Swift Boat Vets are payback for 1992 attack on Bush Sr!

[barbaraann]

From the Kitty Kelley book, regarding the WWII incident in which two crewmen died but Bush Sr. bailed out of an airplane during combat:

(page 83) "No one ever questioned his actions about bailing out over Chichi-Jima until he ran for President in 1992 and berated his opponent, Bill Clinton, for avoiding military sevice. By then many in George's squardron had died, but Chester Mierzejewski, the eyewitness to that flight in 1944, took issue with what he saw as discrepancies in George's story. Mierzejewsky said he was disturbed after hearing George say on television--during the 1992 campaign--that he had nearly died when his plane was shot because his wings caught on fire and the cockpit erupted in flames.
...
Mierzejewski's account appeared in the newspaper under a blaring headline: "War Buddy Disputes Bush Bailout Tale." George was incensed by the implication that his youthful panic had caused the death of his crewmen. He immediately released the inteligence report of the 1944 mission to rebut the gunner's story. Reporters followed up, interviewing the few surviving members of his VT-51 squadron for the recollections. There was no rush to judgment on the part of anyone who served with George Bush, only a reluctance to return to the war to replay that tragic incident...

...

(page 96) More than fifty years later some Bonesmen still recalled the details of George's harrowing flight. "He took it to heart when he was shot down," said Frank O'Brien in 2003. "I don't think he eer got over it. Well, of course he's over it, but Idon't think it's ever far rom his thoughts, even today."



Revenge is a very important Bush family value. And notice that official military documents are good when they support the Bushes but bad when they support John Kerry.

[quaoar]

1. I always thought it was sleazy

to attack Bush Sr. on that. Bush lied about his age so he could join up and he served with honor -- unlike his worthless son -- and people should respect that.

[mikehiggins]

2. Was it Clinton?

Did the Clinton team orchestrate that criticism? I seem to recall him having some issues of his own to deal with during that campaign, and I honestly cannot even recall hearing about those charges anywhere.

Certainly, in those pre-cable days, nobody was lambasting the viewing public with repeated discussions of charges that were quickly shown to be false.

Wow! Have we gotten better at mud-slinging or what? Something to take pride in, I guess.

[barbaraann]

3. Well, apparently it wasn't the Clinton campaign that did it,

but one individual. If Kitty Kelley has it right, Bush Sr. DOES deserve a LOT of credit for signing up but he wasn't the greatest pilot in the world. He was the youngest pilot and perhaps his judgement wasn't what it should have been.

I have to say that compared to George W. Bush's actions regarding VietNam, Bush Sr. served honorably and admirably in WWII, regardless of whether he failed in that situation or not. He put his life on the line. George W. Bush, on the other hand, put his NOSE on the line (of cocaine).

[ret5hd]

4. he joined to save the family name...

after it became known that his daddy was trading witht he nazis.

his daddy later had a good deal of assets taken from him thru the Trading With the Enemys Act.

[rfranklin]

5. So, even though he committed a crime by falsifying....

his application, we should let him skate?

[notadmblnd]

6. I understand that the reason GWH enlisted and served....

was to try and erase the stain left on his family back when his daddy and co had their assets frozen under the "Trading with the Enemies" act during WWII. Nothing honorable about that in my book.

[quaoar]

8. Do you really think

that the teenaged George HW Bush was actually thinking all that. Don't you suppose that he saw all his friends going and got swept up in the glory of war stuff that impresses so many kids?

[notadmblnd]

11. No I do not think he was just swept up.

yes, he was a young man, but the govt took action against them in Oct 1942 ten months after the US got involved in WWII. GHW enlisted on Oct 20th 1942. GHW would have been very consious of the social implications for his future.

http://watch.pair.com/reich.html
snip

In October 1942, ten months after entering World War II, America was preparing its first assault against Nazi military forces. Prescott Bush was managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. His 18-year-old son George, the future U.S. President, had just begun training to become a naval pilot. On Oct. 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush.
Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over the Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.'s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland 'Bunny' Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush. 1.

[yardwork]

7. Have you apologized to DU for the things you said about us last night?

You had a lot of harsh words for all Democrats because of a photograph of a guy wearing a union shirt apparently ripping a little girl's sign at a Kerry rally. Research by a number of DUers has exposed that incident as a staged fraud.

[quaoar]

10. As I said on a couple of other threads this morning

After it was discovered that the sign ripper was the little girl's brother -- yes, it was a sleazy Republican dirty trick and I was wrong and y'all were right.

edit to add: I was not castigating ALL Democrats. I was criticizing anyone who would rip a sign from a 3-year-old and anyone who thought that was a good thing to do.

But it turns out the sign riper was not a Democrat after all.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. GHW would have left Jim Rassmann to die in the ambush on Bay Hap

we can be sure of that.