Oh and Clark knows full well that if Bush didn't show up for his weekend NG duty it comes nowhere near the lie of Moore. Clark should have shut him down but he's trying to let it ride without taking the heat. He's Commander and Chief material for sure.
"At worst Bush failed to show up for jumping jacks and marching. That's not even close to AWOL"
Do you know what AWOL means? How does what your particular service duties are factor into your status as absent? This is just silly.
I, too, was disappointed in Clark for his response. I think that the appropriate response would have been to dismiss "dessertion" as an inappropriately strong term, but argue that W's service record has gaps which need to be addressed. It is very easy for a man who never was in harm's way to send our kids to war, and the fact that he was AWOL should infuriate all of those conservatives who whined about the "draft dodger" in office before W.
Fish
edited to add - there are legal differences between AWOL and deserting, and it seems clear to me that desertion is NOT what W did. Clark could have been a stand-up guy on this, and I was surprised and disappointed in his response (saw him on Russert's show yesterday - he was equally evasive on this issue and on his personal feeling wrt abortion).
Just because his dad was UN Ambassador and then Chairman of the RNC at the time and the military saw it fit not to go after him... doesn't mean he wasn't AWOL.
He only went back when he got threatened of being a deserter. And even then de got out 8 months before his service was supposed to finish. And then to attend... was it Harvard busines school?
Just shows how privileged he was.
Clinton broke no laws. If he's a draft dodger so is Limbaugh, Cheney... and everyone else that got a defferrment to a war no one wanted to fight in.
Sorry for posting this whole article here, but it does a good job of dealing with Jennings' question and the pro-Bush bias it shows.
Quote:
The Saturday before last, filmmaker Michael Moore, appearing at a rally with Wesley Clark, called President Bush a "deserter." Then, during last Thursday night's Democratic debate in New Hampshire, ABC's Peter Jennings took Clark to task for Moore's remark:
General Clark, a lot of people say they don't [know] you well, so this is really a simple question about knowing a man by his friends. The other day you had a rally here, and one of the men who stood up to endorse you is the controversial filmmaker Michael Moore. You said you were delighted with him.
At one point, Mr. Moore said, in front of you, that President Bush--he's saying he'd like to see you, the general, and President Bush, who he called a "deserter."
Now, that's a reckless charge not supported by the facts. And I was curious to know why you didn't contradict him, and whether or not you think it would've been a better example of ethical behavior to have done so.
This has to be the most hostile and slanted debate question I've seen in a long time. Let's stipulate that Moore is a deranged demagogue with an allergy to the truth, and that the almost-inevitable grief Clark takes as a result of his unfathomable decision to appear beside him is, at some level, deserved. Nonetheless, Jennings's question symbolizes the unfair double-standard reporters have long applied to the question of presidents and military service.
The first thing to point out here is that claiming the charge that Bush is a deserter is "not supported by the facts" is, at the very least, an overprotective interpretation. Reporters have pretty clearly established that Bush did not show up for a year of his service in the Texas National Guard, in contradiction to Bush's account in his book A Charge to Keep. Documentation for that can be found, for instance, in this Boston Globearticle. The fact that the mainstream media paid little attention to Bush's spotty military service during the 2000 campaign relegated it to the fringes of Internet discourse, and gave it a taint of nuttiness that Moore's embrace only enhanced. But it's not wacko to say that Bush failed to fulfill his duty merely because most of the people who say so happen to be wackos.
Is it fair to call Bush a "deserter"? Not precisely. Even if he went AWOLduring his service for the National Guard, which seems highly likely, most people understand the term "deserter" to mean someone who flees his post during combat. Bush did serve during the Vietnam War, but he was safely ensconced in Texas. (If you reject the charge that Bush was a deserter, then you must also reject the spin that he was valiantly protecting the country during wartime.) Calling Bush a deserter, in other words, is hyperbolic. But it's not the outright fiction Jennings made it out to be.
The closest parallel is President Clinton and Vietnam. As a young man, Clinton attempted to pull family strings to avoid service in Vietnam, and was later able to abandon those efforts when he received a favorable draft lottery number. Republicans, including George Herbert Walker Bush, characterized this as draft-dodging. In fact, "draft-dodging" means avoiding the draft illegally, which Clinton did not do. But prominent members of the press did not flatly refute the charge, or demand that Bush renounce it. Republicans, it seems, have carte blanche to level irresponsible charges at Democrats when it comes to military service. But the media cuts Democrats--even one with as unimpeachable a record of service as Wesley Clark--no such slack.
