Has it really been five years since we were treated to that breathtaking "Mission Accomplished" scene aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln?
I remember watching the president's plane approach the carrier that day as cable news anchors gushed about the sheer genius of the setting for its public relations power. They talked about the president's bravery, his mastery of the moment, his leadership skills, his macho.
My mouth gaped at the sheer nerve of it all. We were watching, to mangle Obama's slogan, the audacity of a dope.
But back then, my skeptical feelings were tremendously out of step. Everyone else in the traditional media lapped up the phony photo op like hungry kitties handed a bowl of warm milk. According to DailyKos, here is what the New York Times wrote about the day:
Never before has a president landed aboard a carrier at sea, much less taken the controls of the aircraft. His decision to sleep aboard the ship this evening in the captain's quarters conjured images of the presidency at sea not seen since Franklin D. Roosevelt used to sail to summit meetings.
Mr. Bush was clearly reliving his days as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard, more than three decades ago.
No, he wasn't. If he were reliving his days in the Guard, he wouldn't have shown up.
He would have been in Alabama getting out of bed late for the cushy job his father arranged for him with a friend's campaign. Or he would have been nursing a hangover, lounging by the pool in Houston at the Chateau Dijon. Back when he was supposed to fly a military jet -- when he promised to fly, was paid to fly, was obligated to fly -- the last place the future president seemed to be was behind the controls.
Besides, military records eventually unearthed by AP in 2004 showed that Bush had serious troubles actually landing a jet, a factor that would have made his approach to the USS Lincoln a little too exciting, if you know what I mean.
But on this day five years ago, Karl Rove once again did the impossible for his slacker client. He took Bush's greatest weakness and transformed it into his greatest strength.
How the heck did they pull that off? Were they that smart or were we that dumb?
I don't know of any current candidates who could get away with such an in-your-face rebuttal of the questions about them. It would be like John McCain fighting the age issue by using a walker in public and moving his campaign headquarters to Shady Rest Retirement Village. Or Barack Obama addressing racial and religious worries by wearing a dashiki and carrying a Koran on the campaign trail. Or Hillary Clinton downplaying her brains and drive by tossing back boilermakers and pumping her own gas.
Oh, wait. She's already done that.
And pundits have dutifully jumped all over her for the supposed phoniness of the scenes. Gosh, where were these diligent truth nannies five years ago? Maybe with their newly found assertiveness they can finally ask the president where he was when he disappeared from his National Guard duty for more than a year - a question he has never actually answered.
Oh, dream on.
There are new bus trips to cover, big issues to ignore and little ones to blow out of proportion.
Besides, it is already clear that the bravado and arrogance behind the "Mission Accomplished" moment dwarfs anything we'll ever see in the 2008 campaign. Today, the carrier landing, the bulging flight suit and the colorful banner all seem so long ago. So 2003.
That day was thousands of American military funerals ago, countless dead Iraqis ago. Too many lives and too many lies ago.
Maybe the New York Times was right after all. Maybe the "Mission Accomplished" extravaganza was a lot like the president's National Guard service -- unfair, unfinished, unforgivable.
I think Obama has a brilliant future, but I'd feel better if he were to be elected sometime in the relatively near future, rather than at this point time.
I voted for Clinton in the California primaries and I support her to this day.
No, the blame lies squarely on the American people. They accepted what the press was feeding them like babies at their mother's tit.
If I, an non-American from the other side of the world, could watch Bush's 2000 campaign and think, "how does the guy think ANYONE will believe a word he says?" what excuse have the American people for believing it?
Almost my first thought on seeing the news on 9/11 was the sickening dismay that I knew the US didn't have a President capable of rising to the occasion, or even come close to dealing with it. Events proved I was 100% right and in 2004 I simply could not entertain the notion that the people of the US would re-elect him, yet they did.
In a democracy - even a quasi-democracy like the US - people get the government they deserve. And the press they deserve.
I do believe the Press is to blame for the mess we are in because they don't have the "cojones" to stand up to Dumbo and his "thug" friends. They have towed the line for the republican party for too long.
In this democracy, many of the people are not getting the government they deserve!
very little besides set up senarios for the last eight years. If the newest effort
at negotiations with Iran fail to yield results, will there be another failed attempt
to be "dictator of the world?" Having lost standing in the world, our economy
falling apart, oil becoming the new gold standard, has this President taken us
beyond the point of possible return?
