LIVE THREAD: DNC Convention - Day 2

6/27/04

[Peach]

Can we imagine Laura Bush telling someone to "shove off"? Only when pigs fly.

[AmericanMade1776]

Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill claims 'dirty tricks' by NASA after it released 'surprise' photographs showing the Dem presidential hopeful dressed in a space suit crawling through a rocket hatch.

[LisaMalia]

Michael Reagan just made my night, after watching all the trash that been spewed ala Chappy Kennedy, Dean, Afflect, and Mooreon.

Thank you Michael Reagan for speaking the truth. The love and honor you show your late father is inspiring.

[Gritty]

Whatever happened to "good speeches"?

[Choose Ye This Day]

I'd imagine that at least 20 of the alleged 44 million "uninsured" have similar stories.

[You Dirty Rats]

I'd like to see Joe as a surprise speaker in New York endorsing Dubya! Politically, he's closer to Dubya than Kerry.

[mylife]

they're the party of fiscal conservatism and social liberalism, I'm gonna puke.

That means we take as much of your money as we can, and give it away!

[CaptRon]

Only because it kind of sets him apart from the rest of his comrades in Boston tonight.

[maica]

I hope that your husband and every veteran who did serve tours in Vietnam gets to hear this terrible lie by Kerry and the whole DNC, and tell everyone they know that is is just not possible to vote such a terrible liar into power. Just try to imagine who would be in a Kerry Cabinet. Shudder!!!!

[Dog]

I saw that also..

[Peach]

We've had thunderstorms here and I had no cable for a while and was off the computer.

Prior to that there were a few threads saying Teresa was NOT going to speak tonight. Were those threads just wrong?

[Mo1]

Michael said Ron wouldn't go to the with Nancy to the ship named after his dad.Called it a weapon of mass destruction!

Are you serious ????

[cake_crumb]

"Dick Durbin before he dicks you."

DARNIT!! Can't BREATH...laughing too hard

[ArmyBratproud]

"John Kerry volunteered for two tours in Vietnam", while technically correct, the total months served was 4 MONTHS,
Yes .. you are correct

The Dems are walking that fine line of lying on that one

---

Furthermore, We know that Bush volunteered for Vietnam as well. The Palace Alert program. So Kerry should not try to use that as a difference.


Ex-pilot says Bush put in for Vietnam
Bush volunteered for combat, was rejected, ex-guardsman says
BY PETER BACQUE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Friday, February 13, 2004


A former senior Virginia Air National Guard commander, who served with George W. Bush in the Texas Air Guard, says Bush volunteered for Vietnam combat service but was turned down because he did not have the required flight experience.

William J. Campenni, a retired Air Guard colonel, also said absences such as Bush's from his unit were common in the Air Guard during the period of Bush's service and still are.

He and Bush were young lieutenants and pilots in the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron of the Texas Air Guard from 1970 to 1971, Campenni said, serving under the same flight and squadron commanders, both of whom are now dead.

Campenni, 63, lives in Herndon and has participated in Republican Party politics in Northern Virginia. He retired as an Air Force pilot in 1998, last flying with the 192nd Fighter Wing based at Richmond International Airport.


According to Campenni, Bush inquired about participating in a volunteer program called Palace Alert that used Air National Guard pilots flying in the F-102 Delta Dagger interceptor jet in Vietnam.

The Air Guard advised Bush he did not have the desired 500 hours of flight time as a pilot to qualify for Palace Alert duty, and, in any event, the program was winding down and not accepting more volunteers.

"While we were not part of the same social circle outside the base," Campenni said in a letter to The Washington Times published this week, "we were in the same fraternity of fighter pilots, and proudly wore the same squadron patch."

He said a check of the 1970-71 records of the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron "and any other [Air National Guard] squadron" would show "other pilots excused for career obligations and conflicts."

Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard at Ellington Air Force Base in May 1968. In May 1972, records show he received permission to perform nonflying duties in Alabama.

"[Excuses] 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," said Campenni, who spent 33 years in the Air National Guards of three states as his career as an aerospace engineer took him around the country.

Freeing the then-lieutenant from his Texas duties in 1972 was helped, Campenni said, because the Houston unit was changing from an operational fighter squadron to a training squadron with a new airplane, the F-101 Voodoo.

The mission switch "required that more pilots be available for full-time instructor duty rather than part-time, traditional reservists with outside employment," he said. Bush was a part-time Guard member, as most Guard airmen are.

"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," Campenni said.

"Any pilot could have left the Air Force or the Air Guard with ease after 1972 before his commitment was up," he said, "because there just wasn't room for all of them anymore."

Bush, who was working on a political campaign in Alabama, was assigned temporarily to a unit in Montgomery, Ala. Democrats have charged there is no proof that Bush showed up for Air Guard duty there.

During the Vietnam War era, many men saw joining the National Guard as a means of avoiding combat duty. American political leaders avoided mobilizing the hometown units for duty in the Southeast Asian war.

"There was one big exception to this abusive use of the Guard to avoid the draft," Campenni said, "and that was for those who wanted to fly, as pilots or crew members."

Air Guard pilot duty required up to 2½ years of active-duty service for training, he said. Draftees served for two years, overwhelmingly in the Army.

Air National Guard units began flying supply missions in Vietnam in 1965, and the Air Guard was mobilized twice during the Vietnam War. Guard aviators in five squadrons flying the F-100 Super Sabre fighter-bomber were called up for duty in Vietnam in 1968.

"Avoiding service?" Campenni said. "Yeah, tell that to those guys."

Simply flying tactical military aircraft is dangerous, he said.

"Six of those with whom I served in those years never made their 30th birthdays because they died in crashes flying air-defense missions" in the United States, Campenni said.

"Our Texas [Air National Guard] unit lost several planes right there in Houston during Lt. Bush's tenure, with fatalities," he said.

"Just strapping on one of those obsolescing F-102s was risking one's life."

[cyncooper]

All the dems say Kerry served "two tours". Of course it's deceitful in the extreme.

I don't know enough about the proper terms and such, but there is some little detail they hang this claim on.

I'll bet when Kerry cites his service he'll phrase it to say how he served "two tours".

And if the Republicans point out the misleading (to say the least) phrasing here, the dems are waiting to pounce and divert the discussion.

We'll see how we handle it, but I don't think the dems are being very effective no matter how many times they repeat this line.

[NormsRevenge]

Christie Vilsack, the first lady of Iowa, holds up a pen given to her by late President Harry S. Truman, during her speech to delegates at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, July 27, 2004, in Boston. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

[Gritty]

"Obama - in the tradition of Paul Simon."

Yuck!

Does he wear a sissy bow tie?

[Choose Ye This Day]

Invoking Paul Simon!


Any mention yet of Saint Wellstone?

[marajade]

"As a Gen Xer, I sick of the dems falling back on vietnam and the depression whenever they get in a jam."

But they're going to bring their Country back...

[Jaded]

Doesn't sound like there is much love lost there, after the remark about 'Ron does no wrong'. Michael still has more class.