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Danny |
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On September 2, 1944, George Bush’s plane was shot down over the Pacific by Japanese anti-aircraft fire. He was rescued by the submarine USS Finback. On May 27, 1968, George W Bush enlisted in the 147th Fighter Group with the Texas National Guard. When asked why, he said he “wanted to be a fighter pilot because my father was.” His unit was called the “Champagne Unit” because it also contained the sons of future Senator Lloyd Bentson and Governor John Connally. During his stint in the unit, no one attacked Texas. In December 1969 George W received his wings and continued to fly weekends for the National Guard. On May 1, 2003, George W flew a Navy S-3B part of the way to the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln to announce again the end of major combat in Iraq. During this flight, no shots were fired. And like his terrorist counterparts, he also did not land the plane. But what did happen was the most picture-perfect kick-off to a presidential campaign in memory. He stepped from the plane in his Captain Midnight flight suit, holding his helmet, and radioed back to headquarters that he had the bad guys in his sights. And also that he was drinking his Ovaltine, as he urged all of us to do. As the azure blue of the Pacific just before sunset glistened in the background, George W Bush, his Secret Squadron decoder ring set to auto-pilot, approached the microphone and told a deckful of sailors they had done a great job in curtailing “a grave danger to the civilized world”. Not surprisingly, they cheered heartily. All of this will be in the campaign ad videos that will soon crop up on your local TV. Meanwhile, a continent away, a rag-tag group of Little Leaguers prepared for a softball game. Nine players loped around the South Carolina diamond. This was supposed to be the opening salvo of the Democrats’ run for the presidency in 2004. The winner? George Stephanopoulos and he was the moderator. It couldn’t look any sadder for the so-called “loyal opposition” than to see the likes of Senator Bob Graham of Florida or Representative Dick Gephardt of Missouri, or almost any of the others, try to claim the mantle that will catapult them to the stature of “Presidential Candidate” opposing the sitting President who has just hit a home run with his Kodak moment. On a morning talk show afterwards, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, probably one of the only one or two of the group who has a slight chance of gaining the nomination, started hammering on the issues: Unemployment back up to 6%; Two million jobs lost since Bush took office; Homeland Defense all talk and no action for the frontline of police, fire and medical emergency first responders; Deficits in the trillions after a balanced budget and the paying down of the debt; No confidence by the average American in Wall Street or the world of Big Business due to all the scandals. On and on he went. And of course he’s right. The only problem was, he was not standing on the deck of the Lincoln- -Heck he wasn’t even standing near a Lincoln, or a Ford, or for that matter on a five dollar bill. Maybe he should have been wearing Lincoln green for his Robin Hood suggestions to the solutions for these problems: “Steal from the poor and give to the rich.” Wait a minute!! That’s George Bush’s tax cut plan. Oh, well, you know what I mean- -exactly the opposite!! Incumbents always have the advantage: “Re-elect The President” is all the Nixon campaign said in 1972. Although, come to think of it, Jimmy Carter and George Bush Senior might like to disagree with that old political axiom. Those who paid any attention to what the President said on the aircraft carrier will note that he said absolutely nothing that had not already been said, some of it earlier the same day by his own staff prepping the press. An Associated Press story by Tom Raum listed all the points of the speech in morning editions of newspapers for May 1st , before the President ever left San Diego for the carrier, which was only thirty miles off the coast. We have seen a first-class manipulation of the media by the Karl Rove players. Will the American people fall for it? You bet they will. They love a big spectacle. Now let’s see how well the Democrats can produce their own version of Guys and Dolls.
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