Another blue-dog liberal turns traitor!

[Shapley]

You can check for yourself:

John Warner Bio

Vietnam Timeline 1969 - 1975

[Haggis@wk]

That post was a bunch of revisionist construct, aka carp.

Warner doesn't give any refence to time frame in his quote in the article. He could've been talking about troop buildups during the Johnson administration for all you know.

Aside from the fact he was talking about Army generals, which, as a Navy officer, he has no official say over with regard to Army troop levels.

So, what's your point?

Al Franken is right. When the facts don't support your contention, you guys just make stuff up.

Poppycock, before 1969 he was a lawyer in private practice. Are you surmising that his opinions were based on water cooler conversation?

So, "when Army generals would come in" the "in" he's referring to were his DC law offices? And then said office would dispatch another five or ten thousands troops?

(ed. "If only they were five or ten thousand lawyers!")

Or, more likely, maybe his statements were made based on his tenure in the Navy department from 1969 - 74?

Warner was in the Navy secretariat for five years beginning in 1969 and was the Secretary from 1972-1974. I don’t know what his duties were in the three years before he became the Secretary in 1972 but it doesn’t take much Googling to realize that this is a problem for his 'memory', since we began reducing troops beginning in 1969 after the war time peak in 1968 and our involvement ended completely in 1973.

As Shapley pointed out US troops strength had been reduced to about 130,000 by the beginning of 1972 when he took over as Secretary of the Navy; two thirds of the troops had already gone home in the previous two years.

As for any “surging” during his tenure in the Navy Department the only thing I can find that might meet that definition involved providing more B-52s for Operation Linebacker II and, again, why would anyone go to Warner for his assistance in getting USAF resources?

Once again another old time politician who has no idea how easy it is to check statements like that shot his mouth off (well, possibly not by the MSM, apparently). That will be costly over and over to anyone in the future who make sweeping generalities like that. And trust me, this one is going to get ugly in the next few weeks.

To paraphrase Shapley, Warner may have learned lessons from Vietnam and is applying them to Iraq but if those lessons are as germane as his memory is accurate, well…..

The simple message? They, all of them, are lying everyday.

[OperaTenor]

TBH, I don't know much about his background, outside of him being one of Liz's.

However, since there's no time reference assigned to the quote, Shap's tying it to his term as Navy Secretary is fallacious. If he'd started out that quote ny saying, "While I was Navy Secretary,...", it would be a different story.

Not buying the load.

[Shapley]

Not buying the load.

And therein lies your problem. I've provided very clear evidence that at no time during the Vietnam War was he in a position that Army Generals would have come to him with such a request or, in fact, that he was ever responsible for complying with such a request, and you choose to ignore it.

Frankly, I don't give a rip what Al Franken has to say, but it's very clear that I didn't 'make stuff up'.

V/R
Shapley

[jamiebk]

Unfortunately, we never seem to really learn anything from history and we seem to repeat the same mistakes over and over.

[OperaTenor]

Shap, where do you get he was saying any Army generals were coming to him with requests?!!

[Haggis@wk]

[

So, "when Army generals would come in" the "in" he's referring to were his DC law offices? And then said office would dispatch another five or ten thousands troops?

Are you deliberately being disingenuous? Where was he at that could logically inferred that generals would come "in" if not during his 5-year stint in the Pentagon???

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War,

As what? A DC lawyer or as an official of the Department of Defense?

So if, using your premise, he had just been a little more vocal as a lawyer that would have made a difference? That was all we needed, just that one more vocal lawyer?

Or maybe, just maybe, what he meant was if he had been a little more vocal as an undersecretary and secretary of the Navy he could have made a difference?

Occam's razor time.

He made a solemn and sweeping statement that at the time he was in a position to do so he now believes he failed in his duty.

He made the statement to delibrately give his resolution some gravity. He "regrets" that he didn't do more when he could.

Unfortunately for him and others of his ilk is that today anyone can take those statements and, with 30 minutes in Goggle, expose them as what they are; political posturing.

He and most of congress have been confident for decades that their statements are unassailable.

they're wrong.

[Shapley]

OT asks

Shap, where do you get he was saying any Army generals were coming to him with requests?!!

I post again:

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War, the former Navy secretary said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office. "The Army generals would come in, 'Just send in another five or ten thousand.' You know, month after month. Another ten or fifteen thousand. They thought they could win it. We kept surging in those years. It didn't work."

I think you're now 'wiggling'. You're going to tell me that he doesn't actually say that they came in to him with those requests, that he could have just been sitting at the table when they came to President Johnson or Robert McNamara with the request, and that he regrets not speaking up?

It is okay to disbelieve him, OT. After all, he is a Republican...

[Shapley]

Haggis,

RE:

Unfortunately for him and others of his ilk is that today anyone can take those statements and, with 30 minutes in Goggle, expose them as what they are; political posturing.

He and most of congress have been confident for decades that their statements are unassailable.

they're wrong.

Fortunately for him and others of his ilk, the mainstream press doesn't bother to Google such statements. It was William Kristol of the Weekly Standard who first pointed out that there was a problem with his timeline, and this only after the quote had appeared in various mainstream press publications.

[OperaTenor]

No Shap, you're reading something that isn't there. It's a vague statement, and it doesn't say they came and made the request of him, so yeah, he could've been sitting at the conference table overhearing the requests.

