Monthly Archives: September 2008

9/11, Mark Levin, September 11

We need to see the images of 9/11

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MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann was upset that they played video at the Republican convention that included the 9/11 attacks. Talk-radio host Mark Levin has a different opinion:

This is the video that Keith Olbermann does not think we should see:

Me.

A friend of a friend took two photographs at 8:49 a.m., September 11, 2001, from about halfway up inisde the South Tower, 14 minutes before Islamic terrorists slammed United Airlines Flight 175 into it. Those photos are hard to look at. They show smoke pouring out of a gaping hole in the North Tower above, from where American Airlines Flight 11 was crashed into it, debris flying, and God knows what else raining down to the courtyard below.

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I know that 48 minutes later, a friend will be in his Pentagon office when American Airlines Flight 77 passes through it. I know that 70 minutes later, my wife’s brother will be fighting fire on the 78th floor of the South Tower when it collapses. I know that 74 minutes later a friend will be harvesting corn just north of Shanksville, see United Airlines Flight 93 come bobbing and weaving over the rise to his northwest, roll over, and watch in horror as it noses into the ground carrying 40 angels. I know that 99 minutes later a friend will pull up between Tower 5 and Tower 7 just as the North Tower crashes down. Thick dust will enclose him and he will crawl out from within a crushed fire truck. As the air clears, he will stand among twisted steel and wonder if the world just ended.

Click on image to enlarge

The images of 9/11 also remind me that my family and the families of the fallen did not face the days ahead alone. Our nation was attacked; millions who had never before known even one of them mourned our dead.

My friend Mark Levin said it well, “We need to see more of it, not less of it, not because we like it but because we hate it.” I would add that a hundred years from now, Americans should look at those images and cry out, “I remember.”

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Editor — To view individual tributes to those killed, please visit Legacy.com.

Biden, Joseph Biden

So what if Joe Biden dodged draft, Vietnam War?

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In response to my wondering if VP nominee Joseph Biden dodged the military draft after Vietnam’s bloody Tet offensive, in part a reader wrote:

May Have”, “What if” — [t]his article is presuming much.
…
It is a bit refreshing though to see the same B.S. tactics employed against Biden as were/are against Sara Palin, who does have Foreign Policy experience, for no other reason than her State shares borders with two Sovereign Nations. Maybe B.S. is a bit strong — yet it appears to be over reaching at the moment. I honestly can’t say I got my draft board notification in 1968 immediately after I turned 18 or not. I don’t believe I did because I wasn’t summoned for a physical until the winter of 69. I know I wasn’t dodging the draft for that year and half. My B.S. comment was in regards to the treatment Palin is getting, and if that happens to Biden, So (sic) be it … tit for tat.

Overreaching? Perhaps. The reader’s point is well taken, the delays between registering and classification physicals were often lengthy.

Yet let’s remember the Associated Press’ report:

Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden received five student draft deferments during the Vietnam War, the same number of deferments received by Vice President Dick Cheney, and later was disqualified from service because of asthma as a teenager… “As a result of a physical exam on April 5, 1968, Joe Biden was classified 1-Y and disqualified from service because of asthma as a teenager,” said David Wade, a campaign spokesman.

In “Promises to Keep,” a memoir that was published last year and became an instant best-seller after he was tapped as Obama’s running mate, Biden never mentions his asthma, recounting an active childhood, work as a lifeguard and football exploits in high school.

My point here was not to suggest that we should drag out the records of the millions that received deferments or disqualifying classifications and grill them all on this subject. That said, Senator Joseph Biden is running to be a “heartbeat” away from becoming the Commander-in-Chief.

What is not clear from media reports, past and present, is how Joseph Biden was initially classified, medically fit or unfit, and whether that information was provided to the media by the Obama-Biden campaign. They say he was sent a questionnaire and then received four school years of student deferments, which would have ended when his law school did in the spring of 1968. But, on April 5, 1968, he suddenly received a physical from some unnamed doctor.

Which leads back to the question of whether he was initially classified as 1-A, physically eligible for the military draft.

If so, why did another doctor in 1968 find Biden’s asthma made him 1-Y — when the Vietnam War was at its peak? That same alleged asthma did not stop him from playing football in high school or apparently make him 1-Y at anytime back when Senator Biden was 18, 19, or 20-years of age, when relatively few American troops were in combat.

Those are fair questions, are they not?

If not, why was it fair for a political hack to forge military documents in order to smear President George W. Bush with them? Why did now infamous reporters continue to further the story even after the documents were found to be fake?

Why was it fair to question Richard Cheney and other prominent conservatives on their lack of military service during Vietnam?

The cheap shot attacks by Nancy Pelosi (who never served in the military) and liberal media that repeat such tripe have different rules for the D’s and R’s in or running for political office.

Tit for tat, as the reader pointed out.