9/11/2007: Patriots Day
"The young patriots now returning from war in Iraq and Afghanistan and other deployments worldwide are joining the ranks of veterans to whom America owes an immense debt of gratitude."
Steve Buyer
NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim September 11, 2007, as Patriot Day. I call upon the Governors of the United States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, as well as appropriate officials of all units of government, to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff on Patriot Day. I also call upon the people of the United States to observe Patriot Day with appropriate ceremonies, activities, and remembrance services, to display the flag at half-staff from their homes on that day, and to observe a moment of silence beginning at 8:46 a.m. eastern daylight time to honor the innocent Americans and people from around the world who lost their lives as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord two thousand seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-second.
GEORGE W. BUSH
Talk Is Cheap Honor Roll:
Rush Limbaugh -- sought deferment (because of a cyst on his tail end).
(Rush's Conservative brother) David Limbaugh: did not serve.
George Will -- sought graduate school deferment, (too smart to die).
Pat Buchanan -- sought deferment (for bad knee).
Pat Robertson -- his US Senator father got him out of Korea as soon as the shooting began.
John Wayne -- sought deferment (to further acting career).
Sean Hannity: did not serve.
Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
Matt Drudge: did not serve.
Steve Forbes: did not serve.
Tony Snow: did not serve.
Michael "Savage" Weiner: did not serve.
Brit Hume: did not serve.
Roger Ailes: did not serve.
Chris Matthews: did not serve.
Neil Boortz : did not serve.
Paul Gigot: did not serve.
Bill Kristol: did not serve.
Ralph Reed: did not serve.
Michael Medved: did not serve.
Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
Anne Coulter: did not serve.
Jerry Falwell: did not serve.
Alan Keyes : did not serve.
Ted Nugent: did not serve.
8 comments:
Wow!,
This must be the ChickenHawk Hall OF Shame!
It is a great post, but you missed a few chickenhawks and the wars they got us into/presided over:
Thomas Jefferson (Barbary Wars)
Woodrow Wilson (World War I)
Franklin Roosevelt (World War II)
Bill Clinton (Kosovo)
None of the above served.
Then again, they were all average to great presidents, so what again is the point of the original post?
That those who have no military service in their backgrounds are unsuitable to positions of leadership? Please clarify.
Anonymous:
Are you dense or what?
This isn't my post but clearly, all the ChickenHawks listed in the post talk really big for people whose ass was never on the line. None on your list were went looking for wars to profit from, but a lot in the post list have. It's a silly comparison.
Especially people like Bill Kristol, Bill O'Reilly, and Dick Chaney.
The point is hypocrisy. A kind of hypocrisy that makes the hypocrite run to the other side of the ship, lean over the rail and call everybody not agreeing with him -- who happen to be sharing the same belief he previously held -- that they are cowards or pansies or somehow don't have the right to think differently than them.
You see this all the time with people who suddenly get religion and start telling you how to live your life. They are the ones who beat their wives, neglected their children, racked up a handful of DWI's, etc. etc. and have the idea that God suddenly gave them the right to tell you how to live. 9 out of 10 times these same people are staggering through their drunken vomit the next time you see them.
It's these jackass hypocrites that inspired me to do this post. Bush and Cheney did everything they could to avoid being patriots 35 years ago and then turn-a-fucking-round and do whatever they could to get us into a war -- regardless of how flimsy the evidence.
Then they have a how list of boot likers who will spew their lies for the chance to sit in the Oval Office or fly on Air Force One.
I personally don't give a shit who avoided the draft in the Vietnam War. They stopped drafting the year before I turned 18 and there was no big rush to join the military in my graduating class. A few did and it was probably one of the best times to join, because the fighting was over all over the world.
I get a special kick out of the likes of Ted the phoney bastard Nugent. His hed is so far up his ass that he thinks sun shine is brown. I remember reading Ted's draft dodging store way back one...being a big fan.
