Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal (2004)

What, precisely does "given" mean in reference to billions transferred to Halliburton?

Was it a birthday present?

Was it in the form of gift vouchers at Borders?

Or was it, perhaps, "given" in the expectation that the recipient would give something back? As in, shock horror, a purchase of goods and services?

Of course, Kerry does not say. It is a wholly unsubstantiated smear. He leaves unspoken words dangling in the listeners' ears. It is demagoguery. Beware politicians and their trickery. Beware also their partisan water carriers.

When those billions take the form of cost-plus, non-bid contracts, and when they keep coming even after *multiple* *proven* acts of overcharging and other hijinks, when even the company's own employees are coming forward to say that their employer systematically gouges the government on these contracts, then yes, they basically are a giant birthday present to Halliburton. How else would you interpret it?

Hey Pat,

Halliburton was good enough for Clinton in Bosnia. Dems are simply playing politics. Halliburton was the company to send in before Cheney, during Cheney and after Cheney. They are the best company for the job.

I love Kerry's new found love for the military. The guy who wants to turn them over to the UN is on the job. He wanted to cut or eliminate many major weapon systems in addition to starving our intelligence agencies. Oh I know, don't sprain your fingers on the keyboard to tell me how useless those sytems were. That is shear monday morning QB'ing. Nobody is precient. You build systems for different jobs and just because a situation has not come up yet doesn't mean the system was a bad investment. I don't want to hear the SDI stuff, because there are two sides. The point is Kerry has never been a friend of the military.

If procurement is screwed up in the services blame the Generals. If you think the war was a bad idea blame Bush.

We are in for a heavy dose of populist politics this summer and I expect the Dem constituencies of uneducated, ESL, and inner city voters to lap it up in copius amounts while the post graduate white liberals give a knowing wink and a nod.

And the latest Bush Ads back you up Brian. The details of Kerry's voting record on military bills have been well-documented here. Again the smear is from the Repugs. Like Halliburton now and Halliburton during Clinton, there's a difference if you were genuinely curious.

The whole "Kerry votes to cut weapons systems" line is bunk. Kerry voted against giant omnibus military spending bills. the likelihood of any senator voting for or against a specific system is based entirely on how much of the work will be done in their home state, period.
and jesus, anyone saying the Dems are playing politics with Bush constantly shaking the 9/11 monkey in people's faces every single minute of the day is really blowing my mind. bush is NOTHING BUT SPIN. He can't run on issues, he sucks on issues. He has to run on spin and spin alone. and some people are so deeply hateful they'll vote for him just because he says "jesus" every other sentence.

patently ridiculous. we deserve what we get.

Kerry's record on the military has been distorted an incredible amount. Almost all of his votes against specific weapons systems were against nuclear weapons related systems such as Trident II submarines, MX missiles and the SDI system, which have no relevency to the war on terror. No number of nuclear submarines or missiles will deter Osama Bin Ladin and his ilk. Furthermore, most of the programs that Republicans claim Kerry tried to cut were merely parts of Kerry's attempts to cut the overall federal budget, such as in 1993 when Kerry's vote against the Pentagon budget was part of a larger attempt to cut the federal budget $85 billion when the federal govvernment was $300 billion in debt. Also, the Republicans should be careful to push this issue because some enterprising reporter might just find this quote from Dick Cheney from his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1992:

"Overall, since I've been Secretary, we will have taken the five-year defense program down by well over $300 billion. That's the peace dividend. … And now we're adding to that another $50 billion … of so-called peace dividend....Congress has let me cancel a few programs. But you've squabbled and sometimes bickered and horse-traded and ended up forcing me to spend money on weapons that don't fill a vital need in these times of tight budgets and new requirements. … You've directed me to buy more M-1s, F-14s, and F-16s—all great systems … but we have enough of them."

These words from Cheney show the incredible importance that the context of a policy makers votes or statements have in determing whether or not the policy decisions/votes were well advised. Kerry did not actually vote specifically against any of the weapons systems that Republicans claim he did, his votes were part of an effort to balance the federal budget that they should have supported based on their ideological beliefs.
Much of the time people confuse increasing military spending by itself with being a good military leader and with being able to protect our country. Throwing money into unnecessary weapons systems such as SDI that drain federal dollars away from military investments that are actually important, like armor for our troops and their humvees, is not being strong on defense. It is being incredibly weak on defense and Kerry and the Democrats are right for pointing out that weakness.

John Kerry's record on defense is also discussed on FackCheck.org at http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=147
Fred Kaplan does a much more thorough job than i did of explaining this on Slate at http://slate.msn.com/id/2096127/.

Ah, the twilight zone where America doesn't spend more money on its' military than anyone else, and in fact than any reasonable set of enemies. The real third rail of US politics isn't Social Security, it's the untouchable US military budget. Any reasonable and sane person would think that one of the most painless ways to save money would be to cut it rather significantly.

I think people will be more interested in what Kerry says in his speeches than what the GOP insinuates about him in ads. Most people know to take these attacks with a grain of salt.

"g h, did he or did he not cut taxes? Did he or did he not get Rx benefit? Did he or did he not get NO Child Left Behind? Now you may disagree with the policies, but he delivered."

The only one of those thing which we actually delivered were the foolist and irresponsible tax cuts which are bankrupting our country at the very time we need significant investments in our future. As a consequence the Rx benefit is unfunded as is No Child Left Behind. He has also delivered on rolling back fundamental environmental protections, destroying America's reputation as a partner in the international community by abandoning long-standing treaties and bullying the countries which been stalwart allies and I could go on with an ever-growing list of all the negatives which he has actually delivered while offering only sound bites and photo opps for those things which are really positive. I guess AmeriCorps was harboring "terrists".

You can always tell the folks who washed out of freshman science class by how they're unable to comprehend that anything but a corner solution can be optimal. You can always tell the ones that get washed out of freshman statistics by how they're unable to comprehend the concepts of false negatives and false positives. Brian scores of both counts. And I won't even mention undergrad econ.

"g h, did he or did he not cut taxes?"

No, absent a reduction in expenditures the term is tax shift.

'g h, did he or did he not cut taxes? Did he or did he not get Rx benefit? Did he or did he not get NO Child Left Behind? Now you may disagree with the policies, but he delivered.
'
I will agree that Bush delivered any particularly stupid and ineffective policy you care to name, happy now?

Brad,
Help, this thread needs to be purged.

But Bush has been "moving to" balance the budget: he cut the body bag payment from $12,000 to $6,000.

Moving right along now, the money thus saved presumably pays for the security detail who keep photographers away from the returning dead at Andrews AFB...

Wow, a new bot. Not particularly improved, though.

"Cut and Run Kerry." ! Wasn't this the guy who volunteered for two tours in Vietnam? Bush et al are in real trouble now, because they are up against a Democratic candidate with some real smarts.

Well, the last Democratic President sent off American soldiers to Somalia fully-armored but without the tanks and AC-130 gunships they requested.

"You Dems are quite sensitive. The commercial just showed a couple brief picures. I would have shown WTC '93, USS Cole, the two African embassies, the WTC II and finally a combo shot of a daisy cutter in Afghanistan and a roling tank formation in Iraq."

Er, Brian. As legions of commentators have pointed out, Bush never proposed invading Afghanistan until 9-11, for the simple reason that such an invasion in response to the earlier attacks would have been solidly opposed by virtually all the world, and by the American people as well. See, for instance, the comments of Peter Bergen of "Holy War, Inc." on the subject. (Sandy Berger did, however, point out in detail to the Bush Administration that more forceful military action might very well be required in the near future if Al Qaida carried out more attacks against US properties abroad, and there is no doubt whatsoever that any Democratic president would have invaded Afghanistan after 9-11.)

What WAS done in response to the first attack on the WTC was the arrest and conviction of virtually every agent involved in that attack within the US. Which is exactly what the Bush Administration would have done, and no more.

As for that list of $50 billion in military cuts that he proposed during his first Senate campaign: the Freepers are awfully late in revealing it. The Washington Post put that news on its front page back on Feb. 8 ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A22260-2004Feb7¬Found=true ), along with Kerry's own statement that some of the cuts he proposed during that 1984 campaign were "stupid" and "ill-advised". So the question is how many of those systems he actually did vote to eliminate once he was actually in the Senate, and how many of his actual cuts were unjustified. Fred Kaplan provides good reason to think that his votes against the B-2, and to trim the MX system and Reagan's SDI program (he never did vote to eliminate them), were justified ( http://slate.msn.com/id/2096127). I intend to take a look at the Council for a Livable World's detailed records of his actual defense votes year by year in the Senate to find out what else he actually did vote to cut.

Postscript: "I tried to send "A" another copy of my message immediately above, only to discover that he has apparently given us a false E-mail address. I just love these "hit-and-run" characters, don't you?

