subgenius wrote:MeDotOrg wrote:When Trump made the comment "I like people who weren't captured", I thought that was the end of his campaign. I thought that one simple statement reflected the totality of Donald Trump's world, a world where one man's suffering and heroism does not fit his personal agenda, and therefore he dismissed it.
...(snip)...
George H Bush expressed a similar sentiment when people called him a war hero, noting that being shot down and rescued wasn't really "heroic"...does your condemnation extend to him as well? please clarify.
George Bush NEVER said he liked men that were not captured. His own statement refers to the fact that while he was shot down he was rescued. He spent about 4 hours in a life raft while American fighters circled overhead, and was rescued by a submarine. He did not spend 5 1/2 years as a POW. If you asked George Bush why he was NOT captured, I would imagine he would tell you it was because he was shot down over the ocean and not enemy territory, nor did he have 5 broken bones and was not knocked unconscious when he ejected. I would also point out that George Bush was describing his own actions, and he was a man of far too much humility and far too little hubris to describe his own actions as heroic. George Bush had taken the measure of his own courage in World War II, and found that it was not lacking. He was never threatened by John McCain's heroism. Here was H.W.'s statement about the death of John McCain:
George H.W. Bush wrote:John McCain was a patriot of the highest order, a public servant of the rarest courage. Few sacrificed more for, or contributed more to, the welfare of his fellow citizens – and indeed freedom loving peoples around the world. Another American maverick and warrior, General George Patton, once observed: ‘We should thank God that men such as these have lived'. To that I can only add my gratitude to John’s wife Cindy, his wonderful family, and the people of Arizona who permitted this great and good man to serve with such distinction in the world’s greatest deliberative body.”
As to the 5 1/2 years as a POW that McCain served, consider this:
Business Insider wrote:Less than a year into McCain's imprisonment, his father was named commander of US forces in the Pacific, and the North Vietnamese saw an opportunity for leverage by offering the younger McCain's release — what would have been both a propaganda victory and a way to demoralize other American POWs.
But McCain refused, sticking to the POW code of conduct that says troops must accept release in the order in which they are captured.
"I knew that every prisoner the Vietnamese tried to break, those who had arrived before me and those who would come after me, would be taunted with the story of how an admiral's son had gone home early, a lucky beneficiary of America's class-conscious society," McCain later recalled.
So I would ask you to speak to that, a situation that George H.W. Bush never had to face. Bush was the only person to survive the bombing run that took his plane but not his life. His crew member's parachute did not open. Those who were captured by the Japanese were tortured. For George Bush, the seemingly capricious chain of events that led to his own survival in the face of so much death made him ask the question why it was him.
So if you think he was in agreement with Donald Trump's observation that he likes guys that don't get captured, you don't understand the chasm that separates the compassion, humanity and integrity of George H.W. Bush from the narcissistic ravings of our petty President.