George W. Bush, A.W.O.L. ~ Article by Michael Moore

[bbchris]

In last night's Democratic Presidential debate in New Hampshire, broadcast on the Fox News (Nusciance?) Channel and ABC's Nightline, Peter Jennings went after Wesley Clark -- and me -- because I said I want to see Clark debate Bush... "The General vs. The Deserter."



Jennings, referring to me as "the controversial filmmaker," asked if Clark wanted to distance himself from me and my "reckless" remark. Clark would not back down, stating how "delighted" he was with my support, and that I was entitled to say what I wanted to say -- AND that I was not the only one who had made these charges against Bush.







The pundits immediately went berserk after the debate. As well they should. Because they know that they -- and much of the mainstream media -- ignored this Bush AWOL story when it was first revealed by an investigation in the Boston Globe (in 2000). The Globe said it appeared George W. Bush skipped out in the middle of his Texas Air National Guard service -- and no charges were ever brought against him. It was a damning story, and Bush has never provided any documents or evidence to refute the Globe's charges.







George W. Bush was missing for at least a 12 month period. That is an undisputed fact. If you or I did that, we would serve time.







Senator Daniel Inouye, Democrat of Hawaii and a World War II veteran, joined with Vietnam vets Sen. Max Cleland and Sen. Bob Kerrey to challenge Bush on the gaps in his military record. "The question is, where were you, Governor Bush? What would you do as commander-in-chief if someone in the National Guard did the same thing? At the least, I would have been court-martialed. At the least, I would have been placed in prison," Inouye said.







The Washington Post, the New Republic, and others also presented the evidence that Bush had fled from duty.







The most comprehensive piece I've seen was on Tom Paine.com with all the relevant links and documents.







There are far more important issues to deal with in this election year. Poor Peter Jennings. What was he doing on Fox? All that seems left of his Canadianess is the way he pronounced my name ("Michael Moooore"). The question he posed to Clark was typical of a lazy media looking for a way to distract the viewers from the real issues: the war, the economy, and the failures of the Bush administration. But if they want to really get into the issue of Bush and his "service record," then I say, bring it on! The facts are all there, including the empty flyboy suit.







Yours,







Michael Moore



mmflint@aol.com



www.michaelmoore.com







PS: This is the second time I've been thrown into a New Hampshire presidential debate. Four years ago, Republican Alan Keyes was asked why he jumped into Michael Moore's mosh pit to the music of Rage Against the Machine. Now THAT was an issue of substance!







PPS: You can read the exchange between Jennings and Clark here.

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[LarreeMP3]

[Rev9Volts]

i voted for alan keys in the republican primary. never say "da rev" is a racist because alan keyes is black.



yes dubya was missinf for a year. he feels very sad and guilty so to make up for it he sends a lot of us soldiers over to the middle east. well that and to pay back the money the jews gave him for his campaign. you see if the moslems had the cash the jews have then the 2 grioups money would cancel each others' out and we would stay at home with our soldiers.

[LarreeMP3]

...is one of the most eloquent speakers I have ever listened to. He would be a very capable president.



Peace dude. I'm not about fighting, and I am going to start working harder on myself to be nicer to everyone, even the people I argue with.

Edited by: LarreeMP3 at: 1/25/04 5:52 pm

[Rev9Volts]

that is no fun larrie! if we make peace you won't tell me to f u c k .123 o f f.



larrie i was just kidding all the time. it is just that you are so hot tempered you were fun to tweek.



for what it is worth i am a libertarian at heart, but i know they will never win so i have always voted for republican. never a democrat in my life i am proud to say.



hell i even passed out flyers for when ollie north ran for the virginny senate. i caught hell for that cause the va. surburbs of d.c. are very liberal, but we finally got rid of chuck rob who is married to lbj's daughter for george allen's son.



anyhoo... if you ever come to d.c. let's get together. if i can convince my wife you are not an internet axemurderng canable you can come play my geetars and drink bass ale out of frosty mugs.



i did shoot many bar/batmizhas. they were all very cordial except on ambulance chasing lawyer who looked like richard dryfus. he is an ass. all the others invited my wife to come not help work but join in festivities so she would not be left alone on a saturday night.



i did know a jewish guy who stole his mom's jewelery to buy crack. that was true.



as far as the palistinians.... well i have no answers. if they can get wimmin to blow themselves up and innocent isrealies well sharon does have to protect his country although he should try to do a bit less collateral damage and needs some help in the p.r. department. and i am not usre about the wall....



is dubya controlled by a bunch of zionist neo-conservatives? i duno, but i was working at a building on 9-11 2 miles from dulles airport and one of 4 jets flew over me. i have a friend who worked at pentegon. he is office was taken out by a jet and fortunantly he was in his boss's office. he had to climb down smokey stairs to get out. he retired early on 9-9 the next year. all i can say is between dubya and gore i am glad i voted for dubya as he was the right one. my wife works in d.c. and the subway/metro was closed so she caught a ride home. she saw the flames and smoke from the pentegon. it everyone i know had to walk several miles to get out including her. because of my job my building was closed at 11:30 am, but since i am considered "essential personell" i stayed till 4 pm. even though there were reports my building might have been a target if there were more jets. problem is larry no one here can imagine what i/we went through as they are in different countries. i know a guy who has a degree in electrical engingering and works at pentegon. he went in with fireman to cut off power to that section. to make a long story shorter from ceiling sprinklers there was 4 inches of water if he could not cut off power before 5 inches the water would short out the electrical system and he and a bunch of firemen would have gotton electricaly blown up. fortunately he did. he was so traumatised he lost about 50 pounds in not too many months. because every time he tried to eat he puked up. and he saw a @#%$ load of chared bodies.







dubya has rosen to job and considering i live about 8 miles from washington d.c. and for months was kept awake at night due to combat jets flying constantly so loud. also i could not go outside due to noise. i am feel safer with him in office.