Er Anarchus, the one who sent the American soldiers to Somalia, fully armored but without the tanks and AC-130 gunships they requested was the present Presidents dad. (And I'm not too sure about the tanks)

" 'Cut and Run Kerry.' ! Wasn't this the guy who volunteered for two tours in Vietnam? Bush et al are in real trouble now, because they are up against a Democratic candidate with some real smarts."

Not exactly. In Kerry's own words to the Boston Globe in June of 2003:

----------quote-------------
Kerry served two tours. For a relatively uneventful six months, from December 1967 to June 1968, he served in the electrical department aboard the USS Gridley, a guided-missile frigate that supported aircraft carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin and was far removed from combat.

"I didn't have any real feel for what the heck was going on [in the war]," Kerry has recalled. His ship returned to its Long Beach, Calif., port on June 6, 1968, the day that Robert F. Kennedy died from a gunshot wound he received on the previous night at a Los Angeles hotel. The antiwar protests were growing. But within five months Kerry was heading back to Vietnam, seeking to fulfill his officer commitment despite his growing misgivings about the war.

Kerry initially hoped to continue his service at a relatively safe distance from most fighting, securing an assignment as "swift boat" skipper. While the 50-foot swift boats cruised the Vietnamese coast a little closer to the action than the Gridley had come, they were still considered relatively safe.

"I didn't really want to get involved in the war," Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. "When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing."

But two weeks after he arrived in Vietnam, the swift boat mission changed -- and Kerry went from having one of the safest assignments in the escalating conflict to one of the most dangerous.
--------------endquote-------------

So there your are, Bruce. I want to make it as simple as possible for you to make up your mind about people who didn't volunteer for infantry duty in Vietnam. Since you didn't answer this on another thread here it is again:

___ I, Bruce Moomaw, believe both Bush and Kerry showed cowardice by not volunteering for infantry duty when they enlisted.

___ I, Bruce Moomaw, believe neither Bush nor Kerry showed cowardice by not volunteering for infantry duty when they enlisted.

Just put an "x" in front of your choice (hey, even Bush could handle that).

ogmb

We all know what a person with a weak argurment and/or mind resorts to. I did quite well in both economics and statistics. How'd you do in logic? Its all a matter of your point of view. Let's hear how ogmb evaluates future threats and allocates resources. I for one think it is immoral to ask Americans to go into battle without overwhelming supiority in technology. Korea and Viet Nam were atrocities on our military perpetrated by military budget cutters like yourself. Fighting third world countries with roughly equivalent weapons is simply inexcusable. Afghanistan and Iraq was a turkey shoot as it should be. Of course, ogmb will fight wars with socialist economics and statistical analysis. By the way, where do you get the data on future conflicts.

Mr. Sullivan--

Whatever cowardice Kerry displayed by not signing up for infantry duty he more than made up for by displaying courage in actual physical combat. The closest to actual physical combat George W. Bush got was on 9/11 when it was believed that the president might also be targeted. As I recall he hopped around the country in Air Force One like a scared rabbit. I saw him on TV a couple days later and he sure looked scared and confused to me. He certainly didn't inspire any confidence. Though who knows, maybe under that cowardly exterior there really is an action trying desparately to get out.

Regarding the body armor issue, see http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040306_524.html :

"Kerry said acting Army Secretary Les Brownlee had testified before Congress that U.S. forces were 'not prepared' for the present conflict in Iraq and they didn't have the preparation and hardware they needed to fight as effectively as they could.

"In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Brownlee was asked why the Army took so long to produce adequate numbers of upgraded body armor and Humvees with extra armor plating.

" 'I also regret that we were not more farsighted here. We simply were not prepared for that kind of a counterinsurgency that attacked our convoys and our soldiers in the rear, as it has proven to be,' he said."

So, contrary to Tbrosz, Kerry was simply quoting the Bush Administration itself when it said it had inadequately provided our troops with body armor -- apparently becasue of the Pollyanna attitude toward likely conditions in Iraq embraced by the more goofily optimistic prowar neocons. Of course, we STILL haven't provided enough of it...

Patrick doesn't give up easily, does he? "K" has provided as good a reply to him as I could have. For someone who supposedly tried to duck combat in Vietnam because of cowardice, Kerry showed downright astonishing bravery as soon he actually got on that Swift Boat -- which raises the possibility that he was trying to semi-duck combat more because of his misgivings about the war than out of cowardice. Would Bush have shown comparable bravery had he finally been forced into combat? Conceivably -- but he was still indulging the hell out of himself years later, which makes it unlikely. Kerry was not thus indulging himself, and indeed seems never to have done so.

Incidentally, as anyone who reads the tail end of our interminable slugfest on DeLong's "Watching the Republican Slime Machine" thread will notice, Sullivan can't make up his mind whether to accuse Kerry of being a coward or of being irresponsibly "reckless" in embracing combat unnecessarily. What's wrong with this picture?

One other comment about "K": I and my mother also noticed that, during his first televised talk to the nation in the hours after the 9-11 attack, Bush looked and sounded scared out of his wits. I suppose it's possible that FDR sounded equally scared during the first few hours after Pearl Harbor, but I wonder. (As for Bush's leadership in crisis, we should also remember that after the news of the second WTC impact came in, he insisted on FINISHING reading that story about a goat to a class of grade-schoolers before leaving to deal with the situation. This does not inspire great confidence in his wartime judgment.)

And, as a clarifying note: Sullivan has sent me a note from the Boston Globe as support for his attempt to portray Kerry as being as irresponsible as Bush because he once considered buzzing the Golden Gate Bridge in his plane in 1967, and only aborted it because of a flock of birds. He's certainly correct that this displays irresponsibility on Kerry's part at least once. But since the same article goes on to say that Kerry was passionately fond of aerobatics, it doesn't really mesh very well with the idea that Kerry dodged service in Vietnam because of personal cowardice.

What we DO know about Kerry (courtesy of the New Republic) is that his diplomat father was furiously opposed to the War from the start -- which, as I say, raises the possibility that Kerry was genuinely undecided about whether he ought to be in the damn thing. This may indicate indecisiveness on his part, and an attempt to have it both ways -- but it also explains his initial reluctance to get into the war in a way much more convincing than the belief that he's been an alternating coward/berserker throughout his life. By contrast, Bush's father, of course, did support the war, and there's certainly no indication that Bush Jr. himself ever opposed it personally because of conscience. (He seems in those days to have had little conscience about anything.)

Once again, er, Brian:

Truman and Eisenhower agreed to settle for a stalemate in Korea, rather than trying to get into all-out war with China, because they were terrified that Stalin would get into the war and turn it into a nuclear World War III. LBJ and Nixon refused to launch an all-out land invasion of North Vietnam for exactly the same reason: fear that it would mushroom into a nuclear exchange (which in that case, could have been carried out by China alone). Lack of adequate conventional weaponry had exactly nothing to do with either incident.

Patrick R. Sullivan: let me try to explain how things look to those of us who were there. In 1964, when I started college, I joined the ROTC. In 1968, I went on into the Army. I served where they sent me. I did not try to find a safe place in the guard, or rely on the grad school exemption, or get married, or go to divinity school. I did not go to Canada. I did not ask my parents for help. My attitude towards the war is irrelevant. When my country called, I went.

When I look in the mirror, I do not see a coward. Neither does John Kerry. I personally know many men my age who will always wonder about themselves.
Which camp does our president fall into? Does he even have the self-insight to see this pair of alternatives?

Brian: "I did quite well in both economics and statistics."

Oh the wonders of grade inflation. If you had done well in economics (in terms of understanding rather than passing) you'd be able to apply some simple economic concepts like want vs. demand or marginal rate of substitution and realize that any multi-term legislator should have a mixed voting record with respect to Pentagon procurement requests, and that voting against particular requests for weapons systems does not translate into a "starving" of our defense per se, but could also be a vote to prevent "gluttony" from an agency that will always ask for more than it can feasibly expect to get. (Our overfunded and undercompetent intelligence services being a case in point.)

If you had done well in statistics (qualifier as above) you'd understand that lawmakers will have to err on both sides (underfunding and overfunding) in any sensible attempt to find an optimal budget allocation that also satisfies other wants rather than spend 100% on defense (= corner solution).

Your "socialist economics" potshot goes nowhere btw, and your dismissal of statistical analysis just reinforces how little understanding you have of what drives a modern economy.

"Or was it, perhaps, "given" in the expectation that the recipient would give something back? As in, shock horror, a purchase of goods and services?"

You mean like the gasoline they overcharged for in Iraq, or the contract to put out fires that never happened?

War President using his position for partisan political gain:

http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2004_02_29_betsyspage_archive.html#107859774075193145

" In case you can't read the inscription, it says 'We are going to win this war and win the peace that follows.' "

No, no, fellas. Look it's really simple:

___ I, Bruce Moomaw [masaccio], believe both Bush and Kerry showed cowardice by not volunteering for infantry duty when they enlisted.

