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WASHINGTON - Questioning the motives of a "desk-bound president who assumes the garb of a warrior," Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd (news, bio, voting record) on Tuesday reproached President Bush (news - web sites) for flying onto an aircraft carrier last week to declare an end of major fighting in Iraq (news - web sites).
"I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan, and yet that is what I saw," Byrd said on the Senate floor.
Byrd, 85, of West Virginia, is the Senate's most senior member and was one of the most outspoken critics of the Iraq war.
Dressed in a flight suit, Bush was flown onto the USS Abraham Lincoln on Thursday, his small S-3B Viking jet making a tailhook landing. The ship was near San Diego on its return from action in the Persian Gulf.
With the sea as his backdrop, Bush announced that the United States and its allies had prevailed against Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
White House press secretary Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said Byrd's criticisms are "a disservice to the men and women of our military who deserved to be thanked in person."
"Senator Byrd did not support the president at the beginning of this, and it is no surprise that he does not support the president at the end," Fleischer said. "Senator Byrd is a patriot, but on this we disagree."
Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record) of California asked the General Accounting Office (news - web sites), Congress's investigative arm, to find out the cost of the president's trip.
The event "had clear political overtones," yet taxpayers footed the bill, wrote Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee (news - web sites), to the GAO.
Byrd contrasted the speech with the "simple dignity" of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address during the Civil War.
"I do not begrudge his salute to America's warriors aboard the carrier Lincoln, for they have performed bravely, ... but I do question the motives of a desk-bound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech," he said.
He said American blood has been shed defending Bush's policies. "This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial," he said.
"To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the president to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech," he said.
Fleischer has rejected any suggestion that the landing was intended to provide campaign footage for Bush's re-election campaign.
Earlier Tuesday, he also said Bush decided to land on the carrier on a jet instead of his usual helicopter because the president wanted "to see an aircraft landing the same way that the pilots saw an aircraft landing. He wanted to see it as realistically as possible."
Waxman said Fleischer had provided conflicting accounts of the reasons for the president's trip by jet, initially indicating that the carrier would be hundreds of miles offshore, too far from land to be reached by helicopter.
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I have been tempted to post on this issue, so I am glad you did.
I am very glad that Bird (and some in the media) are finally calling Bush on this waste of taxpayers money.
This was a campaign appearance, plain and simple. IF Bush wanted to thank the troops, why not just wait until the Lincoln docked? And the cheesy banner "Mission Accomplished" - well, where is Saddam? Just like Osama is over?
'A Troubling Speech'
Remarks by U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd
US Senate Chamber
May 6, 2003
In my 50 years as a member of Congress, I have had the privilege to witness the defining rhetorical moments of a number of American presidents. I have listened spellbound to the soaring oratory of John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. I have listened grimly to the painful soul-searching of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.
Presidential speeches are an important marker of any President's legacy. These are the tangible moments that history seizes upon and records for posterity. For this reason, I was deeply troubled by both the content and the context of President Bush's remarks to the American people last week marking the end of the combat phase of the war in Iraq. As I watched the President's fighter jet swoop down onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, I could not help but contrast the reported simple dignity of President Lincoln at Gettysburg with the flamboyant showmanship of President Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.
President Bush's address to the American people announcing combat victory in Iraq deserved to be marked with solemnity, not extravagance; with gratitude to God, not self-congratulatory gestures. American blood has been shed on foreign soil in defense of the President's policies. This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial. This is real life, and real lives have been lost. To me, it is an affront to the Americans killed or injured in Iraq for the President to exploit the trappings of war for the momentary spectacle of a speech. I do not begrudge his salute to America's warriors aboard the carrier Lincoln, for they have performed bravely and skillfully, as have their countrymen still in Iraq, but I do question the motives of a deskbound President who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech.
As I watched the President's speech, before the great banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished," I could not help but be reminded of the tobacco barns of my youth, which served as country road advertising backdrops for the slogans of chewing tobacco purveyors. I am loath to think of an aircraft carrier being used as an advertising backdrop for a presidential political slogan, and yet that is what I saw.