[Rev9Volts]

oh and mike more is nothing but a trol...

[bbchris]

What's a trol?

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[Rev9Volts]

a troll is like a tweeker. one who only likes to stir up trouble. kind of like us all here to each other...

[Galmin]

Quote:

---

troll

a.k.a. trolling



The act of posting a message in a newsgroup that is obviously exaggerating something on a particular topic, hoping to trick a newbie into posting a follow-up article that points out the mistake.



see also: flame bait , lurk .



NetLingo Classification: Online Jargon

---

[bbchris]

Follow Up



============================================

An Open Letter from Michael Moore to George "I'm a War President!" Bush





February 11, 2004 (67th anniversary of the Great Flint Sit-Down Strike)



Dear Mr. Bush,



Thank you for providing the illegible Xeroxed partial payroll sheets (or whatever they were) yesterday covering a few of your days in the National Guard. Now we know that, not only didn't you complete your tour of duty, you were actually paid for work you never did. Did you cash those checks? Wouldn't that be, um, illegal?



Watching the press aggressively demand the truth from your press secretary -- and refusing to accept the deceit, the dodging, and the cover-up -- was a sight to behold, something we really haven't seen since you took office (to watch or listen to the entire press conference, or to read the full transcript, go here).



More than one reporter pointed out that those pieces of paper your press secretary waved at them yesterday mean nothing. Even if they aren't forged documents, getting paid does not necessarily mean you showed up to do your duties. As retired Army Col. Dan Smith, a 26-year veteran, told the AP:







"Pay records don't mean anything except that you're in or you're out," said Smith. "It doesn't necessarily reflect what duty you've actually performed because pay records simply record your unit of assignment and then all of your pay and benefits per pay period."



Mr. Bush, this issue is not going to go away -- and I think yesterday's actions just dug you into a deeper hole. You're probably wondering why the heck this story won't just die. You probably thought that after I brought it up last month and then got slammed by Peter Jennings for uttering the "d" word, the whole matter would just disappear as fast as bag of blow being thrown out the window of a speeding car on a deserted Maine highway.



But your "desertion" didn't go away -- and here's the reason why. You have sent countless numbers of our sons and daughters in the National Guard to their deaths in the last 11 months. You did this while misleading their parents and the nation with bogus lies about weapons of mass destruction and scary phony Saddam ties to al Qaeda. You sent them off to a never-ending war so that your benefactors at Halliburton and the oil companies could line their pockets. And then you had the audacity to prance around in a soldier's uniform on an aircraft carrier proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" -- while the cameras from your re-election campaign ad agency rolled.



THAT is what makes this whole business of you being AWOL so despicable, and makes the grief-stricken relatives want to turn away from you in disgust. The reason your skipping-out on your enlistment didn't matter in the 2000 election was because we were not at war. Being stuck in a deadly, daily quagmire now in 2004 makes your military history-fiction and your fly-boy costume VERY relevant.



You still have not answered the questions surrounding your National Guard "service." Let me repeat them as simply as I can for you (all of them based on the investigative work of the Associated Press and the Boston Globe):



1. How were you able to jump ahead of 500 other applicants to get into the Texas Air National Guard, thus guaranteeing you would not have to go to Vietnam? What calls did your father (who was then a United States Congressman representing Texas) make on your behalf for you to get this assignment?



2. Why were you grounded (not allowed to fly) after you either failed your physical or failed to take it in July 1972? Was there a reason you were afraid to take the physical? Or, did you take it and not pass it? If so, why didn't you pass it? Was it the urine test? The records show that, after the Guard spent years and lots of money training you to be a pilot, you never flew for the rest of your time in the Guard. Why?



3. Can you produce one person who can verify that he served with you in the Guard during the year that your Texas commanders said you did not show up? Why have you failed to bring forth anyone who served with you in the Guard while you were in Alabama? Why hasn't ONE SINGLE PERSON come forward?



4. Can you tell us what you did when you claim to have shown up in Alabama for Guard duty? What were you duties? You were grounded, so what did they have you do instead?



5. Where are the sign-up sheets that would have your name and service number on them for each weekend you showed up? Aaron Brown on CNN told us how, when he was in the reserves, he had to sign in each time he reported, and his guest from the Washington Post said, that's right, and there would be "four copies of that record" in the files of various agencies. Will you ask those agencies to release those records?



6. If you were in fact paid for that time when you apparently went AWOL, will you authorize the IRS to release your 1972-73 tax returns?







7. How did you get an honorable discharge? What strings were pulled? Who called who?



Look, I'm sorry to have put you through all this. I was just goofing around when I made that comment about wanting to see a debate between the general and the deserter. I had no idea that it would lead to this. And there you were, having to suffer through Tim Russert on Sunday, saying weird things like "I'm a war president!" I guess you believe that, or you want us to believe that. Americans have never voted out a Commander-in-Chief during a war. I guess that's what you're hoping for. You need the war.



But we don't. And our troops in the National Guard don't either. I know you see the writing on the wall, so why not come clean now? We are a forgiving people, and though you will not be returned to White House, you will find us grateful for a little bit of truth. Answer our questions, apologize to the nation, and bring our kids home.



Yours,



Michael Moore

mmflint@aol.com

www.michaelmoore.com

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