___ I, Bruce Moomaw [masaccio], believe neither Bush nor Kerry showed cowardice by not volunteering for infantry duty when they enlisted.

Just put an "x" in front of your choice. It's really easy, no dancing necessary. Bruce knows I've already selected the first explanation.

Btw, if Bruce would bother to read the thread he's talking about he would find out that "cowardly" and "reckless" aren't antonyms.

Oops, correction, I meant to say the second option: no cowardice for either man.

No Patrick, it is not Either Bush AND Kerry, it's either Bush or Kerry as in

No, no, fellas. Look it's really simple:

___ I, Patrick Sullivan, believe Bush showed cowardice when he did not volunteer for dangerous service in Vietnam

or

___ I, Patrick Sullivan, believe Bush did not show cowardice when he did not volunteer for dangerous service in Vietnam

AND

___ I, Patrick Sullivan, believe Kerry showed cowardice when he did not volunteer for dangerous service in Vietnam

or

___ I, Patrick Sullivan, believe Kerry did not show cowardice when he did not volunteer for dangerous service in Vietnam

BTW Patrick, Swift boat service was as dangerous, if not more so than infantry service in Vietnam.

.

___ I, Bruce Moomaw [masaccio], believe neither Bush nor Kerry showed cowardice by not volunteering for infantry duty when they enlisted.

Just put an "x" in front of your choice.

Well, I'll be clear:

1) I believe that Bush dodged Vietnam by volunteering for the TANG.

2) I believe that Patrick knows full well what volunteering for the TANG meant in 1968. Any references by Patrick to the Crystal Palace program
(i.e., which required more flight hours than AWOL ever achieved) are, of course, highly dishonest.

What a surprise, no one wants to treat Kerry and Bush in a consistent manner! Nor that anyone can read. I'm on record with my "x" being:

x I... believe neither Bush nor Kerry showed cowardice by not volunteering for infantry duty when they enlisted.

Anyone else honest enough to confront the real choice?

" BTW Patrick, Swift boat service was as dangerous, if not more so than infantry service in Vietnam."

But not when Kerry volunteered:

" 'I didn't really want to get involved in the war,' Kerry said in a little-noticed contribution to a book of Vietnam reminiscences published in 1986. 'When I signed up for the swift boats, they had very little to do with the war. They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing.' "

It wasn't until after Kerry went back to Vietnam that the boats' mission was changed to patroling the rivers that it became dangerous. And Kerry got out as quickly as possible, leaving some other officer to replace him.

The only real difference between the two men's military careers was that Bush's attempt to volunteer for service in Vietnam was denied. And Bush was volunteering for far more dangerous duty than Kerry. We know that from John Kerry himself. In his own words:

"I didn't really want to get involved in the war..."

Evan Thomas in Newsweek, 2-23-04:

"Kerry, who has always loved physical risk (he spent his senior year at Yale learning how to pilot planes and still flies and windsurfs), was an aggressive warrior. He famously beached his boat, jumped off and shot a Viet Cong before he could aim his grenade launcher. Kerry's JFK act wa a little off-putting at first. 'I thought, Jesus Christ, Audie Murphy just walked onboard,' Jim Wasser, Kerry's No. 2 on Swift Boat PCF-94, recalled to Newsweek. But his crew trusted him. 'I don't think he was overly risky,' ays Mike Madeiros, the rear gunner aboard PCF-94. 'He never was "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead." There was some grumbling among Kerry's fellow officers that he was medal hungry. Kerry recevied three Purple Hearts for minor shrapnel wounds that others might shake off, though no one doubted that he had bravely faced enemey fire. Anyone wounded three times could ask to be transferred home, and Kerry did after four months of combat duty. But Kerry was a good leader and considerate of his men, and he arranged for them to get safer assignements when he left...

"Kerry was troubled about the war he fought. His Seift Boat operated in 'free-fire zones', meaning in essence, that Americans were free to shoot at anything that moved. Kerry's men did open up on some questionable targets, like old men or boys along the riverside. Everyone was a potential combatant in Vietnam; still, in January 1969, Kerry and some other officers went to Saigon to complain about the free-fire-zone to their superiors. [Douglas Brinkley's account in the December "Atlantic" describes this in much greater detail -- they complained damn forcefully about that policy.] They were given a pat on the back and sent back to war. But when Kerry came home in the summer of 1969, to a safe spot as an admiral's aide, he began looking for ways to speak out against the war."

So. The evidence remains that Bush -- who never showed the slightest sign of complaining about the Vietnam War politically (whereas Kerry had forcefully criticized it in his 1966 Yale class-day oration) did use illicit pull to get into the Guard simply to reduce the risk to himself. (And for the billionth time, Patrick: we have no evidence that Bush's supposed volunteering for Vietnam duty two years later in Palace Alert was sincere, and considerable reason to think it wasn't. As Josh Marshall points out, he didn't think it worth uttering a word about during his discussion with Tim Russert on whether he did his military, and he has virtually never mentioned it on the campaign trail either -- even when, if Patrick is right, it would have shielded him from unfair accusations about his supposed cowardice. Why? Fear, perhaps, that some witnesses from the Guard would crawl out of the woodwork to testify that he knew in advance that there was no real risk to himself?)

Kerry almost certainly didn't act ambiguous about the war for that reason -- he never seems to have cared greatly what happened to his own neck -- but we do have here strong evidence that he has a penchant for political equivocation, for trying to make up his mind in both directions simultaneously when it comes to politics. (In the case of Vietnam, his father was strongly opposed to it -- but almost everyone else he knew, according to Newsweek, was strongly for it.) Question: is this more dangerous than Bush's penchant for political stubbornness and bullheadedness in the face of strong evidence to the contrary? (Bush is definitely the more politically reckless of the two; his comments indicate that he's actually contemptuous of people who think too much.)

"People who think too much" in Bush's view, that is -- which seems to mean people who think at all. "I don't do nuance." In the world of politics (epecially internationl politics) you'd damn well better do nuance, or you can very easily wreck your country. (Which was also my primary objection to Howard Dean.) The remaining question is whether Kerry has too much penchant for political indecisveness.

Bruece Moomaw says: “Truman and Eisenhower agreed to settle for a stalemate in Korea, rather than trying to get into all-out war with China, because they were terrified that Stalin would get into the war and turn it into a nuclear World War III.”

Stalin did get into the Korean war. Soviet pilots flew combat missions in Korea, for example the 64th Fighter Aviation Corps was sent to fight in Korea in Nov 1950.
http://aeroweb.lucia.it/~agretch/RAFAQ/SovietAces.html

What Truman did not want to do (wisely) was to use nuclear weapons to end the war quickly. That might have caused a Warsaw Pact invasion of Germany. I doubt that it was fear of a nuclear retaliation by the Soviet Union as they only first tested a weapon in August 1950. The Soviet Union certainly didn’t have tactical nuclear weapons that early. The stalemate occurred because we will ill equipped to fight a protracted land war on the Korean Peninsula at that time.

Mr. Zarkov, they first tested an A-bomb in August 1949 -- not 1950. And, within a month of first testing its own A-bomb, the US dropped two of them on Japan. Truman, if he had the sense God gave a goose, was most definitely scared of getting into a nuclear war with Stalin -- although it might have blown up only, say, four or five of our and Europe's cities. (Hardly anything to worry about.)

Hello? Back to Kerry?

Bush 43% (51)
Kerry 49% (38)
Unsure 5% (11)

All of which is meaningless with Kerry
-$5M in the hole, while Bush +$10M plus
PAC's, when it comes to TV advertising.

2004 is not about issues, not about the
economy, the war in Iraq, or any tangible
debate. It's about mind-space, real estate
on the shelves of the lumpen proletariat.
And Bush's ad have got that space dicked.

GWB's got California, Texas, New York and
Florida, all of the Far West outside of
WA & NM. He's got the Heartland, and the
Deep South. For Bush, 2004's a cake-walk.

In 1951 Truman approved use of nuclear weapons in Manchuria if large numbers of Chinese troops joined the war, or bombers are launched against UN forces from Manchurian bases.

http://www.nuclearfiles.org/hitimeline/1951.html

This is hardly consistent with the notion that Truman was terrified of Stalin’s nuclear weapons. Moreover, the Soviet Union tested its second nuclear bomb in Sept. 1951 (sorry for the typo on the first test), so they did not have much of an arsenal let alone delivery systems.

Interesting historical note (which I wasn't aware of) -- but:

(1) The link to "Truman" in that same article sys that he issued that order at the request of MacArthur, just a few weeks before canning him for being too eager to expand the war into China.

