Bush's Dad lied about war record

[Fight_n_back]

http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/kerry200408231323.asp

......
In 1980, campaigning for president, Bush spotted Mierzejewski, who was about to retire as a foreman from the Pratt and Whitney aircraft plant, at a rally in Meriden, Connecticut. "I'm glad to see him," said Bush, calling attention to his old war buddy from the podium, according to an article in the Meriden Record-Journal "Those were heroic times." In December 1987 Mierzejewski settled down in his living room to watch Bush, running again, be interviewed by David Frost. He was startled to hear the presidential candidate retell his war story, the one about how the plane was "in smoke and the wings were burning"; and how, of the two crewmen, "one of them got out. I think the other was killed in the plane."

This was not what Bush had told Mierzejewski in the Ready Room. Bush had related that he had called them three times - and he insisted that before he deserted the cockpit he was convinced that the two men must have been dead. Now Bush was saving on national T.V. that one of the men got out. "I never saw anyone else coming out of the plane," Mierzejewski told me. "It seems he Bush was awfully anxious to open that parachute. But I couldn't guess if those guys were alive. If the people are possibly alive, he was supposed to try to make a water landing. But I'm not in his mind." Mierzejewski now thought that Bush had "told me" that the men were dead as if he was justifying to me why he was bailing out himself." And why, he wondered, was Bush talking about smoke and fire? Mierzejewski had witnessed only a "puff of smoke" after Bush's plane had been hit - not billows of smoke and flames, certainly no smoke in the cockpit.


....

Yet, during the contest, Bush published two campaign autobiographies containing divergent accounts of his war experience. In Looking Forward (written with Victor Gold, a friend and adviser), Bush described telling Delaney and White to "bail out" and jumping himself. "I looked around for Delaney and White, but the only thing in sight was my parachute drifting away." This story seemed to square with what Bush had related oil the Finback and to Mierzejewski. But in Man of Integrity (written with Doug Wead, Bush's liaison to the eligious right), he presented a radically different version. "I thought I was a goner," Bush recounted here. "I looked back and saw that my rear gunner was out. He had been machine-gunned to death right where he was. So then I turned back over the water and we bailed out. "But Delaney did not survive. "He was evidently cut to ribbons as he parachuted down. I was luckier."

....

These two exerpts seem to be at odds:

(Given the construction of the Avenger, it was impossible for the pilot, shielded by an armor plate, to see the crew; the only communication would have been by radio.)
and
But in Man of Integrity (written with Doug Wead, Bush's liaison to the eligious right), he presented a radically different version. "I thought I was a goner," Bush recounted here. "I looked back and saw that my rear gunner was out. He had been machine-gunned to death right where he was. So then I turned back over the water and we bailed out. "But Delaney did not survive. "He was evidently cut to ribbons as he parachuted down. I was luckier."
.....


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Maureen Dowd is right...everything about "w" is really about his Dad. He is challenging his father's war record when he goes after Kerry. Do we really Oedipus Rex as President?

[EST]

1. One might also keep in mind the suspicions

that are now surrounding the 1980 election as the first one that was stolen in modern times. GHW Douche certainly was not the exemplary human being we would like our children to emulate.

[Lindacooks]

2. Have any links for that?

I'm curious - and it might help me feel better about this country - that the neocons stole that election too; that Reagan wasn't swept into office by overwhelming popularity.

[Fight_n_back]

3. Send this story to everyone you know

GWH Bush lied abouy his war record.

[EST]

4. There was a fair sized discussion

right here on DU a couple nights ago. I think it may have arisen out of The World According to Bush--don't rightly remember, exactly. I haven't done a lot of research outside these bounds for a few days, perhaps the same sort of fascination as picking scabs off, but it seems we were delving into the history of the Bush bastards and their propensity for claiming awards, medals, and other public accolades to which they were not entitled. The story line goes that GHWB, being in charge of the CIA at the time, set up the theft, and Ronnie Reagan, no great intellect, he, was in actual fact just a figurehead similar to the current resident.

[jeff30997]

5. Yep. Those scumbags sure like puppets.

[anarchy1999]

6. Thank you for putting this up. I knew it, I saved it and did not know

where to find it in my broken down computer. Thank you. Bush Sr. is no more a war hero than his son is. Talk with the men that were on that mission. They tell the real story.

[oasis]

7. No wonder Poppy kept refering to those "angry puffs of smoke" in "Flyboy"

with Paula Zahn. He was trying to convince himself that he wasn't a coward and liar.

[Gore1FL]

8. Oedipus Rex

That story is bad enough -- when Barbara Bush fills the role of Jocasta, I must admit there is quite an urge to vomit.