Dick Cheney has cancelled an appearance scheduled for April in Toronto out of concerns for his safety:
Cheney, whom the protesters denounced as a war criminal, was slated to talk about his experiences in office and the current American political situation at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on April 24.
What kind of Canuckian WMD will keep Cheney in his undisclosed location, secure and cozy in his bunker?
Last Sept. 26, Cheney’s appearance in Vancouver was marred by demonstrators who blocked the entrances to the exclusive Vancouver Club.
The activists, who at one point scuffled with police, called for Cheney’s arrest for war crimes and booed guests as they arrived at the $500-a-ticket dinner.
One man was arrested for choking a club staff member.
Ruppert said the “thugs” put everyone at risk and forced Cheney to remain inside the club for seven hours until police were able to disperse the protesters and deem it safe for him to leave.
Oh. My. God. Trapped inside a club for seven hour!
That must have been torture!
For a Chairborne Warrior like Cheney, sitting on his duff for 7 hours is a breeze.
Heard over the whirs and clicks of his artificial, taxpayer financed heart:
The man has a heart condition.
# 4: Yes, he’s always had a heart condition – he’s never had one.
Let’s review Cheney’s patriotic heroism in resonding to our nation’s call for service:
* he requested and received four student deferrments.
* After four years of student deferrments, Cheney was eligible for the draft. But at the time, married men were not drafted. So 28 days after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, Cheney got married.
* On October 26, 1965, the Selective Service announced that it would draft married men who had no children. Nine months and two days later, Cheney’s daughter was born.
* In his confirmation hearing, Cheny said “I would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called.” He didn’t mention his total of five draft deferrments.
* Despite his failure to serve, Cheney was one of the chief proponants of the war in Iraq, and helped coordinate the attack on John Kerry’s service in Vietnam in 2004.
Thus, Cheney well deserves to be among the distinguised Republican nominees for Chief ChickenHawk award, limited to those who personally were too chicken to serve their nation in the armed forces when they had their opportunity, but take every opportunity to try to have other young Americans killed for any adventure they think may yield political or personal financial gain.
Cheney would be a shoe-in for winning the award by acclimation, except that the number of eligible contestants among Republicans is so deep (former Pres. Bush, who’s father made sure that he defended the borders of Texas from air attack by North Vietnam; Karl Rove, who used political connections and fraudulent student deferrments to avoid being drafted while he worked for the Republican Party; Rush Limbaugh, who turned a doctor’s note about a pimple on his rear end into a medical deferrment; etc.).
The protesters had a point.
Well, I guess he does have a knack for self-preservation!
” Rush Limbaugh, who turned a doctor’s note about a pimple on his rear end into a medical deferrment”
I think it actually was some sort of knee issue, but the effect was the same: he got out of serving in the military.
A lot of the Republicans are a little light when it comes to actually serving in the military.
What do you expect from Five Deferments Dicky?
‘Cause Canadians are so scary, eh.
@ 5. rhp6033:
You forget that right wing rock-n-roll superhero, Ted Nugent. An avowed supporter of all American warfare. The man who spent 4 months sleeping in the bushes, shitting himself, pissing himself and refusing to bathe, brush his teeth or change his clothes so when he showed up at his draft board for the physical, they labeled him psychotic and 4-F’ed him out of the Draft.
He’s called “Mr. Poopypants” for a reason.
Your average Tea Bag party hero.
Republican priorities regarding servicemen became very clear during the Iraq war. They did pretty much everything they could to screw them over, from strategy to purchasing:
* Make sure the Iraqi oil ministry building is seized right away, but don’t have enough boots on the ground to secure ammo dumps (supplies for IUD’s) or even to protect valuables in the Iraqi museum.
* Disband the Iraqi army, leaving hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers unemployed, broke, and with lots of time on their hands.
* Out-source support services and provide inferior quality, making troops shower in polluted water and making civilian contractor drivers take on the dangerous job of supply transport – but after being required to sign a contract in Texas where they give up any rights to workers compensation if they are injured.
* Fail to upgrade Humvees or helmets despite plenty of evidence that they were needed and the cost of upgrades were minimal.
* Fail to provide for any expected increase in casualties resulting in the scandal of inadequate care at Walter Reed medical center, etc.
etc., etc., etc.,
@11 Maybe this guy should’ve been rejected by the military, too.
“A U.S. Army officer from Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state has been charged with threatening to have his estranged wife and his superior officer killed. …
“Underwood has had multiple deployments to Iraq, the court documents said, but has not been diagnosed with PTSD.
“However, the probable cause document said, when that Underwood ‘was a young child he witnessed his mother kill his two siblings. She also shot the defendant multiple times and left him for dead.'”
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n.....or-officer
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I’m sorry about the guy’s lousy childhood, and all, but I’m wondering if maybe Bush’s multiple-deployments policy wasn’t such a hot idea. After all, Bush himself bugged out of the TANG before ever being deployed to a war zone, so he certainly must have known how stressful it is.
Jimi Hendrix and John Fogerty both served honorably in the armed forces in the Vietnam era.
I don’t think anyone in Lynyrd Skynyrd ever served. They did have a fit of pique, though, about something Neil Young said about Alabama. If Neil hadn’t been in Northern California, he’d have probably kicked their asses — since he, like Dale Gribble, has reflexes like a cat.
IIRC, Jimi was a paratrooper, and first picked up a guitar while in the Army. Kinda makes you wonder what the world would’ve been like if Jimi didn’t do his hitch back in the day.