(2) Truman ordered a nuclear counterattack only in the event of a massive expansion of China's military activities in North Korea -- and, no doubt, let the Chinese know about it as a deterrant. Which means that, even if we had had the conventional military might to roll the Reds back up to the Chinese-North Korean border again, he would very likely have hesitated to do so. The only reason he did so the first time, after all, is that the Trumanites (with the enthusiastic assistance of MacArthur) had managed to convince themselves that China would have no military objection to our doing so. Now that he knew China was desperate to keep Uncle Sam off its doorstep -- and that Stalin felt obligated to support it -- I doubt very much whether he would have tried to repeat that action in any case.

In any case, if the only thing Truman was afraid of was a CONVENTIONAL Soviet military invasion of western Europe, would he really have been that afraid of gambling on triggering it -- at a time when we supposedly had a large number of nuclear weapons in our arsenal? Especially since the White House couldn't be certain just how many Bombs Stalin might have salted away despite testing only two? (Israel, after all, has never tested any, but no one doubt their ability to blow the hell out of Asia Minor.)

Getting back to Kerry: the Daily Telegraph has now dug up a 1970 story from the Harvard Crimson that Kerry did ask for a one-year deferment -- and, when he didn't get it, appplied to the navy. The Kerry campaign refuses to comment:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/07/wkerr07.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/03/07/ixnewstop.html

Lucianne, of course, has already gotten into the act: " 'This means that Kerry didn't jump into all that heroic service until he was pushed, and it is a very nice piece of information,' said Lucianne Goldberg, a prominent Republican campaigner.

"Republican strategists for President Bush were already investigating Sen Kerry's record of three wounds sustained in Vietnam. 'We find that he had only one day off sick - with three wounds? What exactly were these wounds?' she asked."

It's a wee bit hard to see how a coward can be "pushed into heroic service" -- unless, being Lucianne, she's saying that he really acted cowardly even while on the Swift Boat and the fact was covered up by the military. Well, she can debate that with Kerry's Band of Brothers (as well as with Patrick, who, the last I heard, was still accusing Kerry of being personally reckless once he got into Vietnam). I do hope she keeps running her mouth publicly; I can't think of a better campaign asset for the Democrats.

But this leaves us again with the question I asked before: since Kerry apparently not only had no qualms about risking his neck physically but actually greatly enjoyed it before the war (and still enjoys it), why WAS he reluctant to get into the center of the war initially? I think -- to repeat my own theory -- that he was trying to appease his firmly anti-war dad and his pro-war friends at the same time, by splitting the difference. Which raises questions about his judgment, though not his courage.

As for Bush, we are still left with the fact that he (1) never seems to have had any qualms about the aims of the war (as Kerry and his father did); and (2) certainly used illicit pull to get out of service there anyway and into a Guard unit where he could "better myself by learning to fly planes" (presumably as career training, at public expense). This still leaves the possibility that he may have changed his mind later on and sincerely volunteered for Vietnam service in Palace Alert -- but I've already given the reasons for thinking this unlikely, though not impossible.

ogmb,

In your world, JFK II is just a common sense legislator digging into each weapon system with statistical analysis based on the liklihood of future threat scenarios. He's not one of the most liberal Senators who advocated for our military to be used only under UN auspices.

ogmb am I to assume you've also done this highly accurate predictive statistical anaysis of future conflicts. You must have since you ridicule those with other points of view. Lets hear some of your analysis of the multiple weapon systems opposed by Kerry. In fact, give me some statistics.

You say "your dismissal of statistical analysis just reinforces how little understanding you have of what drives a modern economy".

What does defense spending have to do with a modern economy other than providing a secure environment which I'd like you to put a $ tag on. You do realize it can take decades to develop a weapons system. What kind of accurate data would you have on such a long range basis.

ogmb I think you're all computer muscles. Kerry is a liberal dove and therefore he can stomach little spending on the military. He knows a weak military is not likely to be used much. If in doubt ask Jimmy Carter. Attacks like those on the African embassies, '93 WTC and USS Cole do little to raise the hair on a liberal's neck. Its called passivism.

Come on ogmb hurl more ad hominem arguments. The weakness of you're argument is only surpassed by the weakness of your character. I know why your comfortable with Kerry now. Kerry's strong grasp of redistributionist economics(everyone knows the unchallenged success of those methods) and his scapel like accuracy for trimming defense spending based on statistical analysis(who needs Aegis, cruise missiles or the Abrahams tank). Kerry's run the numbers.

ogmb lets see who gets the military vote. I hope you still believe people vote their interests although I admit not every voter does the statistical analysis like you and JFK II.

“(Israel, after all, has never tested any … “ Actually Israel did test a bomb, with South Africa. It was a clandestine underwater test, which did produce a bright flash picked up by an American reconnaissance satellite. The US government put out a phony sounding cover story that the flash was caused by a micrometeorite hitting the satellite. Few people who worry about such things believed that story. Israel’s nuclear weapons capability certainly didn’t deter Egypt and Syria from attacking it in 1973. When it looked like Israel might perish, Golda Meir ordered nuclear weapons placed in rockets in full view of American spy satellites. This scared Nixon and Kissenger so much they sent aid.

Again, interesting. Mandela's government, almost as soon as taking power, confirmed that this flash had indeed been a Bomb test by South Africa, but they never said a thing about Israel being involved -- and would Mandela really have shielded Israel? (On the other hand, a deliberate coverup of an Israeli Bomb test by the Carter Administration could explain the baffling series of contradictory stories being put out by the US government at the time to the effect that a whole series of our supposedly infallible detection systems couldn't settle the question of whether a Bomb had gone off.)

And, by the way, the Yom Kippur War was 6 years before that Bomb test. But I think we're getting off the subject -- which is Brian's nonsensical accusation that those fiendish peacenik Democrats Truman and LBJ starved our military, and that this is why we didn't Win the War in Korea and Vietnam.

It’s not a case of deliberate starving of the military in the case of Korea, where the US military was ill equipped for that conflict. The US thought conventional warfare was made obsolete by the atomic bomb, so US troops entered that conflict with hand-me-downs.

At the time of the satellite flash I asked an expert if we could fail to detect the radioactive debris from atmospheric or underwater test. He said “yes,” it’s quite possible to miss everything. Everyone tests (I don’t know about Pakistan), because you can’t be sure about your novice design unless you test. Later on with experience, you can forgo testing of fission designs. Modern H-bomb designs are another story, and subject to much controversy. So I think it very likely the Israel/South Africa story is true.

BTW: It’s possible that Mandela didn’t know about the Israel connection.

Bruce

Truman takes a back seat to nobody(not even jimmy carter) when it comes to killing soldiers with small defense budgets. LBJ was better but his crime was he had no intention of winning in Viet Nam. He is on tape telling a Dem legislator he knew he could not win but he had to escalate the conflict to show he was tough on communism. Reagan's military budget was larger than LBJ's during the Viet Nam war. Truman and LBJ were immoral and it cost many soldiers their lives. Reagan was a moral Commander-in-Chief and Presidents like Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II owe him a debt, because he gave them a military prepared for victory with minimal American losses.

If you cannot admit the truth of this then Kerry is your man.

http://www.cdi.org/issues/milspend.html

" The evidence remains that Bush...did use illicit pull to get into the Guard..."

The only "evidence" being that an old man, testifying to events 30 years later, claims to remember phoning someone about Bush. A Democrat, in LBJ's Texas.

Bruce has a real high standard for evidence. He rejects the actual evidence provided by the ANG's own historian that the unit was over 100 men short, and needing pilots, and the testimony of the actual ANG recruiter.

" the Daily Telegraph has now dug up a 1970 story from the Harvard Crimson that Kerry did ask for a one-year deferment -- and, when he didn't get it, appplied to the navy."

Oh, brother! I've been pointing you to this for weeks, Bruce.

"Swift boat service was as dangerous, if not more so than infantry service in Vietnam."

Dean Paul (Dino) Martin, Captain, Air National Guard, might attest to the danger of flying jets on training missions in the United States, too.

If he hadn't been killed at age 35 in a crash, that is.

Crooner Dean Martin might have been expected to pull strings to get his son into a safe berth, if such a thing were possible. It might be, however, that military service -- whenever, wherever, and however -- is not "safe".

Pouncer
And so Bush (and others) were just being misled by their wealthy connections into serving at these "safe" military bases?
How cruel!!

Me: " The evidence remains that Bush...did use illicit pull to get into the Guard..."

Sullivan: "The only evidence' being that an old man, testifying to events 30 years later, claims to remember phoning someone about Bush. A Democrat, in LBJ's Texas.

"Bruce has a real high standard for evidence. He rejects the actual evidence provided by the ANG's own historian that the unit was over 100 men short, and needing pilots, and the testimony of the actual ANG recruiter."

