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05/09/2005: WTF?
Also via Jo Fish, more proof that George W. Bush is a craven coward:
I got my new issue of Leatherneck: Magazine of the Marines in today's mail. I just had to share this letter to the editor in the Sound Off section from an eagle-eyed old salt, and the editor's response:The implication here is that the Secret Service fears that one or more of the Marines marching in the Inaugural Parade might attempt to assassinate the President? And who, we might ask, gave them that idea?Why doesn't the Commandant trust his Marines?And the response:
I'm a bit embarrassed to ask this. In the March 2005 issue of Leatherneck, page 20 includes a photo of Company B marching in the Presidential Inaugural Parade. The Marines didn't have bolts in their M1 rifles. Nor did the color guard on page 21.
The rifles are not cleared with the bolts locked in the rear of the receivers; they are missing. The operating rod is forward and the follower is exposed.
What gives?
SgtMaj Thomas R. Jablonicky USMC (Ret)
Colby, Wis.Our readers don't miss a thing.The nation is at war and, consequently, security at the inauguration and related events was high. According to Lance Corporal Earnest J. Barnes, Public Affairs Office, Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C., the bolts were removed from the rifles carried by Marines in the inaugural parade for security purposes by order of the Secret Service. Gunnery Sergeant David Dunaway, USMC (Ret) of Shoreline, Wash., and Joseph Berthelot of Syracuse, N.Y., also took notice. - Sound Off Ed.
My guess: The Coward in Chief....
From Alternate Brain, the source of the quote from Leatherneck (who is, obviously, a Marine veteran himself):
The other day I accused Tom DeLay of insulting a Marine, but this tops that by orders of magnitude. Bush has managed to insult every Marine that ever lived. If anybody had tried to get at the president, those Marines would have fallen all over themselves trying to protect his chickenshit ass, working rifles or no. What is the president afraid of? If he's afraid of his own Marines, he's doing more wrong than we ever thought.[Emphasis added --LRC]
How do you think those Marines must have felt, knowing their own Commander-in-Chief had so little faith in them that he took away their stock in trade lest they turn on him?
I got news for you, Chimp: If they'da wanted your ass dead, you'd be dead. Just be glad no one who really wishes you harm realized at the time that you had disarmed your ceremonial guard.
What a fuckin' coward. I have never liked him, but this time I'm ashamed of him.
Len on 05.09.05 @ 10:38 AM CST
