Burnt Orange Report

The news reports show that Dubya traded in his flight suit for an Army warm up jacket. Will he choose camouflage fatigues or a field marshal's uniform, complete with gold epaulets, for the state of the union speech?
Not bad for a guy who went AWOL from the Texas National Guard in the early 1970s.
http://www.awolbush.com/

I'm no Bush guy, but I think what he did was totally cool. Nice job Mr. President.
http://www.edthibodeau.com/nonplussed/2003/11/totally_cool.html

Kudos to you, Ed.

As for you, Tim...Bush "AWOL" canard debunked.

And I guess if you faked a back injury to get out of serving, like Howard Dean, then you never even had an opportunity to go AWOL at all.

Let's not cheer the president too much here:

1) The White House hadn't planned on Bush visiting Iraq until the media began covering Hillary Clinton's trip to Iraq. So it took being embarrassed by Hillary to actually spend some time with our troops.

2) News reports indicate that the president was "uneasy" about going to Iraq; i.e. George "Bring It On" Bush was scared of the terrorists in Baghdad.

3) Bush spent exactly TEN MINUTES with the troops- just long enough to get a great photo op. Then it was off to meetings with Condi Rice and then back to Washington. Bush was in Iraq for the length of an average movie.

That's not brave, that's typical of the Flightsuit-in-chief.

I feel that an Associated Press story carried in the Topeka Capitol-Journal
carries more weight than a self serving item in some dubious right wing blog which takes forever to download.

Here's an excerpt of the AP piece:
Retired Gen. William Turnipseed, now 71, a commander at the base, has said he never saw Bush appear for duty. Bush, however, says he remembers meeting Turnipseed and performing drills at the base.
Hmmmm...

Not unrelated, here's a great cartoon I just found:
http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/graphics/texas_chickenhawks.jpg

dubious right wing blog which takes forever to download.

And which, for the non-bandwidth and/or patience constrained, has copious links to sources much more mainstream than the freaking Topeka newspaper.

Retired Gen. William Turnipseed

Turnipseed?

, now 71, a commander at the base, has said he never saw Bush appear for duty.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Quite literally, in this case...

The AWOL incident is just one of many ways George W. Bush has always gotten what he wanted not because of what he's done, but because of who he is.
He would never have gained admission to his New England prep school, Andover, if he were forced to rely on his poor grades. Fortunately for young Dubya, Andover practices a form of affirmative action which routinely grants admission to the sons of alumni such as Papi Bush. Similar circumstances surround his admission to Yale.
Several weeks before his draft deferrment was set to expire, his status as the son of a congressman helped him jump to the front of the line when he decided that joining the Texas Air National Guard was a more pleasant option than ending up in Vietnam, perhaps serving there with Wesley Clark or Al Gore. He was placed in what became known as the "champagne unit" because it including the sons of the wealthy and well connected. Although he got the lowest possible score on the exam needed to qualify, he was still allowed to train to be a pilot.
It is no wonder that he would think it acceptable to treat the National Guard as if it were there to serve him rather than the other way around. He was allowed to transfer to a unit in Alabama just so he could help one of Papi's friends who was running for the U.S. Senate. Whether it was intentional or not, he neglected his guard duties.

Although TomPaine.com is not exactly non-partisan, they do give the most detailed examination of the Flightsuit-in Chief's military career.
And the site downloads easily, even on a dial-up connection.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/3671

An interesting take on this issue comes from Steven D. Sacco, a U.S. Army veteran, who writes in the Athens Georgia Banner-Herald:
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/052403/opi_20030524077.shtml

If Mr. Bush ever did lift a fighter jet off the ground, he did so as a privileged kid who thumbed his nose at the military and played by a set of rules anybody else in uniform would have been locked up for, especially during time of war. Now, without shame, he dresses up in uniform and masquerades as someone who belongs among honorably serving men and women who play by the rules, serve with distinction, and sacrifice their personal safety for the good of the country.

Nicely stated!

BTW Mark Harden, what is your problem with Gen. William Turnipseed?
You should be the last person here to make fun of anybody's surname.
As for being 71, isn't that about how old Ronald Reagan was when he took office?
On second thought, perhaps you have a good point on that one...

I guess that GW thought the troops should have a little extra "turkey" for Thanksgiving.

Looks like a selective reading of what I've seen published:

...But a review of records by The New York Times indicated that some of those concerns may be unfounded. The Times examined the record in response to a previous Boston Globe story.

Documents reviewed by The Times showed that Mr. Bush served in at least 9 of the 17 months in question...

...leaving 12 months unaccounted for. Bush won't comment on his National Guard service.

No mention that Bush stopped showing up for medicals when drug-testing became a requirement for flight certification, was grounded, then made up service hours at the end of his stint.

The reason Bush doesn't comment on his Guard service: He probably doesn't remember.

I was going to mention the possiblilty Dubya went AWOL to avoid drug testing and not out of neglect or sloth, but that seemed like overkill at the time.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n828/a06.html

Another thing: I haven't read anything to indicate that Dean "faked" an injury. The condition that caused him to be rated 1-Y is spondylolysis, not an injury. It is a condition.

Let's not forget that the reason Dubya became a weekend warrior in the first place is to avoide the Vietnam draft. He doesn't deserve to be a President. Kerry does. McCain does. Clark does.