Finally, there's Jennings editorial comment that the episode shows that you "know a man by his friends." As I said, Clark's appearance with Moore does not speak well of him. (As this week's Notebook points out, Moore has described the Kosovo intervention, which is Clark's crowning achievement, as an act of genocide.) But President Bush has plenty of nutty supporters, too. He has been endorsed by--to take just one example--Pat Roberston, who makes Moore look measured by comparison. If Moore's endorsement disqualifies Clark for the presidency, then the media should have disqualified Bush years ago.
Do you honestly believe that you have to be "full time military" to be AWOL?
What do you mean his "unit was inactive"? He was ordered to report to a national guard unit that, by all accounts (except W's), never saw him. Is that absent? Yup. Well, did he have leave? Nope.
Do you even KNOW anybody in the guard? If so, ask them (as I just asked my officemate) - you are supposed ot put in time, "active" unit or not, and when you do not show up, you are AWOL.
What ever. Keeps your brains off for the next five years. Maybe you can start to think again when Bush has left office.
Oh man! If only the Democrats had used this refutation every time the Republicans complained that Clinton didn't hold his head right when he took a dump!
OK, veering off-topic here, but does anyone EVER admit they are wrong on these forums? Or is it just rare? (I am truly not being sarcastic, but serious - you can see by my post count I have not been here that long (although I do lurk more than I post)).
OK then, tell me this. When you said "At worst Bush failed to show up for jumping jacks and marching. That's not even close to AWOL". Is that true? What you failed to show up for affects whether it counts as AWOL or not?
I will be happy to be shown wrong here - please demonstrate to me how failing to show up for "jumping jacks and marching" (I note that here you are implying that is all W would have had to do on base - another topic for us to explore later) makes AWOL not possible (not even CLOSE, I should add).
Interesting. I have not seen it (but, as I say, I have not logged that many hours). I usually see the derailing and silence bits (pretending that they meant something else or just never responding).
The stricter rules around here seem to have spawned less pettiness, which is good.
Comments
At worst Bush failed to show up for jumping jacks and marching. That's not even close to AWOL.
Do you know what AWOL means? How does what your particular service duties are factor into your status as absent? This is just silly.
I, too, was disappointed in Clark for his response. I think that the appropriate response would have been to dismiss "dessertion" as an inappropriately strong term, but argue that W's service record has gaps which need to be addressed. It is very easy for a man who never was in harm's way to send our kids to war, and the fact that he was AWOL should infuriate all of those conservatives who whined about the "draft dodger" in office before W.
Fish
edited to add - there are legal differences between AWOL and deserting, and it seems clear to me that desertion is NOT what W did. Clark could have been a stand-up guy on this, and I was surprised and disappointed in his response (saw him on Russert's show yesterday - he was equally evasive on this issue and on his personal feeling wrt abortion).
Just because his dad was UN Ambassador and then Chairman of the RNC at the time and the military saw it fit not to go after him... doesn't mean he wasn't AWOL.
He only went back when he got threatened of being a deserter. And even then de got out 8 months before his service was supposed to finish. And then to attend... was it Harvard busines school?
Just shows how privileged he was.
Clinton broke no laws. If he's a draft dodger so is Limbaugh, Cheney... and everyone else that got a defferrment to a war no one wanted to fight in.
At least Gore set foot in Vietnam.
The Saturday before last, filmmaker Michael Moore, appearing at a rally with Wesley Clark, called President Bush a "deserter." Then, during last Thursday night's Democratic debate in New Hampshire, ABC's Peter Jennings took Clark to task for Moore's remark:
General Clark, a lot of people say they don't [know] you well, so this is really a simple question about knowing a man by his friends. The other day you had a rally here, and one of the men who stood up to endorse you is the controversial filmmaker Michael Moore. You said you were delighted with him.
At one point, Mr. Moore said, in front of you, that President Bush--he's saying he'd like to see you, the general, and President Bush, who he called a "deserter."
Now, that's a reckless charge not supported by the facts. And I was curious to know why you didn't contradict him, and whether or not you think it would've been a better example of ethical behavior to have done so.