What I heard the President say also disturbed me. It may make for grand theater to describe Saddam Hussein as an ally of al Qaeda or to characterize the fall of Baghdad as a victory in the war on terror, but stirring rhetoric does not necessarily reflect sobering reality. Not one of the 19 September 11th hijackers was an Iraqi. In fact, there is not a shred of evidence to link the September 11 attack on the United States to Iraq. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was an evil despot who brought great suffering to the Iraqi people, and there is no doubt in my mind that he encouraged and rewarded acts of terrorism against Israel. But his crimes are not those of Osama bin Laden, and bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not bring justice to the victims of 9-11. The United States has made great progress in its efforts to disrupt and destroy the al Qaeda terror network. We can take solace and satisfaction in that fact. We should not risk tarnishing those very real accomplishments by trumpeting victory in Iraq as a victory over Osama bin Laden.
We are reminded in the gospel of Saint Luke, "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required." Surely the same can be said of any American president. We expect, nay demand, that our leaders be scrupulous in the truth and faithful to the facts. We do not seek theatrics or hyperbole. We do not require the stage management of our victories. The men and women of the United States military are to be saluted for their valor and sacrifice in Iraq. Their heroics and quiet resolve speak for themselves. The prowess and professionalism of America's military forces do not need to be embellished by the gaudy excesses of a political campaign.
War is not theater, and victory is not a campaign slogan. I join with the President and all Americans in expressing heartfelt thanks and gratitude to our men and women in uniform for their service to our country, and for the sacrifices that they have made on our behalf. But on this point I differ with the President: I believe that our military forces deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, and not used as stage props to embellish a presidential speech.
Media AWOL in Noting Irony of Bush's Flight
by Eric Zorn
So much for that myth--the cynical distortion that has become conventional wisdom in many circles. During the presidential campaign of 2000, it started going around that Texas Gov. George W. Bush, then the leading Republican candidate, had significant gaps in his military record.
Specifically, that Bush failed to report for duty for an entire year toward the end of his hitch with the Texas Air National Guard.
The short version: In May 1968 the silver-spoon son of a U.S. congressman jumped to the top of a long waiting list despite mediocre scores on his pilot-aptitude test and was allowed to enlist in the Guard, a common way to avoid being drafted into combat in Vietnam.
In May 1972 he sought a transfer from Houston, where he flew F-102s on weekends, to a unit in Montgomery, Ala. There, he worked on the U.S. Senate campaign of a friend of his father's and, records indicate, blew off his military obligations.
Bush failed to take his annual flight physical in 1972 so Guard officials grounded him, the story went. He never flew again and received an early discharge to go to graduate school. His final officer-efficiency report from May 1973 noted only that supervisors hadn't seen him or heard from him.
Bush's campaign biography obscured or misrepresented these details. In the summer and fall of 2000, his spokesmen offered various and evolving explanations for what Democrats said represented a far bigger "character issue" than any of the windy exaggerations of their candidate, Vice President Al Gore.
"If he is elected president, how will he be able to deal as commander in chief with someone who goes AWOL, when he did the same thing?" Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey said to the Boston Globe, where veteran investigative reporter Walter V. Robinson, a former Army intelligence officer, wrote several major stories on the subject. "This stinks."
Yes, but like Bush at the end of his hitch, it didn't fly. A search of all news publications and programs archived in the LexisNexis database for the last seven months of the 2000 campaign found 114 stories referencing Bush, the Texas Air National Guard and Alabama. Over that same span, nearly 10 times that many stories--1,076 to be exact--referenced Al Gore and the expression "invented the internet," an allusion to the bogus charge then haunting Gore that he had wildly inflated his role in the online revolution.
The "Bush AWOL?" story appeared in this newspaper and was based on good reporting and still-unanswered questions. It faded away--a scant 14 mentions in the database for all of 2001 and 2002 due to the age of the allegations, the lack of any new developments and the urgency of current events.
Last week, though, the president all but wore a "Kick Me!" sticker on the back of his flight suit when he decided to land on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln in the co-pilot's seat of an S-3B Viking jet.
Imagine the derisive merriment in the columns and on the chat shows if former President Bill Clinton revived the skirt-chasing issue by touring a sorority house or if Gore delivered a lecture to the engineers at Netscape Communications Corp. Think of the snickering and the sardonic rehash of history.
But for Bush in flyboy attire, a discreet silence. The only voices I encountered raising this issue were David Corn in the Nation; Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin, who asked, "Tell me if you ever heard of anybody with as powerful a resistance to shame as Bush"; and talk station WLS-AM's token progressives Nancy Skinner and Ski Anderson, who spent a full hour Sunday afternoon savoring the irony of it all.