Jesus Christ. Did you actually bother to READ any of those lengthy quotes I threw at you in the "Republican Slime Machine" thread, pointing out that:

(1) The LA Times quotes that ANG historian (Tom Hail) as saying explicitly that there was indeed something very fishy about Bush's appointment (and giving detailed reasons why)

(2) Barnes testified in great detail as to the circumstances in which he recommended Bush -- but only after being forced to do so after the court had denied him permission to refuse to answer;

(3) Other Texas politicians confirm that the 147th was routinely used as the official shelter from the draft for the sons of high-ranking Texas pols (and that that "actual ANG recruiter" was in on the scheme);

(4) It also contained the son of Sen. Tower (as well as the sons of Bush, Bentsen and Connally)-- and, if Barnes and other Texas Democratic officials had refused to also provide such shelter for the sons of Republican Texas politicoes, those politicoes would of course have been in a position to instantly blow the whistle on the whole shifty operation?

Me: " the Daily Telegraph has now dug up a 1970 story from the Harvard Crimson that Kerry did ask for a one-year deferment -- and, when he didn't get it, appplied to the navy."

Sullivan: "Oh, brother! I've been pointing you to this for weeks, Bruce."

Nope. What you've been pointing out (and I've just reexamined all of your earlier messages to me on the subject to confirm it) was that he tried to get into duty in the Navy on the periphery of the war. The revelation that he tried to get a one-year deferment from the military altogether is new.

Not, as I keep pointing out, that it changes anything -- we already know (indeed, you were the first to reveal it to me) that Kerry was remarkably daring personally -- and, in fact, got a kick out of physical danger -- both immediately before and immediately after trying to stay out of the center of the war. Which means that he must have had other reasons for doing so -- namely, as I say, political ones, thanks largely to his simultaneous intellectual influence against the war by his father and for the war by his friends. The fact that he tried to have it both ways at once by splitting the difference doesn't say much for his intellectual judgment at the time, but it also does absolutely nothing to indicate that he was a coward.

Bruce Moomaw never tires of pinning a "kick me" sign on his chest:

" Nope. What you've been pointing out (and I've just reexamined all of your earlier messages to me on the subject to confirm it) was that he tried to get into duty in the Navy on the periphery of the war. The revelation that he tried to get a one-year deferment from the military altogether is new."

Wrong, again. Read it and weep, I cited the Crimson article almost a month ago:

----------quote----------
Ha ha ha. It turns out that the influence using, attempted draft dodging, AWOL goer, was John Kerry:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=352185

" When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in
Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy. "

and

" Kerry is a pilot, and on October 14 and 15 [1969] he flew Ted Kennedy's advisor Adam Walinsky by private plane throughout the State of New York so that Walinsky could give speeches against the Vietnam War. But Kerry was smart enough not to put down 'Moratorium' on the Navy signout sheet for that Tuesday and Wednesday."

Posted by: Patrick R. Sullivan on February 11, 2004 03:00 PM
--------endquote----------

Furthermore, I also cited a Boston Globe story of June 2003, for you:

http://www.boston.com/globe/nation/packages/kerry/061503.shtml

In which you could (were you not too lazy to do so) have read the same thing:

----------quote-----------
As graduation approached, Kerry knew that he had three choices: be drafted, seek a deferment for graduate school, or join up and position himself to become an officer. ``It was clear to me that I was going to be at risk,'' Kerry recalled. ``My draft board . . . said, `Look, the likelihood is you are probably going to be drafted.' I said, `If I'm going to be drafted, I'd like to have responsibility and be an officer.' ''
--------endquote----------

Why do you think I've been making numerouos attempts to get you to compare Bush and Kerry in a consistent manner? Oh, I guess we both know that you don't think at all.

" Jesus Christ. Did you actually bother to READ any of those lengthy quotes I threw at you in the "Republican Slime Machine" thread, pointing out that:...."

Yes, Bruce, and unlike you not only do I comprehend what I read, I can apply the principles of logic to the material. You've produced NO EVIDENCE any "illicit pull" (perhaps English is a second language for Bruce).

What you have done is to take a long discredited LA Times article--discredited by none other than Al Gore's personal friend Bob Somerby--and accepted its obviously biased spin on the facts. Which are glaringly destructive to your its (and your) pet conclusion. The facts being:

The records show a unit about 15% undermanned. And short of pilots to the point of recruiting from retired AF fliers.

Now, tell the nice comments section why you think an applicant who is a Yale graduate, physically fit, and the son of a congressman (who himself was a combat pilot in WWII), would need "illicit pull" to be accepted into a unit with vacancies?

Sullivan: "Bruce Moomaw never tires of pinning a "kick me" sign on his chest:

" 'Nope. What you've been pointing out (and I've just reexamined all of your earlier messages to me on the subject to confirm it) was that he tried to get into duty in the Navy on the periphery of the war. The revelation that he tried to get a one-year deferment from the military altogether is new.'

"Wrong, again. Read it and weep, I cited the Crimson article almost a month ago:"

Ah. Sorry about that. That was well before I started reading your messages to DeLong's site on that subject, so I missed it. Not that it changes anything, for the (obvious) reasons I've repeatedly pointed out above. Whatever reasons Kerry tried to shy away from service in the heart of the war for, they didn't include physical cowardice.

"What you have done is to take a long discredited LA Times article--discredited by none other than Al Gore's personal friend Bob Somerby--and accepted its obviously biased spin on the facts."

Beg pardon? Let's bring out, once again, the passage from that Times article in which Tom Hail -- the ANG historian you've been repeatedly quoting to back up your interpretation -- is quoted as actually and explicitly backing up MINE:

"But Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, said that records did not show a pilot shortage in the Guard squadron at the time. Hail, who reviewed the unit's personnel records for a special Guard museum display on Gov. Bush's service, said Bush's unit had 27 pilots at the time he began applying.

"While that number was two short of its authorized strength, the unit had two other pilots who were in training and another awaiting a transfer into the unit. There was no apparent need to fast-track applicants, he said.

"As for a direct commission for someone of Bush's limited qualifications, Hail said, 'I've never heard of that. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons.' "

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-guard15feb15,1,1551268.story?coll=la-home-headlines
____________________________

It is, however, exactly the sort of thing one would expect for a single Guard unit that just happened to be crammed with the sons of the Rich and Famous (and which apparently went by the nickname of "Air Canada" among Texas pols at the time). Bush's "limited qualifications", by the way, included scoring 25% on his pilot training aptitude test -- the absolute bottom percentage which would allow somebody to be considered for the job.

So. Bush, to repeat, used illicit political influence to dodge the draft. Did he do so for political reasons, as Kerry almost certainly did? Bush never showed any sign of thinking that fighting the war was a bad idea -- which Kerry's dad most emphatically did, with Kerry echoing his criticisms during his Yale class-day oration. We know Kerry had no motivation to avoid central service out of physical fear (since he's one of those strange people who actually welcomes physical danger); we know that it is virtually the only motivation Bush could have had.

" Whatever reasons Kerry tried to shy away from service in the heart of the war for, they didn't include physical cowardice."

Who ever said they did. Now, are you going to be honest enough to admit that the same is true of Bush?

" Beg pardon? Let's bring out, once again, the passage from that Times article in which Tom Hail -- the ANG historian you've been repeatedly quoting to back up your interpretation -- is quoted as actually and explicitly backing up MINE:"

No he isn't, learn to read. He is not QUOTED as saying ANYTHING like that. The actual quote is merely:

"I've never heard of that. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons."

Everything else is pure spin by the LA Times reporter. That's why Somerby ridiculed it. As Somerby correctly pointed out there is nothing from Hail or his records that contradicts General Staudt's claim. You are quoting the idiotic reporter, not Hail, that there was not a pilot shortage. The Dallas Morning News came up with a logical interpretation of Hail's records, which was that they were short of pilot trainees.

You have a serious problem with reading comprehension.

Now, how about answering my question:

Now, tell the nice comments section why you think an applicant who is a Yale graduate, physically fit, and the son of a congressman (who himself was a combat pilot in WWII), would need "illicit pull" to be accepted into a unit with vacancies?

*sigh*

L.A. Times, 2-15-04: "Staudt, who retired in 1972 as a brigadier general, said Bush was enrolled quickly because there was a demand for pilot candidates.

"But Tom Hail, a historian for the Texas Air National Guard, said that records did not show a pilot shortage in the Guard squadron at the time. Hail, who reviewed the unit's personnel records for a special Guard museum display on Gov. Bush's service, said Bush's unit had 27 pilots at the time he began applying.

"While that number was two short of its authorized strength, the unit had two other pilots who were in training and another awaiting a transfer into the unit. THERE WAS NO APPARENT NEED TO FAST-TRACK APPLICANTS, [Hail] said.

