Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

Is that one of your "pithy one-liners"? Or is this more of your idea of "irony"?

Translation - she got the better of me.

Memories from 1971
 

We all understand that the cartoon dates from 1971, right?

Memories from 1971
 

Right. You can tell because it's funny, and doesn't have any chicks and/or tits. Also, if we could see BD, he would be wearing a football helmet as opposed to whatever he's wearing now.

Frankly, I think the strip picked up when they introduced Uncle Duke. Little known fact --- he wasn't wearing the shades in the first two strips, but has at every subsequent point thereafter.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

However, as that particular theater empties, the shouting of "fire" loses some of its danger.

Memories from 1971
 

I thought drawn as in 1971. It was actually from 1971? Was Kerry a well known activist? Was the cartoon from a student paper?

Memories from 1971
 

A. I thought it was funny. Nary a thought of Bush or JC involved. I bet you try to interpret all of Dylan's songs, too.

B. Ever listen to Kerry back in the day? He was an incredible and insufferable egomaniac.

Memories from 1971
 

He was a very well known activist, testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee several times, leading the anti-war returning-soldiers contingent, and generally publicising himself at every opportunity. (It was from the first Doonsberry book, drawn while GT was at Yale.)

Memories from 1971
 

In the upfront way, like Thurgreed, or coy like Atticus?

Memories from 1971
 

More the coy, Yalie model, but with fewer actually funny lines.

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

I understood how you meant it.

Memories from 1971
 

After he returned from Vietnam, he became a leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War -- and was prominently involved in some large protests by that group (as well as many rallies).

At one point, he threw his medals (or copies therof) down on the steps of the Capitol Building(?) as a gesture of protest. Some opponents have tried to make hay out of that over the years. I think that's not too likely this time around. The ready rejoinder would be that -- well, Kerry served his country in War and earned the medals (which none of the GOP nominees can say).

Clark's biggest problem may be that he entered the race as the"anti-Dean" -- and Kerry as the front-runner destroys his raison d'etre.

S_A_M

Memories from 1971
 

Not too uncommon among those who make the SEALS.

[or any young male in his 20s who is that much of a stud.]

S_A_M

Figures Don't Lie
 

It depends on how you figure. In 1972, the first year of the Iowa caucus, Muskie won New Hampshire. In Iowa, "uncommitted" was first, Muskie right on uncommitted tail, and everyone else trailed far behind. At the time, people would have said Muskie won Iowa.

But it is not a great predictor because it doesn't happen that much. No one won both Iowa and NH on the Republican side until Bush did it in this year. On the Democratic side, Carter did it in 80, Clinton in 96, and Gore in 00, and 76 was a rerun of 72 (Uncommitted won Iowa with Carter in a close second, then Carter won NH).*


* But in 80, uncommitted's win was seen as a Carter loss.

Memories from 1971
 

Was Kerry a SEAL?

Memories from 1971
 

Don't forget - he later denied this, and claimed that he threw medals that belonged to a WWII vet who had asked him to toss them for him. His story on this has changed, depending on his needs. He commented to a friend back then that throwing the medals made him more politically viable. He's always been another Clinton, in that he's been building towards a political life ever since he gave the anti-war speech to his graduating class before enlisting in the Navy.

My dislike for Kerry is definitely not a current, bandwagon thing.

Memories from 1971
 

No. That was Kerrey, Neb Senator.

Memories from 1971
 

Uncle Bilmore,

Please tell us again about W's great military record! Please! Please!

Establishment, free exercise, freedom of speech/press, assemble, petition
 

there was the device that lets you transfer tactile stimuli over the internet. maybe you/Flint can patent the non-porno uses.

Memories from 1971
 

Surely no one here would quibble with his military record. We can take issue with a calculated and contrived use of the record as a building block for a political career. I doubt if Jonh McCain spent time in Hanoi trying to decide whether to look dishelved or preserved for his release photo.

Memories from 1971
 

Kerry is someone I've watched closely and known distantly for a long time; and I know many of his top staffers quite well.

He goes in and out of periods when he worries incesantly about how to position himself politically and periods when he is willing to stand up and spend his political capital and consequences be damned. His first term in the senate was clearly the consequences be damned Kerry; the most recent term was pure grooming.

So, yes, you'll see a fair bit of ambition motivating what Kerry does. I think that is true of any politician, and very true of George Bush. But when you see Kerry commit, he can commit very fully.

Also, Kerry has one feature you don't see much in politicians. He is not one for retribution (unlike, say, Ted Kennedy or Mike Dukakis). This means his organization is not as tight as the Kennedy or Dukakis organizations have been, but is more open.

Just for fun, AG
 

Memories from 1971
 

I was speaking of the sort of ambition that causes a twenty-year-old Clinton to begin planning his presidential inaugeration speech. I doubt Bush had really even discovered coke yet at that age.

Memories from 1971
 

I'm so confused. So you don't like McCain, Dole and the elder Bush?

Memories from 1971
 

How about the months (year?) he was AWOL from the Air National Guard? Apparently he only wanted to learn to wear the flightsuit.

Memories from 1971
 

Bush has more than his share of faults. You would be well advised to deal with those, and not depend so much on simply repeating lies and distortions. It makes it seem as if you have no real case at all.

Just for fun, AG
 

Just change "Vietnam" to "Iraq" and Trudeau could recycle this one.

Memories from 1971
 

Oh my. How embarassing.

S_A_M

Memories from 1971
 

Naw. I had to google it to be sure.

Memories from 1971
 

Your credibility is now severely in doubt.

