13 September 2004

Can't you find any non-fake issues?

Via Tim Blair, we see that David Corn at the Nation is spreading another bogus tale.

In 1978, Bush, while running for Congress in West Texas, produced campaign literature that claimed he had served in the US Air Force. According to a 1999 Associated Press report, Bush’s congressional campaign ran a pullout ad in the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that declared he had served “in the US Air Force and the Texas Air National Guard where he piloted the F-102 aircraft.”

[…]

Karen Hughes, his spokeswoman, maintained that when Bush attended flight school for the Air National Guard from 1968 to 1969 he was considered to be on active duty for the Air Force

As it turns out, when you serve actively in the Air National Guard you are legally considered to be serving in the US Air Force as well. The Supreme Court agrees. In his defense, Corn claims that two different Pentagon spokemen told him that Air National Guard didn’t count as active duty Air Force. So at least Corn checked with people who could be reasonably presumed to know. Since Corn doesn’t state what question he asked, it may be that the spokesmen misunderstood the question. The quoted part was

“If a member of the Air National Guard is in pilot training,” says Captain Cristin Lesperance of the US Air Force media relations office, “they would remain on the Guard books. They would be counted as Guard, not as an active-duty Air Force member.”

This might well be answering just how to count up active duty personel. Certainly ANG members are kept on the Guard books, not the Air Force ones. But legally they are in the Air Force.

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Alternate delivery systems

[source, source]

Iraqi forces and the American military are increasing their surgical, often retaliatory, strikes into towns like Ramadi, Fallujah, and Samarra, where forces of Islamic extremists and of the former regime hold varying degrees of power and sway. Some have become “no-go” zones.

No-go for the troops but not for the JDAMs. Welcome to the future.

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