This has to be the most hostile and slanted debate question I've seen in a long time. Let's stipulate that Moore is a deranged demagogue with an allergy to the truth, and that the almost-inevitable grief Clark takes as a result of his unfathomable decision to appear beside him is, at some level, deserved. Nonetheless, Jennings's question symbolizes the unfair double-standard reporters have long applied to the question of presidents and military service.
The first thing to point out here is that claiming the charge that Bush is a deserter is "not supported by the facts" is, at the very least, an overprotective interpretation. Reporters have pretty clearly established that Bush did not show up for a year of his service in the Texas National Guard, in contradiction to Bush's account in his book A Charge to Keep. Documentation for that can be found, for instance, in this Boston Globearticle. The fact that the mainstream media paid little attention to Bush's spotty military service during the 2000 campaign relegated it to the fringes of Internet discourse, and gave it a taint of nuttiness that Moore's embrace only enhanced. But it's not wacko to say that Bush failed to fulfill his duty merely because most of the people who say so happen to be wackos.
Is it fair to call Bush a "deserter"? Not precisely. Even if he went AWOLduring his service for the National Guard, which seems highly likely, most people understand the term "deserter" to mean someone who flees his post during combat. Bush did serve during the Vietnam War, but he was safely ensconced in Texas. (If you reject the charge that Bush was a deserter, then you must also reject the spin that he was valiantly protecting the country during wartime.) Calling Bush a deserter, in other words, is hyperbolic. But it's not the outright fiction Jennings made it out to be.
The closest parallel is President Clinton and Vietnam. As a young man, Clinton attempted to pull family strings to avoid service in Vietnam, and was later able to abandon those efforts when he received a favorable draft lottery number. Republicans, including George Herbert Walker Bush, characterized this as draft-dodging. In fact, "draft-dodging" means avoiding the draft illegally, which Clinton did not do. But prominent members of the press did not flatly refute the charge, or demand that Bush renounce it. Republicans, it seems, have carte blanche to level irresponsible charges at Democrats when it comes to military service. But the media cuts Democrats--even one with as unimpeachable a record of service as Wesley Clark--no such slack.
Finally, there's Jennings editorial comment that the episode shows that you "know a man by his friends." As I said, Clark's appearance with Moore does not speak well of him. (As this week's Notebook points out, Moore has described the Kosovo intervention, which is Clark's crowning achievement, as an act of genocide.) But President Bush has plenty of nutty supporters, too. He has been endorsed by--to take just one example--Pat Roberston, who makes Moore look measured by comparison. If Moore's endorsement disqualifies Clark for the presidency, then the media should have disqualified Bush years ago.
Originally posted by fishdoc
"At worst Bush failed to show up for jumping jacks and marching. That's not even close to AWOL"
Do you know what AWOL means? How does what your particular service duties are factor into your status as absent? This is just silly.
...
Do you? Bush wasn't full time military nor was his guard unit even active and you think the claim of being AWOL has any relevance?
And how many of them are Jet pilots? He didn't even keep his flight status. Or take the drug tests.
What do you mean his "unit was inactive"? He was ordered to report to a national guard unit that, by all accounts (except W's), never saw him. Is that absent? Yup. Well, did he have leave? Nope.
Do you even KNOW anybody in the guard? If so, ask them (as I just asked my officemate) - you are supposed ot put in time, "active" unit or not, and when you do not show up, you are AWOL.
Fish
Originally posted by Scott
What ever. Keeps your brains off for the next five years. Maybe you can start to think again when Bush has left office.
Oh man! If only the Democrats had used this refutation every time the Republicans complained that Clinton didn't hold his head right when he took a dump!
Fish
F
OK then, tell me this. When you said "At worst Bush failed to show up for jumping jacks and marching. That's not even close to AWOL". Is that true? What you failed to show up for affects whether it counts as AWOL or not?
I will be happy to be shown wrong here - please demonstrate to me how failing to show up for "jumping jacks and marching" (I note that here you are implying that is all W would have had to do on base - another topic for us to explore later) makes AWOL not possible (not even CLOSE, I should add).
Fish
Originally posted by fishdoc
OK, veering off-topic here, but does anyone EVER admit they are wrong on these forums? Or is it just rare?
People do admit they are wrong. But not until they have tried personal attacks, derailing or silence.
I´m not talking about this thread. I am talking in general.
The stricter rules around here seem to have spawned less pettiness, which is good.
Fish
YMMV.