And seven hours in a chair in a combat zone (as in, ‘anywhere outside of America’) qualifies Tricky Dick Part Deux for the Bronze Hemorrhoid with Preparation H Clusters.
Unfortunately, Jimi Hendrix was a wonderful songwriter and guitar player, but probably not a great example as a soldier. His father gave him a ukelelie he bought at a yard sale when he was young, and Hendrix bought his first used guitar for $5.00 when he was fifteen. Later Jimi’s father bought him an electric guitar, but he had no ampliphier. At some point he got his hands on an ampliphier, Pat O’Day recounts that he brougt it with him regularly to concerts at the Spanish Castle, and offered it’s use to O’Day in return for being allowed to play in the background with the band. According to “O’Day,
Jimi started getting into trouble in his later high school years and didn’t graduate. He was arrested for riding in a stolen car, and the judge gave him the choice of jail or volunteering for the Army. Jimi chose the latter – he probably would have eventually been drafted anyway.
Jimi wasn’t a very good soldier, he had little discipline and his commander in the 101st Airborne recommended he be discharged after one year. Jimi’s story was that he was medically discharged after hurting his ankle in a parchute jump. One author claimed that Jimi told an Army phsychiatrist that he was having “homosexual feelings” in order to get discharged. Whatever the reason, Hendrix was discharged early from the army.
After leaving the army, Hendrix moved to Clarksville, Tennessee and began his musical career on the “Chitlin’ Circuit”, playing in bands in tiny clubs all through the South. Later he moved on to Nashville, then New York, London, and finally back to the U.S. as his career took off. In London, when he smashed his guitar on stage in one concert, one of the Who members complained to another that “he’s stealing our bit!”. But another Who member, also in the audience, said “Yes, but he’s doing it SO much better!”.
I was thinking about how George W. Bush’s record of getting out early from the Texas Air National Guard compared with Sarah Palin bailing out halfway through her only term as governor of Alaska.
Then it hit me – George W. Bush at least received a Harvard MBA, had a couple of decades of (failed) private industry experience, then was governor of Texas for – I think – two terms. He is several orders of magnitude more qualified to be President than Sarah Palin.
If George W. Bush can be such a disaster as President, can you imagine how much damage Sarah Palin would do???? It sends shivers down my spine just to think about it.
Yep, two terms and was re-elected with 69 percent of the vote. Bush actually did a pretty good job as the governor of Texas. As president he frequently made the exact opposite calls from when he was governor, which has always made me wonder if Bush was a fairly absentee governor and president (it would fit with his past history) and that other people were making most of the decisions.
Presidential military experience since WWII (and I’m really trying to be fair and even-handed here):
Harry Truman (D) – artillary unit commander in WWI.
Dwight Eisenhower (R)- West Point graduate, career military, led successful Allied campaign in the ETO.
John F. Kennedy (D) – Voluntered for US Navy in WWII, assigned to intellegence, then transferred to the Pacific where he was a U-Boat commander (his boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer, he received medals for heroism in his actions to rescue his crew).
Lyndon Johnson (D) – A member of Congress during WWII, he obtained a commission in the reserves and arranged a VIP inspection/tour of operations in the Pacific. F.D.R. had become frustrated by the nonsense of about a third of Congress using reserve commissions to send out franked letters home touting their military service and not being at home conducting vital Congressional business related to the war, so he ordered all services to release all Congressmen with reserve commissions from duty. Shortly before Johnson returned to D.C., McArthur arranged for him to fly out on a recon mission in a B17, supposedly over Rabul (a major Japanese base), but quite a few witnesses said the aircraft turned back because of “engine trouble” before getting anywhere close to Rabul (an event not recorded in any written records). Regardless, McArthur knew upon which side his bread was buttered, and arranged for his deputy, Sutherland, to give him a Silver Star for valour.
Richard Nixon – Volunteered for U.S. Navy, held desk positions as staff aid, then in charge of logistics for cargo flights in the Pacific, later ended up back in Washington D.C. at the Bureau of Aeronautics. He received a commendation from his commanding officer for efficient performance of his duties.
Gerald Ford – Served in U.S. Navy aboard ships in combat during WWII.
Jimi Carter – first post-WWII President, Naval Acadamy graduate, served as aid to Admiral Nimitz in building the nuclear navy.
Ronald Reagan – served in WWII as a Reserve officer and actor, on loan from the studios to the government to make training and propoganda films.
George H.W. Bush – Served honerably in combat in WWII as a pilot of a dive-bomber, shot down over Chi-Chi Jima (rescued).
Bill Clinton – avoided the Vietnam-era draft through student deferrments.
George W. Bush – Father arranged induction in Texas Air National Guard to avoid draft and possible service in Vietnam, had poor record of attendence at required drills and missed required flight physical, was discharged early to attend Harvard Business School.
Barack Obama – Did not serve, first post-Vietnam era President.
Note: There’s a lot of mud-throwing that goes on to deginerate someone’s wartime service. This runs a bit counter to the WWII official policy that “He also serves who (types, loads ships, issues contracts, etc.)”. That’s a realistic recognition that it takes a lot of people to run the military, and not all of them can – or should – be in combat roles. So as long as they don’t try to inflate their record for later political purposes, I’m generally not going to do so here.
I do make exceptions for the following:
* Lyndon Johnson, because Johnson used his Silver Star for political advancement; * Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, because they tried to cast stones at their opponants’ genuine combat experiences to avoid comparisons with their own and for political purposes.
Maybe we’ll get to a point one day when we don’t have any wars going on anywhere. Wouldn’t that be nice?