Even as Navy Secretary, he had no authority over Army troop levels anyway, so why don't you just admit you're seeing what you want to see to make him look bad?

Good God, talk about beating a dead horse!

[Shapley]

OT,

That's not even a wiggle, that's a squirm!

I'd say you lost that discussion!

V/R
Shapley

[OperaTenor]

So you're trying to say the Navy Secretary has a say in Army troop levels in a given conflict?

You might want to write the current one and let him know of his new powers...

[Haggis@wk]

Which one sounds more plausible?

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War, when I was a DC lawyer and in a position to do something about it

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War, as an official of the department of defense and in a position to do something about it

Take your time

[Shapley]

So you're trying to say the Navy Secretary has a say in Army troop levels in a given conflict?

No, my argument has been that his statement was stuff and nonsense, designed to provide some pretense of reason behind his opposition to sending in more troops. The Vietnam comparison thing always sounds good to the left, so he used it. As Haggis points out, he did so thinking he was safe in the knowledge that no one would call him on it. Regretfully, he's right that no one in the mainstream press has done so, only 'right wingers' such as William Kristol and a handful of bloggers have done so. In the eyes of the mainstream press and those who believe them, he has joined the ranks of ex-warmongers who've seen the light and now regret sending their sons and daughters off to die. He and Robert McNamara have found a seat at the left-wing banquet table, thanks to their faulty memories and convenient guilt.

[jamiebk]

So you're trying to say the Navy Secretary has a say in Army troop levels in a given conflict?

He and Robert McNamara have found a seat at the left-wing banquet table, thanks to their faulty memories and convenient guilt.

Or perhaps they have just found a truth within themselves and do not care to repeat a mistake.

[OperaTenor]

Which one sounds more plausible?

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War, when I was a DC lawyer and in a position to do something about it

"I regret that I was not more outspoken" during the Vietnam War, as an official of the department of defense and in a position to do something about it

Take your time

FWIW he was Undersecretary of the Navy from 1969 to 1972, so the latter statement could still hold water. I'm not saying it does, I JUST KEEP TRYING TO POINT OUT THAT CONCLUSIONS ARE BEING READ INTO AN AMBIGUOUS STATEMENT.

[Selma in Sandy Eggo]

Aw, c'mon guys. He's a lawyer and a politician. His lips are moving. He deeply regrets that he cannot retroactively alter the record of his political position to the currently desirable stance.

Sheesh. :garbagewithflies:

[OperaTenor]

So you're trying to say the Navy Secretary has a say in Army troop levels in a given conflict?

No, my argument has been that his statement was stuff and nonsense, designed to provide some pretense of reason behind his opposition to sending in more troops. The Vietnam comparison thing always sounds good to the left, so he used it. As Haggis points out, he did so thinking he was safe in the knowledge that no one would call him on it. Regretfully, he's right that no one in the mainstream press has done so, only 'right wingers' such as William Kristol and a handful of bloggers have done so. In the eyes of the mainstream press and those who believe them, he has joined the ranks of ex-warmongers who've seen the light and now regret sending their sons and daughters off to die. He and Robert McNamara have found a seat at the left-wing banquet table, thanks to their faulty memories and convenient guilt.

Call him on what?!!

[Shapley]

FWIW he was Undersecretary of the Navy from 1969 to 1972, so the latter statement could still hold water.

No it can't. I've already pointed out that, once President Nixon assumed office, which was in January of 1969, the policy of troop escalation was ended and Vietnamization policy began. He left private practice in 1969 and became undersecretary in February of that year. The number of troops maxed out in April and May of 1969, but that was based on commitments made under President Johnson. Troop withdrawals were announced in June of that year, and began in July.

There was no point during his tenure in office that such buildup would have occurred.

You posted the link, now you seem to be avoiding scrutiny of it. Why?

V/R
Shapley

[Shapley]

I was browsing through old threads earlier, and stumbled on this one. I reread it, and was thinking about how it was hijacked into a thread on abortion when, suddenly, it hit me. It was no hijack. The war and abortion are direct parallels. It can even be noted in looking at who supports "a woman's right to choose abortion" and the Democrats desire to abort this war, they are almost parallel, as well. Even the arguments are the same:

He lied to get us into bed with him.
We were caught up in the passion of the moment, and didn't consider the consequences.
It's illigitimate.
In another two years, he'll be gone, and we'll ge left to care for the bastard without him.

I think it is telling that those of us believe in commitments, who believe in responsibility for one's actions, and who believe in responsibility, are generally the ones who favour restrictions on abortion and completing the mission in Iraq. There is a remarkable similarity between the two. The Democrats who voted to authorize the war prefer to pretend that they were misled, caught up in the passion of 9/11, and didn't really consider the consequences of going to war in Iraq, and they want to abort the war, hoping that it will abort the responsibility for their vote.

It is interesting that, three years ago, when it was Mr. Bush Vs. Mr. Kerry, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that, regardless of whether the war was ill-concieved or not, it had to be fought to a successful conclusion, and the majority of the people agreed. Now, a relatively short time later, the consensus of the Democrats has moved to one of aborting the war effort, and they seem to have led the majority of the people with them.

As I've said all along, we have lost our sense of duty, our sense of commitment, and our sense of honour. We'll abandon a whole nation as readily as we'll abandon an unwanted child, allowing both to be torn apart and sucked into the vacuum of anarchy.

I weep.

V/R
Shapley