"As for a direct commission for someone of Bush's limited qualifications, Hail said, 'I'VE NEVER HEARD OF THAT. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons.' "

(Italics mine.)
_______________________________________
Washington Post, 2-3-04: "Bush was accepted for pilot training after having scored only 25 percent on the pilot's aptitude test, the lowest acceptable grade."
_________________________________________
Washington Post, 9-21-99: Jake Johnson, a former legislator, said Rose [Gen. Rose of the Texas ANG] once told him that ' "I got that Republican congressman's son from Houston into the Guard." ' Johnson, a close friend and ally of Rose's, was chairman of the House Veterans and Military Affairs Committee in Austin in the late 1960s. He said Rose made the remark at one of their frequent meetings about bureaucratic infighting in the Texas Guard.

"Staudt praised Bush as someone who 'volunteered to serve his country' when many others didn't. But the unit he joined [which, remember, just happened to include Bush's son AND Bentsen's son AND Connally's son AND Tower's son -- Moomaw] offered Bush a chance to fulfill his military commitment at a base in Texas and was seen as an escape route from Vietnam by many men his age. 'It was sometimes called Air Canada,' Johnson said. 'What that meant was you didn't have to go to Canada to stay out of Vietnam.' "
_________________________________________
L.A. Times, 2-15-04 (again): "Staudt also was instrumental in getting another politician's son into the Guard in 1968. He met Lloyd Bentsen III, who recently had graduated from Stanford University business school, at a party and told him he needed a financial officer. Bentsen's father, later a Democratic U.S. senator from Texas and vice presidential candidate, denied intervening to help his son."
_________________________________________
Washington Post, 7-28-99: "On Election Day, before the polls closed, Guard commanders nominated both George W. Bush and Lloyd Bentsen III for promotion to first lieutenant – even as the elder Bentsen was defeating the elder Bush."
_________________________________________
Looks awful conclusive to me. Unless, of course, you're frantic to believe otherwise. (And I haven't even mentioned Ben Barnes' reluctant but detailed courtroom testimony as to how he pulled strings for Bush -- which the judge had to force him to deliver; he didn't want to talk about the affair.)

"Now, tell the nice comments section why you think an applicant who is a Yale graduate, physically fit, and the son of a congressman (who himself was a combat pilot in WWII), would need 'illicit pull' to be accepted into a unit with vacancies?"

Mind telling us why getting into the Guard just because you're the son of a Congressman (which, remember, is all any of us has been saying) doesn't constitute "illicit pull", Patrick? Particularly when you score the lowest possible acceptable score on your pilot aptitude test, at a time when (according to the Guard's historian) there was "no apparent need to fast-track applicants" into that unit? And when you get into a unit that's infamous statewide for serving as a shelter from Vietnam for politicians' sons?

Me: " Whatever reasons Kerry tried to shy away from service in the heart of the war for, they didn't include physical cowardice."

Sullivan: "Who ever said they did. Now, are you going to be honest enough to admit that the same is true of Bush?"

Why, no -- because (as I've explained to you ten trillion times) Bush had no political objection to the war, and must therefore have been opposed to getting into it out of a desire to save his own neck, which you now agree Kerry really didn't have.

"(according to the Guard's historian) there was 'no apparent need to fast-track applicants' "

God, what an idiot. And a jackass!

Learn the elementary punctuation rules, Bruce. That is not a quote FROM THE HISTORIAN.

It is the LA Times reporter's imbecilic conclusion from reading the records. That's why Somerby was ridiculing the report (and pointing out that the Dallas Morning News came to exactly the opposite conclusion; i.e. 29 slots, 27 pilots is a SHORTAGE of pilots. Especially when you understand that more pilots will be retiring upon completing their six year term).

" Mind telling us why getting into the Guard just because you're the son of a Congressman (which, remember, is all any of us has been saying) doesn't constitute 'illicit pull', Patrick?"

Sure, because there is nothing ILLICIT (improper or illegal) about being the son of a congressman. In fact it's something of a positive indicator (he's from a family of achievers, might be one himself).

Now, again:

"Now, tell the nice comments section why you think an applicant who is a Yale graduate, physically fit, and the son of a congressman (who himself was a combat pilot in WWII), would need 'illicit pull' to be accepted into a unit with vacancies?"

" Why, no -- because (as I've explained to you ten trillion times) Bush had no political objection to the war, and must therefore have been opposed to getting into it out of a desire to save his own neck, which you now agree Kerry really didn't have."

He wasn't opposed to getting into it. He trained on a combat aircraft that was being flown by ANG pilots in Vietnam at the time he enlisted. (Speaking of being told something ten trillion times). And when he got near his "graduation" he volunteered to go to Vietnam--along with three other of his buddies (2 of whom were accepted). Contrary to Bruce's repeated assertions that he waited til the week before the program was terminated because of "rumors" that only Bruce knows about.

Btw, Kerry doesn't have a neck? How odd.

"Staudt also was instrumental in getting another politician's son into the Guard in 1968. He met Lloyd Bentsen III, who recently had graduated from Stanford University business school, at a party and told him he needed a financial officer."

Meaning Staudt was short personnel, just as the historian's RECORDS indicate. And it looks like Bentsen III was well qualified for the job, so his father--who was not a senator in 1968--is probably telling the truth.

Perhaps Bruce will also tell the nice comments section why a Standford MBA would need "illicit pull" to get a job as a Finance Officer.

"On Election Day, before the polls closed, Guard commanders nominated both George W. Bush and Lloyd Bentsen III for promotion to first lieutenant – even as the elder Bentsen was defeating the elder Bush."

And if Bruce will go to the USA Today site for the Bush military records he will see that Bush and Bentsen were not the only ones promoted that day. Again, Bruce is committing another of his specialties; the logical fallacy.

"Bush was accepted for pilot training after having scored only 25 percent on the pilot's aptitude test, the lowest acceptable grade."

D'oh! Meaning he was acceptable. And since they were short of pilots, they accepted him (he scored well on the "leadership" portion).

These concepts are really difficult for you. Btw, Bush turned out to be a very good pilot. In the top 10% of his squadron according to his fitness reports signed by his superior officers.

Of course his high ranking was do doubt to "illicit pull" because his fellow pilots really didn't mind risking their necks flying with such a loser.

*sigh* (again)

Somerby ( http://www.dailyhowler.com/h071399_1.shtml ) : "He says Bush's unit was authorized for 29 pilots; the unit had 27 on staff, with two in training; and one other pilot was awaiting transfer (we assume he means transfer in). To Serrano, these figures mean there was no reason to be training another pilot. But the fact that 27 pilots were on staff when Bush applied does not tell us when they were scheduled to leave the Guard; if half the pilots were about to leave, there would be a clear need to train pilots."

LA Times article: "Hail, WHO REVIEWED THE UNIT'S PERSONNEL RECORDS for a special Guard museum display on Gov. Bush's service, said Bush's unit had 27 pilots at the time he began applying. While that number was two short of its authorized strength, the unit had two other pilots who were in training and another awaiting a transfer. THERE WAS NO APPARENT NEED TO FAST-TRACK APPLICANTS, HE SAID." (Italics mine.)

Now, one would really think that -- if enough pilots were about to leave that unit that fast-tracking Bush into it was justified -- an official Guard historian who had reviewed the unit's records in detail would have been aware of that little fact, and would not have told a reporter that "There was no apparent need to fast-track applicants." (Note also that the reporter explicitly quotes Hail as saying exactly that, which would seem to go a wee bit beyond a "punctuation mistake".)

Not that I ever had much faith in Somerby's analytical abilities anyway, given his penchant for continual hysteria. (In this connection, I wonder if Patrick thinks as much of Somerby's insistence over the last 6 weeks that there's very good evidence that Bush really did go AWOL from the Guard, and that the Guard and the Texas state government have been covering it up?)

"And when he got near his "graduation" he volunteered to go to Vietnam--along with three other of his buddies (2 of whom were accepted)."

I've already mentioned -- repeatedly -- the reasons, why it's possible but unlikely that Bush had changed his mind by this time and decided to sincerely volunteer for Vietnam duty through Palace Alert. I really don't think I need to mention them again, even to you, since you're obviously ignoring them deliberately.

" 'Why, no -- because (as I've explained to you ten trillion times) Bush had no political objection to the war, and must therefore have been opposed to getting into it out of a desire to save his own neck, which you now agree Kerry really didn't have.'

"Btw, Kerry doesn't have a neck? How odd."

Patrick, if you're going to try to be a wise-ass, it helps to be wise.

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Class of Commenter on SDJ?:

"I've already mentioned -- repeatedly -- the reasons, why it's possible but unlikely that Bush had changed his mind by this time and decided to sincerely volunteer for Vietnam duty through Palace Alert."

You think it unlikely that FOUR PEOPLE who say he did in fact volunteer--including one who volunteered alongside him--are telling the truth, huh?

" I really don't think I need to mention them again, even to you, since you're obviously ignoring them deliberately."

Then why do you keep claiming that Bush "repeatedly" said he didn't want to go to
Vietnam "at all", when there is so much evidence he did?

