politics than I ever did on our OWN

of course, in recent history no nation took a nation over b4 that wasn't already at war, well, except Hitler, who by the way, LOST in the end.

Anyways, to my point, the above is just my rationale to have an interst in what goes on south of our border.

I agree that Junior's record should be made known to the public.

OK already, we know. Now it would be prudent to sort of let it be up to the onlookers, be it the citizens, or the press and other anti-bush groups to keep the interest alive...

Don't get me wrong, so far I am favorably impressed with John Kerry, but I fear for his campaign if the AWOL thing is put too far forward in his rhetoric. By all means, bush-bashing is acceptable, but lets lean more towards the daily needs things like schools, healthcare and jobs, etc.

Anyhoo, I have found a resource that some of you may enjoy in your arguements. I have read almost a dozen of his speeches, they are revealing.

Follow the link (clik on the graphic) to read Kerry's speeches he has made in the last last few years



ONE thing I will be paying closer attention to is Kerry's, as well as other Dem candidate's, opinions of intent regarding Cuba.

Canada's (and my) opinion of Cuba is already well known, and I am not alone at this point in feeling safer going to Cuba than the USA!

Imagine that, eh?

BB (BeforeBush) I would never have dreamed such an attitude!

[Palacsinta]

39. Isn't Bush also a "Naval Aviator"?

All he has to do, in answer to these outrageous charges, is show America the Bush "Action" figure. It says "Naval Aviator" right there on the box!!! Good enough for me, Barbie, and Ken!

[TacticalPeek]

40. Surrogates should beat Shrub with this like a rented mule.

Do that enough, and LenoLetterman AWOL jokes will approach cigar joke familiarity.

Then it will become an accepted bit of flotsam in the public consciousness. Rove has no good counter, and if they try, they simply feed the story.

Once it becomes accepted fact, Shrub's 'likeability' is tarnished, and his 'nice Christian man' appeal to some R's and independents goes over the hill.

More, more, more please!

[The Stranger]

42. McAuliffe was right on target, hammering home some points that everyone

should continue to hammer home:

1. Bush cherry picked intelligence and lied to the American people about weapons of mass destruction ("500 tons of Sarin" in 2003 State of the Union)

2. Bush was AWOL from the national guard, while Kerry was earning two Purple Hearts and the Silver Star

3. 43 million Americans without health care

4. Greatest deficits in history

5. Jobs, jobs, jobs

[NNN0LHI]

44. Kick this baby

[Galley_Queen]

45. It's About Time

that the DNC phucking said something. Anything. Hello???? Is anyone home? The DNC sends me requests for contributions, and the other night I got a phone call. I told the very nice gentlemen that I would NOT support the DNC until they QUIT ROLLING OVER AND PEEING ON THEIR OWN BELLIES. He laughed and agreed.

Bush is an AWOL, chickenhawk and the citizens NEED to know this. I'm NOT a big Kerry fan...I have my problems with him. I would much rather see a Clark/Dean ticket. I really don't think Kerry can win against Bush-but...I would pay anything to see the debate between the Unelected Fraud and Kerry or Dean or Clark.

BTW, I've been calling Bush the Unelected Fraud and the Squatter since day number one. I'm glad to see so many others using the term, including MWO. Do you think they read my posts? LOL!

:bounce:

[0007]

47. My Commander in Chief is a Cheat, a Thief, a Cocaine addict, a Drinker...

a Coward, and was AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard. junior also hides behind the name of Christianity and Patriotism for the sake of gain.

How is the world did the American people make such a mistake?

[Galley_Queen]

48. We Didn't

SCOTUS did it for us.

[0007]

50. Then add that to an DNC cat named Terry

....seems to me that the ring wingers are trying to bankrupt this county and it also seems that the left doesn't care.

[Catherine Vincent]

52. I saw a republican rep. on C-Span yesterday

badmouthing McAuliffe because he mentioned that Bush* was a deserter or AWOl or something. The rep. said that he represent a lot of national guardsman in his state and McAuliffe should be ashamed for minimizing their service to this country.

He went on and on. I love it. The repukes are bending over backwards to take the heat off of dumbya.

[ramapo]

57. What about the other chickenhawks?

They should all be a campaign issue. Look at all the crap thrown at Clinton for not serving.