So Much for the Dream Ticket
 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...813EST0501.DTL

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edwards rejects a Kerry-Edwards ticket

TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, January 28, 2004

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



(01-28) 09:09 PST ORANGEBURG, S.C. (AP) --

Presidential candidate John Edwards on Wednesday rejected any notion of sharing the Democratic ticket with front-running rival John Kerry -- unless he is at the top.

Asked on NBC's "Today" show if he would accept second place on the Democratic slate to face President Bush in the fall election, Edwards said: "I think you've got the order reversed. I intend to be the nominee."

Edwards said he would not be willing to be No. 2. "No, no. Final. I don't want to be vice president. I'm running for president," he said."

Memories from 1971
 

I only know what the Boston Globe reported. But my Google search pulled up Cecil Adams' explanation first, and I think we all know that he's good for the Straight Dope:

• Here's the story as generally agreed upon: In January 1968, with the Vietnam war in full swing, Bush was due to graduate from Yale. Knowing he'd soon be eligible for the draft, he took an air force officers' test hoping to secure a billet with the Texas Air National Guard, which would allow him to do his military service at home. Bush didn't do particularly well on the test--on the pilot aptitude section, he scored in the 25th percentile, the lowest possible passing grade. But Bush's father, George H.W., was then a U.S. congressman from Houston, and strings were pulled. The younger Bush vaulted to the head of a long waiting list--a year and a half long, by some estimates--and in May of '68 he was inducted into the guard.
  
  By all accounts Bush was an excellent pilot, but apparently his enthusiasm cooled. In 1972, four years into his six-year guard commitment, he was asked to work for the campaign of Bush family friend Winton Blount, who was running for the U.S. Senate in Alabama. In May Bush requested a transfer to an Alabama Air National Guard unit with no planes and minimal duties. Bush's immediate superiors approved the transfer, but higher-ups said no. The matter was delayed for months. In August Bush missed his annual flight physical and was grounded. (Some have speculated that he was worried about failing a drug test--the Pentagon had instituted random screening in April.) In September he was ordered to report to a different unit of the Alabama guard, the 187th Tactical Reconnaissance Group in Montgomery. Bush says he did so, but his nominal superiors say they never saw the guy, there's no documentation he ever showed up, and not one of the six or seven hundred soldiers then in the unit has stepped forward to corroborate Bush's story.
  
  After the November election Bush returned to Texas, but apparently didn't notify his old Texas guard unit for quite a while, if ever. The Boston Globe initially reported that he started putting in some serious duty time in May, June, and July of 1973 to make up for what he'd missed. But according to a piece in the New Republic, there's no evidence Bush did even that. Whatever the case, even though his superiors knew he'd blown off his duties, they never disciplined him. (No one's ever been shot at dawn for missing a weekend guard drill, but policy at the time was to put shirkers on active duty.) Indeed, when Bush decided to go to business school at Harvard in the fall of 1973, he requested and got an honorable discharge--eight months before his service was scheduled to end.

Memories from 1971
 

Kerry and Kerrey were both decorated Navy veterans, but Kerrey served in the SEALs and Kerry commanded a river boat.

Memories from 1971
 

I would not quibble with GWB's military record -- because I think there is no profit in it for the Democratic party in the 2004 elections.

However, while I would not characterize it the way Ty has done, I think that there are enough legitimate questions about Bush's situation that (particularly when combined with Cheney's five deferments) Sen. Kerry will or should be largely insulated from such charges during the campaign.

Consider -- It is no distortion to say that there appear to be serious and legitimate questions about whether Pres. Bush, as a young man, fulfilled his obligations as a member of the NG (?) in the early to mid-1970s.

It is also no distortion to say that there appear to be serious and legitimate questions about whether Pres. Bush, as a young man and the son of the (former) local Congressman and U.N. ambassador, received preferential treatment by being assigned a highly coveted slot in the local unit of the Texas Air National Guard, while there was a waiting list for such positions.

Now, some who have reason to know have said YES, and some have said NO, on each of these issues. That was then, this is now, and in any event nothing can be proven. However, when you combine this with Kerry's unquestioned war record and the lack therof for GWB or Cheney, I think that Kerry will be relatively safe from charges of opportunism and exploitation -- even if lots of people don't like him.

S_A_M

Memories from 1971
 

I think Hank was saying no one would quibble with Kerry's war record, not Bush's.

I don't fault Bush for doing his best to shirk service, and Bilmore's right - it is evidence that his 20 year old mind was more on babes and drugs than service.

So which of them is like Clinton here?

So Much for the Dream Ticket
 

Of course he'll say that now. The tune may change this summer.

S_A_M

Memories from 1971
 

Of course, you are charging Kerry with seeking to advance his ambition by exposing himself to active combat in a distant part of the world in service to his country.

Memories from 1971
 

If I was unclear, let me say this - I have NO quibble with Kerry's actual war record. None. Very impressive. I spoke only concerning his self-grooming for political fortunes starting back at Yale, and his self-aggrandizing behavior before and after the war.

And his ever-pretty hair.

Memories from 1971
 

Many of us have more respect for the slackers who don't get off their asses to do anything except sit on the sofa and take cheap shots at the go-getters who do impressive shit but clearly know all the while that they're the shit and have great hair.

This post probably belongs on the FB, where everyone will agree that I am mainly correct.

Memories from 1971
 

You are reaching new levels of inanity. I credit your primaries with energizing you.

Memories from 1971
 

By the way, what did you do during the war in Vietnam?