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Class of Commenter on SDJ? (Grade school punctuation edition):

" Now, one would really think that..."

If one could "really think" one would not be guilty of continually committing the fallacy of assuming one's conclusion (which is what Bruce is about to do).

" -- if enough pilots were about to leave that unit that fast-tracking Bush into it was justified -- an official Guard historian who had reviewed the unit's records in detail would have been aware of that little fact,"

One might conclude from the historical reality--that Bush got the third slot of FIVE vacancies--that the LA Times reporter is either putting words in the mouth of the historian, or (who probably is not old enough to have first hand knowledge of events 31 years prior to the interview) didn't think it through very clearly, because a unit with two vacancies that are to be filled with two current trainees is going to need more trainees. Since time doesn't stand still.

Btw, pretty clearly Bush's fellow pilot volunteer, Fred Bradley, is one of those who got into the training program with Bush (since he too didn't have enough hours to be accepted into Palace Alert). That's the training program that didn't need anyone. What "illicit pull" did Bradley use?

" and would not have told a reporter that 'There was no apparent need to fast-track applicants.' (Note also that the reporter explicitly quotes Hail as saying exactly that, which would seem to go a wee bit beyond a 'punctuation mistake'.)"

I see you studied punctuation with the same diligence you studied logic. Bruce, QUOTATIONS have these little guys around them; " ". There are NO such marks around the phrase in question in the LA Times story. Meaning they are a PARAPHRASE of what Serrano thinks he's being told by Hail. And, as Somerby correctly points out, Serrano has made so many dumb blunders in his story, there's no reason to have any confidence in his ability to accurately paraphrase.

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Class of Commenter on SDJ? (Absence of Evidence Edition)

" Not that I ever had much faith in Somerby's analytical abilities anyway, given his penchant for continual hysteria. (In this connection, I wonder if Patrick thinks as much of Somerby's insistence over the last 6 weeks that there's very good evidence that Bush really did go AWOL from the Guard, and that the Guard and the Texas state government have been covering it up?)"

Please excuse me for doubting YOUR ability at paraphrasing to be any more reliable than Serrano's, but where will I find Somerby saying that?

Me: "I've already mentioned -- repeatedly -- the reasons, why it's possible but unlikely that Bush had changed his mind by this time and decided to sincerely volunteer for Vietnam duty through Palace Alert."

Sullivan: "You think it unlikely that FOUR PEOPLE who say he did in fact volunteer--including one who volunteered alongside him--are telling the truth, huh?"

No, dear Patrick. Apparently your own reading comprehension skills are even more seriously limited than one might conclude from your belief that Serrano was quoting himself rather than Hail. As I've already told you repeatedly, one doesn't need to make the unlikely assumption that four people are lying about him volunteering -- all one has to do is consider the possibility that he himself, when he "volunteered", knew there was no danger that he'd actually be accepted. And -- as Josh Marshall points out -- the fact that he didn't bother to mention this when Russert was drilling him on the subject indicates that he hismelf didn't take his "volunteering" very seriously, and the fact that his lifetime "friend and confidant" Craig Stapleton also says that "he didn't volunteer to go to Vietnam and get killed" further supports this.

Me: " Not that I ever had much faith in Somerby's analytical abilities anyway, given his penchant for continual hysteria. (In this connection, I wonder if Patrick thinks as much of Somerby's insistence over the last 6 weeks that there's very good evidence that Bush really did go AWOL from the Guard, and that the Guard and the Texas state government have been covering it up?)"

Sullivan: "Please excuse me for doubting YOUR ability at paraphrasing to be any more reliable than Serrano's, but where will I find Somerby saying that?"

Well, there are virtually all his entries for the periods of:
May 5 through 8, 2003
Nov. 26, 2003
Jan. 15 through Feb. 20, 2004

Me: "Staudt also was instrumental in getting another politician's son into the Guard in 1968. He met Lloyd Bentsen III, who recently had graduated from Stanford University business school, at a party and told him he needed a financial officer."

Sullivan: "Meaning Staudt was short personnel, just as the historian's RECORDS indicate. And it looks like Bentsen III was well qualified for the job, so his father--who was not a senator in 1968--is probably telling the truth.

"Perhaps Bruce will also tell the nice comments section why a Standford MBA would need 'illicit pull' to get a job as a Finance Officer."

Because of the story that got our whole exchange going, Patrick: "Texas Monthly" reporter Mimi Katz' Op-Ed column in the NY Times to the effect that the 147th was infamous among Texas reporters as a refuge for the sons of prominent Texas pols from Vietnam -- and that Ann Richards' campaign strategists were told by the state's prominent Democrats that it was forbidden for them to raise questions about Bush getting into that unit through favoritism, because this would lead to the press also asking embarrassing questions about how "the Bentsen kid" got into it.

And now for an important point on which you're right -- I reread Somerby's piece, which made it completely clear that I did NOT pay proper attention to the flat-out unavoidable clash between Serrano's account in the L.A. Times and Slover and Kuempel's in the Dallas Morning News. Since none of them has written a word more on the subject since (except for Serrano repeating his account verbatim in the Feb. 15 LA Times), I've decided to settle the issue once and for all by E-mailing Slover, Serrano and Somerby to try to get all their current opinions of this matter, in a way which one or the other of us will be totally unable to squirm out of.

Of course, this doesn't prove that Bush was qualified to get such a vacancy even if they existed -- as both Serrano and Somerby mention (and as Slover and Kuempel also indicate, although less clearly), there are still definite indications that Bush got that slot despite being unqualified for it. But at least we can find out whether or not the vacancies actually existed.

Numbskull, e-mailing the reporters isn't going to settle the issue. You need to e-mail Tom Hail and ask him for the records. That's PRIMARY SOURCE material.

" I did NOT pay proper attention to the flat-out unavoidable clash between Serrano's account in the L.A. Times and Slover and Kuempel's in the Dallas Morning News"

Which I've been telling you all along (I've forgotten how many times), so now that you finally realize I'm right about that, does it occur that I might be right about everything else too?

" Somerby's insistence over the last 6 weeks "

When asked to provide specifics, Bruce says:

"Well, there are virtually all his entries for the periods of:
May 5 through 8, 2003
Nov. 26, 2003
Jan. 15 through Feb. 20, 2004"

To which, I first note that Bruce is unable to point me to anything specific, and second that he seems to be about as good with a calendar as he is with punctuation.

The periods in 2003--not describable as "last six week", from the middle of March 2004--are irrelevant since such evidence as the testimony of several witnesses to Bush's attendance at the Alabama unit would have been unknown to Somerby.

And, at any rate, Somerby's articles back then are mostly concerned with the poor quality of the reporting/commentary, not arguments that "Bush was AWOL". So, unless Bruce can produce something from Somerby that could legitimately be described as:

"Somerby's insistence over the last 6 weeks that there's very good evidence that Bush really did go AWOL from the Guard, and that the Guard and the Texas state government have been covering it up?)"

I think it must be concluded that this just another instance of Bruce not paying attention to what he has read.

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Quality of Commenter on SDJ (Logical Impairment Division):

" Of course, this doesn't prove that Bush was qualified to get such a vacancy..."

No, what proves he was qualified is that he took and passed some sort of entrance exam. And further proof is that he graduated from flight school, and that his CO rated him among the top 3 of his pilots (Memo to Bruce, 10% of 29 pilots)

" even if they existed -- as both Serrano and Somerby mention (and as Slover and Kuempel also indicate, although less clearly), there are still definite indications that Bush got that slot despite being unqualified for it."

"indications" being synonomous for Bruce with: Not a shred of evidence, but I'm not going to bother confusing myself with the facts.

" But at least we can find out whether or not the vacancies actually existed."

If we can add 2+2 to get 4, we know they existed.

Why Oh Why Can't We Have a Better Quality of Commenter on SDJ (Logical Impairment Division II):

" 'Perhaps Bruce will also tell the nice comments section why a Standford MBA would need 'illicit pull' to get a job as a Finance Officer.'

" Because of the story that got our whole exchange going, Patrick: "Texas Monthly" reporter Mimi Katz' Op-Ed column in the NY Times to the effect that the 147th was infamous among Texas reporters as a refuge for the sons of prominent Texas pols..."

Again, your logic is deplorable. A valid answer to my question would be something like: "Because Finance Officers need degrees in chemistry." Which would be incorrect, but not a failure to address my question by changing the subject to the reputation some people claim the Texas 147th had.

Want to try it again?

'Perhaps Bruce will also tell the nice comments section why a Standford MBA would need 'illicit pull' to get a job as a Finance Officer.'

Well, neither Somerby, Slover nor Serrano has gotten back to me yet; but more evidence on the subject has turned up -- and while it confirms that it was appallingly sloppy of me not to read Somerby's article properly, it also provides strong evidence that Bush got into that particular Guard unit (which, as I keep saying, also just happened to include Connally's, Tower's and Betsen's sons) through favoritism.

