(no subject)

My mother and aunt are in town and staying with me. They arrived yesterday and are leaving tomorrow. We went out to McHale's last night and maued burgers--big meaty rare burgers with crispy fries--and then I took them to the secret bar. Tonight we're meeting my brother Bart along with his live-in boyfriend and Jared's two daughters. I've met Jared but not his kids. Bart wants to eat someplace with typical American food, nothing too ethnic--he suggested Fridays but I vetoed that, saying he wasn't coming into the city so we could eat at Fridays. Bart is turning into a suburban lump.

Jenny (aunt) has lost weight and looks fantastic.

(no subject)

Okay, now I'm annoyed.

I just a message from my brother--because it's expected to "pour" today, he and Jared don't want the kids (they're 8 and 11, I think) to be out in it. So he wants to eat somewhere around Penn Station "and you guys can take a cab down there." I really get annoyed when I have to cater to kids when this is mostly adults. I love kids but when I was one, my parents almost never catered to me--it's an adult world and I learned that quickly. Bart and Jared can take a cab just as easily, and I don't particularly want to be in the rain either. This whole thing is getting way too complicated, and needlessly so--kids are resilient and can adapt. I don't want to eat at some crappy tourist place in Penn Station, I want to have an adult meal with other adults, and kids who are capable of absorbing an atmosphere other than that of Chuck E. Cheese.

Bart originally wanted us to come to Long Island--again. No. I love my brother but he can be mindblowingly self-centered sometimes.

Moron

In an interview with Larry King, Bush tries to rationalize the 7-minute lag:

KING: John Kerry, your opponent, has said at the convention: Had I been reading to children and had my top aide whisper in my ear, "America's under attack," I would have told those kids very nicely and politely, the president of the United States has something he needs to attend to. And there's a film showing you sitting. What was going--let's explain this, so we hear it from the other side.

G. BUSH: Well, I had just been told by Andrew Card that America was under attack. And I was collecting my thoughts. And I was sitting with a bunch of young kids, and I made the decision there that we would let this part of the program finish, and then I would calmly stand up and thank the teacher and thank the children and go take care of business.

And I think what's important is how I reacted when I realized America was under attack. It didn't take me long to figure out we were at war. It didn't take me long to develop a plan that we would go after Al Qaeda. We went into action very quickly.

KING: So you think the criticism was unwarranted?

G. BUSH: Oh, I think it's easy to second-guess a moment.

KING: What was going. . . .

G. BUSH: What is relevant is whether or not I understand and understood then the stakes. And I recognized that we were at war. And I made a determination that we would do everything we could to bring those killers to justice and to protect the American people. That is my most solemn duty.

"It didn't take me long to figure out we were at war." Gee, George, it took me about ten seconds, and I'm not the Commander-in-Chief with fully-informed aides at my side. (And of course Andrew Card had just told you we were at war. Moron.) As soon as I heard there were two planes--both commercial liners--I knew it was a planned attack. I remember very clearly saying in the lobby thoughtfully "well, that had to have been deliberate--my dad's a pilot and these guys don't just fly into the big building that happens to be in the way. They're trained to do anything to avoid that kind of accident. This must be an attack." And I knew it wasn't a homegrown attack either a la Oklahoma City--the radical right could never execute such a tightly planned operation, they can barely organize a march.

Moron.

Kerry Service Record vs. Bush Service Record

From another website--I have not fact-checked this:

Dubya finessed, with help from Daddy and his friends, a coveted slot in the Texas Air National Guard while Vietnam was raging. Again thanks to family connections, he was commissioned a second lieutenant after just 6 weeks of basic training and sent off to pilot school, for which he just barely qualified. Somehow he won his wings and was transitioned into F-102s, a model of fighter that was even at the time being phased out by the Air Force. So far as I know, Bush was never rated in another front-line fighter.

While he was on active service for training, he flew the straight and narrow and was graded as a good officer by those marking his record. However, once he was into the two weekends a month and 2 weeks a year mode, he supposedly transferred to an outfit in Louisiana, which never laid eyes on him in 9 months. He was too busy working on some political campaign to make the required meetings, he alleges.

After refusing a drug test required as part of a flight physical, he was grounded and served out the time before his 'early out' behind a desk.

Kerry volunteered for the Navy, for OCS, and then for the 'river rats.' Although the JibJab Guthrie parody harps on his 3 Purple Hearts, they conveniently forget to mention that he ALSO holds a Silver Star and a Bronze Star, both for combat valor and not for administrative excellence. Although the Army tossed Bronze Stars and Silver Stars for service in a war zone around like M&Ms to its lieutenants and captains, the Navy did not. They only way a Navy officer could get either was to be out doing the fighting. Kerry's two Stars are legit. Please note that the Silver Star ranks only behind the Medal of Honor and the Navy Cross in terms of medals for valor awarded to Naval personnel.

After his third Purple Heart, in accordance with Navy regulations he was sent home and discharged when his term of service expired.

The evidence speaks for itself.

George W. Bush dodged military service in a war zone (since he knew that military policy at that time was NOT to send Reserve units overseas to Viet Nam) in a way that, had he just kept his nose clean and fully met his service requirements, might have elicited some grumbling about his being a 'fortunate son' from the media and veterans' groups but they would grudgingly admit he had met his obligations; following which the issue would disappear. It is the fact that Bush, in the opinion of most people who have studied the issue, failed to fulfill his requirements as an officer in the Air Force Reserve but somehow managed to escape punishment to receive an early out and a fully honorable discharge, plus of course his failure to be forthcoming about the matter, that keeps the issue of his service and personal integrity (if any) alive.

John Kerry served. There can be no doubt of it. The media comparisons of John Kerry and his Swift boat to John Kennedy and PT-109 are not accurate (and a transparent attempt to anoint Kerry as the spiritual successor to Kennedy), but the record is clear. Kerry came by his medals the old-fashioned way: He earned them. The later actions of the man as regards Vietnam Veterans Against the War must be judged with that in mind; for surely the men and women who served in that shithole called Vietnam and were wounded or damaged there had earned the right to be critical of a government they felt didn't give a damn about its service personnel or how the war was being bungled by both parties in Washington.

I especially like the final point--that of all people who choose to exercise their Constitutional right to freedom of speech in this country to criticize the Vietnam War, the ones with the greatest moral latitude would be those who actually risked their lives for it. I am so tired of these thin-skinned military types--criticism of the war DOES NOT equal criticism of the troops. Yes, to some extent it did back in the '60s and '70s but use your brain and look at the context--why would a veteran be slagging on his fellow troops?

(no subject)

Bart changed his mind--we're eating at a place on Restaurant Row called Joshua Tree. So, all is better.