Curious me: so what happened to Bush-the-elder's crew buddies when

[patrice]

his airplane went down somewhere near Iwo Jima?

[noamnety]

1. I believe he left them in the airplane to die

oops.

[flordehinojos]

2. they died and the story says he bailed out of the plane leaving them todie

without trying to land the plane on the water.

[Elwood P Dowd]

3. Poppy let 'em die

trapped in that plane. He didn't give 'em time to get the hell out of there.

[Les BOOGIE]

4. here's a detailed report

http://www.kmf.org/williams/bushbook/bush6.html

if link doesn't work find chapter 6 of George Bush The Unauthorized Biography

for a real hoot go the Bush Library website and find him describing the flames which the medal winning witness deny existed

[patrice]

5. Thanks. It's hard to understand why we didn't hear more about that

last year.

On a related note, I watched Object Burma recently, and when Erol Flynne hands his CO that stack of dog tags near the end of the film, the sub-text seems pretty clear to me, but I suppose most others, similar to the Swift Boat Liars, have explanations that work for them for things like that and for what Poppy Bush did.

And that wouldn't bother me so much if it weren't for the fact that they absolutely DENY anyone else his/her own explanations for what happened.

[wadestock]

6. Did you see the awards last nite for those who participated in

the swiftboat ads...wow that was like an academy awards ceremony for destroying Kerry...unbelievable....

[jean]

7. here's a recent rendition of the incident...from the New Yorker

"Moments after enemy fire punctured the fuselage, smoke filled the cockpit of George Herbert Walker Bush’s plane, the Barbara III. The twenty-year-old Navy pilot and his two-man crew had not yet carried out their mission, which was to bomb the island of Chichi Jima. But the plane was plummeting, and flames were nearing the fuel tank. Finally, the payload was dropped, and Bush ordered his crewmen, Ted White and John Delaney, to bail. Hearing no reply, he jumped out himself—pulling the parachute’s rip cord early and banging his head on the plane, but recovering in time to hit the water safely. Swimming to an emergency life raft that had opened with his jump, he waited to be rescued. Around him, in the swells of the Pacific, White and Delaney were nowhere to be seen. “I cannot get the thought of those two boys out of my mind,” Bush confessed years later."
from http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?040712crbo_books

...
makes you wonder if Poppy pulling the rip cord too early in his zeal to save his butt was what caused Chimp to not release his parachute straps in the lead up to his Mission Accomplished skit. (Ah wouldn't wanna hit my head like Pappy)

Remember the pic of him with the crotch area of his flightsuit greatly empahsized? I read a pilot's comment that this was because bush was too stupid to release the straps, which is what you do if you know what you're doing. Hence the straps squinched up the whole area making Chris Matthews and other worshippers giddy with delight.