There was no relentless examination of the damning timeline on cable news outlets, no interviewing the commanders who swear Bush didn't show up where he was supposed to, no sit-downs with the veterans who have offered still-unclaimed cash rewards to anyone who can prove that Bush did anything at all in the Guard during his last months before discharge.
So much for the cynical distortion that has become conventional wisdom in many circles. So much for the myth of the "liberal media."
Fleisher caught in lie
Bush's Victory Dance is Premature
by Susan Lenfestey
Like many people, I'm of two minds when it comes to the so-called end of the war in Iraq. I hope the Iraqi people will ultimately be better off but I fear that the American people won't be.
My split personality was evident even as I marched against the invasion of Iraq last winter. I wanted more substance and less sloganeering from my fellow marchers. The failure on our side to fully acknowledge the suffering of the Iraqi people under Saddam Hussein seemed as disingenuous as the failure of the administration to acknowledge that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. Our side's claim that this was only a war about oil seemed as simplistic as Bush's claim that it was only about weapons of mass destruction.
My uneasiness with the discourse was far outweighed by my fear that American bombs and bloody street-fighting, met with the unleashing of lethal toxins and nerve gas, was a first step toward Armageddon -- that we'd see thousands of American kids shipped home in body bags and untold numbers of Iraqi civilians strewn limp as old dolls across the landscape.
But a few weeks later, as the statue of Saddam toppled again and again on the evening news, I was happy to begrudge Bush the victory in Baghdad. Yes, begrudge, because I don't support his policies. Why this seems like heresy to so many pundits is beyond me. The left won't grant Bush this victory because they don't want to see him win in 2004. Right. I don't.
Nevertheless, I was wrong about the swift march to Baghdad and I was prepared to eat some crow, even though there's still plenty about Iraq that most people agree is worrisome: a fractious ethnic and religious brew, a worldwide perception that this was a war about oil, those missing WMDs, and the fact that the evildoer behind this whole mess has disappeared along with Osama in a spooky version of Sigfried and Roy, Masters of the Impossible.
And it's ironic, at least, that an administration hellbent on dismantling big government at home is in charge of building a big government in Iraq. Not their specialty.
But it's the manipulation of this war and its long-term consequences that worry me the most.
Given the distance we have to go before Iraq is a democracy, Bush's victory dance should be less managed and more subdued. I saw him climb out of that jet and swagger across the deck of the aircraft carrier and I envied him the moment. What a trip! A macho flight suit designed to enhance . . . oh never mind, the cheering troops, the pomp of "Hail to the Chief," the inevitable comparison to other great leaders at sea, and a postcard perfect backdrop of the gulf . . . oops, make that the Pacific.
Because news stories the next day revealed that San Diego was a few miles to the east, that the ship was sent away from shore to allow Bush his flyboy landing, and that the camera angles were chosen to view the vast expanse of the ocean, not the coast of California with its all-but-ignored budget woes. These are the shots we'll see again and again come election time.
Later the same night I saw a clip of New York City firefighters being cheered shortly after 9/11 and I thought of the firefighters now being laid off all across the country thanks to a plummeting economy and budget shortfalls. How quickly we drop our heroes. Well, our attention spans are notoriously short and tax cuts trump heroism, I guess.
It's possible that once the oil is secure and there's some semblance of order we'll just walk away from Iraq. But there's no walking away from our vast problems at home. And there's no walking away from the consequences of smashing a despot like Saddam, who is now more highly regarded than ever by many people in the fundamentalist Arab world.
Once, in a moment of senseless instinct, I whacked a huge furry spider who lunged out of a banana crate, a perceived threat to my small children. As if I'd split an atom, the spider went from a lumbering giant into a thousand little black dots, like peppercorns on a concrete floor. As the mortally wounded mother struggled to find cover, the babies who had been clinging to her back scuttled into the woodwork and out of sight. Later that summer, every shoe, every toy, every towel, every bed, had to be carefully shaken and inspected to be rid of the now fully grown, and I imagined, very angry, offspring.
I can't help thinking that we smacked a venomous spider in Iraq, but that the offspring will be back, with a vengeance.
Since you guys are so interested in what Byrd has to say...
Here's what Byrd, former member of the KKK, said not too long ago:
During a taped interview in March 2001, Byrd said, "My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that. There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I'm going to use that word."
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"If Chuck is Solo, Larkin is his Fett!" - Morgan
Originally posted by Brian in Mesa Since you guys are so interested in what Byrd has to say...