(1) The July 28, 1999 Washington Post says: "Retired Col. Rufus G. Martin, then personnel officer in charge of the 147th Fighter Group, said the unit was short of its authorized strength, but still had a long waiting list, because of the difficulty getting slots in basic training for recruits at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Martin said four openings for pilots were available in the 147th in 1968, and that Bush got the last one.

"Staudt, the colonel who had himself photographed with Bush, said his status as a congressman's son 'didn't cut any ice.' But others say that it was not uncommon for well-connected Texans to obtain special consideration for Air Guard slots...

"Four months before enlisting, Bush reported at Westover Air Force Base in Masachusetts to take the Air Force Oficers Qualification Test. While scoring 25% for pilot aptitude -- 'about as low as you could get and be accepted,' according to Martin -- and 50% for navigator aptitude in his initial testing, he scored 95% on questions designed to reflect 'officer quality', compared with a current-day average of 88%."

Robert A. Rogers (USAF-Retired) adds that "on his application form, [Bush] listed his 'background qualifications' as 'none'." Serrano says in his LA Times article: "His records list no ROTC stint or engineering or aviation skills, which were considered desirable."

(2) Serrano goes on to say: "[Staudt] recommended Bush for a direct appointment--a special process that would allow the young recruit to become a second lieutenant right out of basic training without having to go through the rigors of officer candidate school. The process also cleared the way for a slot in pilot training school.

"In July of that year, an examining board approved the direct appointment, finding that Bush's physical and moral characteristics were all 'satisfactory.' Staudt was a member of that board. Its other two members could not be located for interviews. 'He got a direct appointment,' said Staudt, adding that the chain of command OKd the special commission. 'It was [approved] by a committee. It was done by everybody, and everybody includes God.' Staudt declined to estimate how many men received such special appointments.

"The L.A. Times attempted to obtain copies of the written regulations that governed how enlistees became officers. Officials in Texas, at the Pentagon and other military installations said that they searched but ultimately were unable to find the old material. The special commission process was discontinued in the 1970s after the war ended, the officials said.

"But Charles C. Shoemake, an Air Force veteran who later joined the Texas Air National Guard, eventually retiring as a full colonel, said that direct appointments were rare and hard to get, and required extensive credentials. 'I went from master sergeant to first lieutenant based on my three years in college and 15 years as a noncommissioned officer. Then I got considered for a direct appointment.' Even then, he said, 'I didn't know whether I was going to get into pilot training.'

"Guard documents from that time indicate that commissioned officers were supposed to have numerous specific qualifications. For the most part, Bush lacked them. An Adjutant General's Department manual listed a high school education, 18 months of military service, including six months of active duty, and completion of officer training. A separate Guard pamphlet called 'Take Command, Apply for OCS,' spelled out three ways for Guardsmen to become second lieutenants: a 23-week officer training program, a nine-week training 'reserve component special officer candidate course' or completion of eight weekend drill periods and two summer camps.

"The message of the documents was echoed by Bush's peers: Becoming a Guard officer was supposed to be difficult, and for most, it was. 'You had to pass a lot of tests,' said Col. Ralph Anderson, who was in flight school with Bush and today commands a fighter wing in the Ohio National Guard. He applied to the Guard after serving in the regular Air Force. 'I went through ROTC at Ohio University. I had to do all the Air Force qualification tests, and I had to go through a private pilot's license program at Ohio University and pass a physical. And finally there was a selection board.'

"Sgt. Donald Barnhart [who kept the waiting list of applicants for the Texas Air Guard as a whole in those days, and who still serves in the Guard] said that, as a rule, Guard pilots were not created overnight. 'It was extremely unusual to be a pilot straight into the Guard. Most of our pilots did not come fresh like that.' Of Bush's quick entry, Shoemake said: 'His name didn't hurt, obviously. But it was a commander's decision in those days.'

"Beckwith, Bush's spokesman, painted a different picture. He said that the Guard needed pilots at the time and Bush was available. 'A lot of people weren't qualified' or willing to fly, he said, so special commissions were offered to those willing to undergo the extra training required.

"But Shoemake, who also served as a chief of personnel in the Texas Guard from 1972 to 1980, remembers no pilot shortage. 'We had so many people coming in who were super-qualified,' he said."

"At the height of the war, controversy and suspicions swirled around Guard units in many states, where politicians and powerful people quietly lobbied to get favored applicants onto the rolls. Texas was no different. 'There were all sorts of different things that were going on,' recalls Ike Harris, a Republican who for 27 years was a member of the Texas Senate."

Serrano, as I've mentioned before, quotes Tom Hail earlier: "As for a direct commission for someone of Bush's limited qualifications, Hail added, 'I've never heard of that. Generally they did that for doctors only, mostly because we needed extra flight surgeons.' "

Slover and Kuempel have nothing at all to say about any of this in their article. Somerby doesn't either, except to say that Hail's statement makes him suspicious that Bush was indeed a beneficiary of favoritism.

(3) Rogers adds, "Despite a score of only 25% on his pilot entrance aptitude test, Bush was then assigned to flight school, a posting that was normally reserved to pilots graduating from ROTC training or Air Force officer training. That was immediately followed by further favoritism in being 'fast tracked' over those on the existing pilot applicant waiting list into the 111th Fighter Interceptor Squadron, a standby runway alert component of the 143rd group, one of several tactical Guard units responsible for defending the southern coast of the continental U.S. against attack." (Rogers, by the way, is described as "a self-employed Northern Virginia businessman and an Air National Guard veteran of eleven years, 1954 through 1965. After this he had a 30-year career in the commercial airline industry, including independent consulting with various US Government civilian agencies and military services." I can't find out anything further about him.)

So that particular unit (the one with all those other VIPs in it) must have been VERY desperate to fill that particular pilot vacancy fast. I wonder whether they cut as many corners filling their other vacant slots, and, if so, why the other units in Texas and the rest of the nation weren't doing so? The Washington Post adds, "Bush was sworn in as an airman the same day he applied. His commander, Col. Walter B. 'Buck' Staudt, was apparently so pleased to have a VIP's son in his unit that he later staged a special ceremony so he could have his picture taken administering the oath, instead of the captain who actually had sworn Bush in. Later, when Bush was commissioned a second lieutenant by another subordinate, Staudt again staged a special ceremony for the cameras, this time with Bush's father the congressman -- a supporter of the Vietnam War -- standing proudly in the background."

(4) That same Washington Post article, by the way, is the one that quotes Craig Stapleton, "who is married to Bush's cousin and has been a confidant of Bush's for 25 years", as confirming that Bush was reluctant to go to Vietnam: "In a sense he was trying to remain a centrist in a time when there wasn't anything left at the center...He didn't dodge the military. But he didn't volunteer to go to Vietnam and get killed, either."

And one more quote by Bush himself -- to the Apr. 11, 1999 Houston Chronicle -- confirms once again that he wanted to become a pilot, rather than taking some less dangerous job in the Guard, as a form of job training: " I knew I was going into the military and would have liked to come out with a skill." (Staudt himself is quoted in the same article as saying, "I imagine driving on the Houston freeway is more dangerous than flying an F-102.")

Wash. Post, 7-28-99 -- www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush072899.htm

L.A. Times, 7-4-99 -- www.beyond-the-illusion.com/files/New-Files/ 990731/vietnam-questions-haunt-bush.txt

Dallas Morning News, 7-4-99 -- 209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1070876/posts

Rogers -- http://www.progressivetrail.org/articles/040123A.Rogers(USAF-Ret).shtml

http://www.democrats.com/display.cfm?id=155

Rar98Hawk@AOL.com

Somerby -- www.dailyhowler.com/h071399_1.shtml

"Bush: The Houston Years" (Houston Chronicle, 4-11-99) -- Only available if you're willing to shell out $5 to poke around their archives for a day.

(Sorry to have burned up all this bandwidth, Patrick. I know you're concerned about it for Brad's sake, but he doesn't seem to mind.)

Sullivan: " 'Perhaps Bruce will also tell the nice comments section why a Standford MBA would need 'illicit pull' to get a job as a Finance Officer.'

Me: " Because of the story that got our whole exchange going, Patrick: "Texas Monthly" reporter Mimi Katz' Op-Ed column in the NY Times to the effect that the 147th was infamous among Texas reporters as a refuge for the sons of prominent Texas pols..."

Sullivan: "Again, your logic is deplorable. A valid answer to my question would be something like: 'Because Finance Officers need degrees in chemistry.' Which would be incorrect, but not a failure to address my question by changing the subject to the reputation some people claim the Texas 147th had."

Please. Speaking of deplorable logic, Patrick carefully doesn't mention the actual evidence I quoted: that Bentsen didn't wan