Stalking Anna Nicole Smith and/or Brittny Spears or soiling themselves for a new angle on the Brangelina crapola.
Aptly described by Ms. Mapes as "gushing" they greedily swilled the Kool-aid doled out by Bush's brain like starving refugees. They squandered whatever journalistic credibility they had for a "get" and metamorphized into the media moonies now populating our television screens and newspapers.
Why haven't they demanded an answer from George Bush about those missing military months? Ignored and bamboozled by the man behind the cutrtain, why weren't they raising a stink like the latest media frenzy over what was said by the intelligent but feckless Jeremiah Wright?
The answer is as painfully simple as Bush's ego flight was painfully fraudulent.
They are too spineless to seek the truth, too gutless to publish it.
George Bush has blood on his hands, and the media moonies who celebrated his flight of fancy are looking for a rag to wipe that sticky red stuff off their fingers.
You've got to be kidding. I thought they confiscated all this wretches pencils?
Say hi to Dan Mary.
As for Rathers story suffice to say that what caused his downfall was the fact that the memo could not be authenticated and supposedly was a forgery . The following FACT was not in dispute Ben Barnes gor Boy George into the Texas Air National Guard by using his influence to help Bush jump the line . Col Killian's Secreatary while denying ever typing the letter in question said it represented Killian's opinion of Lt Bush . Bush lost his flight status for failing to take a required Physical . So we the taxpayers got shortchanged on our investment in teaching him how to fly . Funny in the book Karen Hughes wrote concerning Gov Bush it was implied that he flew for a far greater period than he did . No mention of the missed Physical OR of the fact he was released early to attend Harvard .
His avoidance of military service is ten fold more shameful than Bush's half-hearted service, which, by the way, is so of many Vietnam era veterans - even those that were in-country were less than thrilled with their experience. I said that he flew missions over the Caribbean, most know the aircraft carrier in the Mission Accomplished episode was off San Diego, that's in the Pacific and we all know he didn't land or take off from the carrier, no one has ever said he did that. Rather got what he deserved, his hatred of Bush was practically a sickness, it's best he's gone and it's not strange that no one misses him, the pompous blowhard. Whatever you might believe about the hours Bush flew, he flew enough to earn his wings. That is one tough chore.
No natural pilot would avoid flying for any reason. The limits imposed by flying in the national guard would be experienced as a restraint. They need to fly. They love it. They live it. So I put George W. Bush in the “white knuckles” category, TRYING TO FLY A LIE.
At least he escaped with his life and didn’t harm any person who had to trust in his REAL skills. To give him his due, he certainly did somehow manage to marry a decent woman. Perhaps wealth trumps everything else. The rest of G W’s life is living a series of lies, as his record along his life’s path so clearly shows.
We need to release the lie values of this administration and the corporatist right who elected them because everything about them is a lie, and the evidence of the price we are paying is everywhere around us. God save America from the right wing imbeciles who believe in these lies, cannot see the evil being spawned from them, and who have thus brought us the ruin of this tragedy of America today. Pray that the electorate has learned the bitter lesson and can recognize the courageous Spirituality of Barack Obama.
Seems to me he made the humane choice and you're scalding him for it without proposing a reasonable alternative, something only putzes do.
P.S. The last WWII Japanese officer surrendered to the US in April of 1980. Look it up!
Bush didn't "misunderestimate" the guerilla war financed by his very good friends, the Saudis; he said there would be no more war. It was "Mission Accomplished," when any idiot could see that the fighting would go on for years.
But thanks for the info on the Japanese officer. I have no idea what it means to your argument, but what the heck.
Are you really that stupid?
Because, if you are, you should be working in the current maladministration, as you would fit right in.
Seriously, you think that Chimpy McFlightSuit made "the humane choice" by staging some phony ceremony highlighted by cheap (in the dramatic/emotional sense, not the actual cost) theatrics? Humane in what way, exactly? And does someone really have to tell you that a "reasonable alternative" would have been to NOT have staged such an empty and baseless ceremony (much less not have invaded a country that had done us no harm whatsoever)?
And thanks for once again proving that every neo-con foreign policy ends with phrase, "by killing people".
P.S. The last WWII Japanese officer surrendered to the US in April of 1980. So what?! (Or are you suggesting that we "annihilate" Japan, too?)
But he is more than that...(or less). He has inflicted grievous harm on the world. He is ....really...a monster.
His VP is a monster. These are not just mis-guided men. They are monsters and should be shunned at the very least.