The Command Post - 2004 US Presidential Election - Thunder Rolls For President Bush

May 31, 2004

Bush | Thunder Rolls For President Bush

The Associated Press reports members of the Rolling Thunder motorcycling group visited with President Bush on Sunday:

The roar from bikers on the Mall nearby could be heard on the South Lawn as eight motorcycles, headlights illuminated and American flags jutting off the rear seats, rolled up the driveway to the South Portico where Bush was waiting to greet them.

[. . .]

Later, Bush addressed, via a telephone hookup, a Rolling Thunder rally at Robert F. Kennedy Stadium in the capital.

The president noted the letter of endorsement he received from the group last week. “Artie, I thought you were going to offer me riding lessons,” Bush joked, thanking Rolling Thunder for backing his re-election campaign.

Reuters explains that Rolling Thunder is a veterans organization founded to publicize the POW-MIA issue and which helps veterans with benefits.

According to the Washington Post the Rolling Thunder event dominated the heart of the nation’s capital:

A younger generation of war veterans swept into town yesterday, shifting the tone of the city’s Memorial Day celebrations from the long-ago heroism of World War II to the still-raw wounds of Vietnam.

Clad in leather, astride gleaming Harleys, they trailed American flags and the black flags that honor U.S. prisoners of war and military members missing in action. With horns blaring and fists raised, they rode into Washington more than 400,000 strong, according to organizers of the 17th annual Rolling Thunder “Ride for Freedom,” to pay homage to buddies who never made it home.

Posted by Dan Spencer at May 31, 2004 12:15 PM | TrackBack

Comments

I saw it. It was very dignified. Great show of support. Great day.

OT
Anybody read This Bill Clinton Book Spoof? I laughed out loud. All important character from his presidency are in it. A good read.

Posted by: Bill Clinton at May 31, 2004 01:10 PM

Kerry Heckled at Memorial Day Event

Sen. John Kerry’s record as an anti-war protester came back to haunt him on Memorial Day when he was confronted by a heckler as he tried to pay his respects to a soldier killed in the Vietnam War.

“How much money are you getting to betray our POWs?” an unidentified middle-aged woman shouted as Kerry visited the Vietnam Veterans memorial on the Washington Mall.

“Are you paying tribute to all the people you spat on, Senator Kerry?” she added. The top Democrat did not respond.

The incident came as Kerry attempted to honor William Bronson, a Massachusetts native who was killed in Vietnam.

Kerry led the fight to have Bronson’s name added to those already inscribed on the black granite wall, according to Reuters. “I’m glad we could finally get the appropriate thing done,” the top Democrat told his mother, Barbara, who was there for the ceremony.

The heckling episode served to underscore the resentment many veterans still feel towards Kerry from his days as a leader with the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, when he teamed up with anti-American actress Jane Fonda.

Ironically, though Kerry has made his service in Vietnam a centerpiece of his campaign and has continued to attack President Bush’s service in the Texas Air National Guard, veterans are shunning him, according to a poll released last week.

Posted by: kahdja at May 31, 2004 03:42 PM

On the other end of the spectrum, the NYT’s, showing there is no depths to which it cannot sink,

Monday, May 31, 2004 12:30 p.m. EDT
NY Times Spotlights New GI Abuse on Memorial Day

The New York Times has chosen Memorial Day to spotlight a report that U.S. soldiers in Iraq are now being investigated for thievery and thuggish conduct during round-ups of suspected terrorists since March 2003.

Of course, “alleged acts” carry great weight with the slime ball New york times staff, or should we now call them the Al-jazzera times …

Posted by: kahdja at May 31, 2004 03:50 PM

From the W. Post Article…

Although Bush never saw combat and Kerry is a highly decorated Vietnam veteran, many in the Rolling Thunder crowd demonstrated little affection for their brother-in-arms. As they rolled across the Memorial Bridge, around the Lincoln Memorial and down Constitution Avenue, bikers displayed signs reading “Stop Kerry” and “Vietnam Vets against Kerry.”…

…Bob Nowak, 52, a retired Navy man from Aroda, Va., who did two tours in Vietnam, said veterans such as himself despise Kerry for his decision to protest the war in the early 1970s.

Nowak remembers returning from Vietnam in 1973 aboard an aircraft carrier loaded with thousands of sailors in their dress whites. “As we passed under the Golden Gate Bridge, there were people waiting for us. And they threw garbage on us,” Nowak recalled. “That was about the time Kerry was throwing his [ribbons] away. It’s kind of hard to forget either of them.”

Posted by: kh at May 31, 2004 07:40 PM

This is relevent why?

Posted by: Lakhim at May 31, 2004 08:25 PM

Dubya never saw combat, but he served his country with honor. To suggest otherwise is to diminish the service of all those who have served in the Air National Guard. If Kerry had had the wit start his political career without trashing his fellow soldiers, he would not be in the mess he is in now. Opportunism is a poor guide for actions.

Posted by: Helen at May 31, 2004 10:28 PM

Received a post from a friend, appropriately named Hawg, that attended Rolling Thunder. He stated the numbers were running about 90% Bush……………And almost NO RIDERS had Pro-Kerry signs on their bikes.

Restores my faith in my fellow Veterans. BTW: The traveling side show referred to by the Mainstream Media as Kerry’s “Band of Brothers” are now sneeringly referred to by Vietnam Veterans in the know as Kerry’s “Band of Others”.

Posted by: ET at May 31, 2004 11:57 PM

Kerry ‘Flips Off’ Vietnam Vet

Democratic senator - and certain presidential nominee - John F. Kerry gave the middle finger to a Vietnam veteran at the Vietnam Memorial Wall on Memorial Day morning.

Ted Sampley, a former Green Beret who served two full tours in Vietnam, spotted Kerry and his Secret Service detail at about 9:00 a.m. Monday morning at the Wall. Sampley walked up to Kerry, extended his hand and said, “Senator, I am Ted Sampley, the head of Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry, and I am here to escort you away from the Wall because you do not belong here.”

At that point a Secret Service officer told Sampley to back away from Kerry. Sampley moved about 6 feet away and opened his jacket to reveal a HANOI JOHN T-shirt.

Kerry then began talking to a group of schoolchildren. Sampley then showed the T-shirt to the children and said, “Kerry does not belong at the Wall because he betrayed the brave soldiers who fought in Vietnam.”

Just then Kerry - in front of the school children, other visitors and Secret Service agents - brazenly ‘flashed the bird’ at Sampley and then yelled out to everyone, “Sampley is a felon!”

-How childish

Posted by: kahdja at June 1, 2004 11:21 AM

No honorable citizen or veteran can support George Bush against a Vietnam Veteran.

Those who equate Bush’s membership in the TxANG’s Vietnam-free “Champagne Flight” to today’s service by NG and Reserve personnel dying in Iraq and Afghanistan, as did Karen Hughes on CNN w/ Wolf Blitzer, are ignorant fools or traitors.

Entry to the Guard and Reserve was closed for eighteen months when Bush’s Congressman father, signing off on getting others’ sons and daughters into harm’s way, saw fit to hypocritically arrange his own son’s “uniformed duty,” absent risk of service in S.E. Asia.

Bush was not the only Congressman’s “son” to receive the same despicable “privilege.”

I, for one, consider it a mark of honor, albeit born of youth, innocence, and complete ignorance of the corruption guiding U.S. policy in 1968, as now, to have enlisted then. Those who supported the war, like Bush and Cheney, and dodged the draft, like Bush and Cheney, are worthy only of contempt or pity…not respect or American Citizenship.

Posted by: iamerican at August 1, 2004 10:55 AM