I found the quote of his story, twisted and faded from reality of the span of time:
"In 1990 he told the Detroit Free Press newspaper:
"He claims that 30 days before his draft board physical, he disavowed personal hygiene. The last ten days he ingested nothing but junk food and Pepsi, and with a week to go until the physical, he stopped using the bathroom altogether. When the big day came, he had been living in excrement-caked and urine-stained pants. Always the hero, however, Nugent reassured the Free Press, “But if I would have gone over there, I’d have been killed, or I’d have killed all the Hippies in the foxholes. I would have killed everybody.”"
I don't think Lincoln served either.
Anymore questions?
Annon II,
That would be Dick Cheney, not Chaney.
And no. I'm not dense.
But those presidents I listed never had their "ass(es) on the line" either. They went to war because they understood such action to be in the best interests of the country and its future security. They did not need personal military experience to credential their decisions.
Going into Iraq was a huge geo-political gamble, and the results are not certain to be sure, but slandering those who want to win is not an arguement against the war.
The middle east has been a medieval cesspool of racial and sectarian hatred for a thousand years, and an incubator of worldwide terrorism for the last half century. The attempt to cut this Gordian Knot by installing a second democracy in that region is a new and bold effort to quell those ancient hatreds, and bring the middle east into the community of civilized and democratic nations.
Sunny B.,
OK, before you jump all over my last comment -- which I was publishing just as yours came up --let me say that I see your point and agree that it is valid in a few of the instances/examples listed.
But I must say that the idea that a few top politicians can/will ignore the advise of advisors and take the country to war for purely personal reasons is just not credible. It may well have been a mistaken gamble to try and remake Iraq into a democracy, but why do you insist on slandering the president and questioning the motives of the administration?
If you think we ought to leave, make the arguement that leaving is a better policy than staying the course. Explain why Iraq was better for Iraqi's before we went in, why it would be better to have Saddam still in power, and why letting Al Queda and its murderous sectrarian allies reclaim Mesopotamia as an Islamic terror state would be better for America.
I sometimes think that those so vehemently and unthinkingly opposed to the Iraq war are trying to relive their youth and recapture the counter-culture zeitgeist of the 1960's.
Peace, Man. And don't bogie that joint.
Anon,
What are you smokin? What we've installed in Iraq is a corrupt regime that's sucking blood from young American Patriots. (The real kind, not the chickenhawk kind ). Sectarian violence has only increased with our presence not diminished. I'd love for America to "win" in Iraq. But what does that mean. Bush and Cheney still can't tell the American people what it means to "win" in Iraq. Bush squandered his chance to "win" by doling out billions to Cheney's Halliburton to drive empty trucks around the country to "earn" their per mile fees. It's time to face facts, this war is lost. You can't impose a western sensibility into a region that has no desire for democracy. You sound like a Bill Kristol NeoCon without the benefit of knowing of the squandered opportunities of the last 4 years we've wasted in Iraq already. BTW, when is Bush going to make good on his promise to "smoke out" Bin Ladin?
Bringing the middle east and especially Iraq into the "community of civilized and democratic nations" is empty rhetoric.
Do you recall your 4th grade history ? Where is the "Cradle of Civilization"?
What Bush has gotten us into is a quagmire with no good options left.
Should we "stay the course" for another 5-10 years and 10,000 American lives or just wait until all Iraqis have fled the country and leave with them. Like it or not, the sad fact is Iraqis will tell you they were better off under Sadam. Should we leave Iraq and create a power vacuum for Al Qaeda in Iraq which is a vastly different entity than Bin Laden's AlQaeda and wasn't in Iraq until we began our occupation?
What's your strategy for victory Mr. Anonymous. Iif you have a good answer I'm sure there's a long line of generals in the pentagon who'd love to hear it.
Anon:
Who said we can't leave Iraq immediately? Isn't the same ones that said we had to go there and that we would be greeted as the humble liberators?
I think we have moral obligations for the damage we've done, but I would think we could fulfill those from the outside of Iraq looking in.
Post a Comment