Here's what Byrd, former member of the KKK, said not too long ago:
During a taped interview in March 2001, Byrd said, "My old mom told me, 'Robert, you can't go to heaven if you hate anybody.' We practice that. There are white niggers. I've seen a lot of white niggers in my time; I'm going to use that word."
Standard response to anything Byrd says that is negative to AWOL BUSH........
OMG.. when is anything that the president does, not at the tax payers expense? How many flights are on and off the flight deck of a carrier everyday? How many MEDIA had flights on our fighter/bomber/refueler/recon aricraft during, before and probably after the war, at the TAXPAYERS EXPENSE? The president is the president, 24/7, if he goes and takes a crap, wipes his ass, that paper was bought with TAXPAYER money, hell that cigar shoved up Monica's wahoo was paid for, "most likely" by his salary, which is paid by us TAXPAYERS.
Any speach the president makes, while in office, before the next election, can and will be construed as a re-election ploy, or campaign speach. Just to rag on Bush for going out to the Lincoln.. thats just as bad as what they are saying he did.. it makes no sense, but I guess, its just another way to drum up publicity...criticize, criticize, criticize!
Originally posted by DbaxJ OMG.. when is anything that the president does, not at the tax payers expense? How many flights are on and off the flight deck of a carrier everyday? How many MEDIA had flights on our fighter/bomber/refueler/recon aricraft during, before and probably after the war, at the TAXPAYERS EXPENSE? The president is the president, 24/7, if he goes and takes a crap, wipes his ass, that paper was bought with TAXPAYER money, hell that cigar shoved up Monica's wahoo was paid for, "most likely" by his salary, which is paid by us TAXPAYERS.
Any speach the president makes, while in office, before the next election, can and will be construed as a re-election ploy, or campaign speach. Just to rag on Bush for going out to the Lincoln.. thats just as bad as what they are saying he did.. it makes no sense, but I guess, its just another way to drum up publicity...criticize, criticize, criticize!
Not true - campaign related trips are payed for by the Republican National Committee, not by us.
The trip was so blatantly a campaign photo-op it is ridiculus.
And I sure saw the Republicans being 100% supportive of everything Clinton did......
So.. when the president jumps on a flight to say LA, he goes and books first class on United? No.. AF1... umm... who paid for that plane? Oh.. the TAXPAYERS... Yes I know any plane carrying the president is AF1 once he is on it, so I am not discussing call signs.. he is still flying in the presidental plane, or should I say, 1 of the 2 of them.
If there is anyone who can be called upon for bilking Americans for endless seas of pork, it is Robert Byrd. For liberals to praise Byrd for his castigation of Bush must rank up there as one of the all time examples of hypocrisy.
Hell, Byrd has more things named after him in W.V. then Bush has probably written his own name.
The real reason Byrd said what he said is twofold: Because he has been immensely embarrassed for being on the wrong side of the Iraq war, and because liberals stand no chance to beat Bush without trying to trump up charges. Gee, the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces is going to thank the naval personnel who not only helped defeat a tyrant but endured the longest deployment in military history. We can't let him do that!
Liberals hate the Bush arrival and speech on the carrier because it only serves to easily illustrate that they have absolutely no credibility on national security and military issues. It must hurt plenty.
It is absolutely laughable when liberals whine about spending too much money. Though in retrospect, that's all they do when it comes to the military.
If you want to be proud of Byrd and Waxman (who is only slightly less embarassing than Byrd), then go right ahead. You back your horse and we'll back ours! I'm pretty confident as to that outcome.
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Fell deeds awake... Now for Wrath... Now for Ruin... and the Red Dawn...
Originally posted by DbaxJ So.. when the president jumps on a flight to say LA, he goes and books first class on United? No.. AF1... umm... who paid for that plane? Oh.. the TAXPAYERS... Yes I know any plane carrying the president is AF1 once he is on it, so I am not discussing call signs.. he is still flying in the presidental plane, or should I say, 1 of the 2 of them.
But if he takes AF1 to a campaign appearance, the RNC reimburses the government for it.
Originally posted by Dback Jon Standard response to anything Byrd says that is negative to AWOL BUSH........
Standard response from a liberal when another liberal is blatantly caught saying or doing something there's supposed to be outrage for. More hypocrisy.
Oh, and by the way, what Brian quoted is 100% true.
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