Beg pardon
A week or so ago a friend of mine joked that Obama would be pardoning Bowe Bergdhal before he leaves office.
And then a little while later we learn that Bergdahl has in fact requested a pardon:
The pardon would avert Bergdahl’s court-martial trial, which is slated to begin in April. He faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, endangering fellow soldiers.
President-elect Donald Trump was highly critical of Bergdahl on the campaign trail, calling him a “dirty, rotten traitor” who “should have been executed.”…
Bergdahl’s lawyer Eugene Fidell indicated he’ll attempt to dismiss the case if Bergdahl does not receive the pardon before Trump enters office next month, citing “grave concerns” over receiving a fair trial.
As people say vis-a-vis one incident or another, this is why Trump got elected. METAPHOR ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!
Although Obama’s shenanigans in this matter happened before the primaries, his attitude toward the military in general and the GWOT were made even more clear. Now, this. It tells us what kind of leader the dems got for us and what many of them think is just dan and finedy.
Guys DIED looking for this son of a bitch, and he’s going to get a pardon.
My opinion notwithstanding, this is ging to help Trump.
I’ve been to nine funerals with honors. The first was my brother, the second a guy whose family I had to notify. The eighth was my father’s. Three in the same church for other relations. I knew one mother who committed suicide five years after I knocked on her door, and another who tried.
And to think those who died looking for this guy aren’t even collateral damage to our-spit–president makes me crazy.
Bergdahl may have applied for a pardon, but President Obama will have to decide for himself what he wants for the salient points of his legacy. The Mark Rich pardon plagues Bill Clinton to this day, and will always be a part of his biography. President Obama is already noted for the liberality of his pardon pen, including the non-approved (but also non-contested) releases from Guantanamo Bay. Does he want a Bergdahl pardon in this mix? or a Hillary Clinton pardon?
The President is jealous of his legacy. It will be interesting to see his choices.
I can see a pardon for hrc, but not Bergdhal. Pardoning the likes of Bergdhal would leave a nasty stain on his ‘legacy’.
But if Bergdahl is convicted for desertion, that will leave a nasty stain on Obama’s legacy, too – perhaps worse. I think a pardon could happen.
Mra. Whatsit,
It will be many months after bho hits the high paid blabbers circuit before Bergdhal is tried and convicted. A pardon could always happen, but it looks doubtful to me.
Bergdahl is not Black, nor gay.
So, no pardon.
With Barry Soetoro, race trumps everything.
The fact that this case has drug on for so long is indicative of politics muddying the waters.
From what I know of the case, Bergdahl should never have been assigned to combat duty. He was mentally unfit to be in such a situation.The Army screwed up by sending him to Afghanistan and then Obama compounded the error by trying to score political points with Bergdahl as the soldier he saved.
He should have been tried and convicted long ago. A proper sentence would have been loss of pay and a couple years in Leavenworth. (Or some such.) He deserted but was not mentally competent to understand the gravity of what he was doing. My guess is that the Army and Obama don’t want the facts to come out because both of them look very bad in this instance.
I don’t think Obama will pardon him. Preferring that he go to trial after Obama’s safely gone. Such a coward.
His defense attorney can probably get a mistrial or have the case dismissed after Trump is sworn in because, by making prejudicial remarks on the case during the campaign, Trump has put his thumb on the scales of justice.
Richard Aubrey, you are not alone. Many of us have similar stories. I have a nephew who came back from Afghanistan wounded both physically and mentally. The problem is that Trump should not have opened his mouth about Bergdahl, especially considering his own draft evasion during the Vietnam War, the fact that someone else took his place because he faked a bone spur, and that he was caught lying about a high draft lottery number to cover his cowardice.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/02/us/politics/donald-trump-draft-record.html?_r=0
Bone spur? At 22 I still suffered the residual effects of a childhood heart murmur, and had a damaged Achilles tendon from a high school sports injury that left my right heel with a small knob not unlike Trump’s “spur”, neither of which conditions kept me from enlisting in the Air Force. Trump’s father’s money bought him a pass. It’s one of the reasons I have zero respect for the SOB.
Lets hear it for all the arm chair generals and those with 20/20 hindsight-NOT.
“Trump’s father’s money bought him a pass. It’s one of the reasons I have zero respect for the SOB.”
Back in the Civil War if you had the means, you could pay $300 and avoid the draft. Guess we should have zero respect there too. Guess if Trump had just fled to Canada, when Jimma Carter pardoned them all, the gate would have been washed clean?
What I grow weary of reading is all those pompous loud mouths that think they know how it all should have happened. I really don’t care what Trump did. But I find it interesting that you have a Kerry that lied, defamed those serving at the time and remains the same low-life he always was, You have a President and Former Sec State that had no problem letting 4 Americans die while telling their brothers in arms who were willing to go in harms way, to stand down. And this Bergdahl deal ( I don’t really care if he should have been there or not.) Good people died looking for this POS.
So try to get your priorities straight! Do I like Trump? I’m very concerned how he has cozied up to the establishment and hope he keeps some promises he made. But I do know his actions show he cares more for those in the military than the current Commander and Chief or Hildabeast who never claimed to have a bone spur. So Mr. Armchair General, which of the 3 would you rather have looking out for those we sent in Harms Way?
MikeII Says:
“So Mr. Armchair General, which of the 3 would you rather have looking out for those we sent in Harms Way?”
Ted Cruz.
Or any other actual conservative with honor, integrity and principles but especially not an unprincipled, life-long liberal NY Democrat blowhard.
At least someone who doesn’t proudly proclaim that risking STDs while on a personal quest to boink every vagina in the known multiverse was the equivalent of serving in Viet Nam.
I really don’t care what Trump did.
Trump does. That’s why he’s spent so much energy trying to prove to the world how good he is, and why he must attack anyone over the slightest perceived put down. It is the source of his cruelty. As Seneca said, All cruelty springs from weakness, and I would add from cowardice.
geokstr and The Other Chuck:
Please do not add to what I said or strike down the straw men you erect.
Once again just because I do not care about what happened when Trump was 22, does not mean I’m a Trumpster. I like you was/is a supporter of Cruz- But guess what Cruz was not on the General Ballot. So I chose the lesser of two evils in the hope it gives the listing country a chance to begin to right itself. I don’t have time or energy for your useless navel gazing how you see the world and what someone said to another person 10 yrs ago in private. I’m more interested in the integrity of the MSM holding the story for months until the right moment (Although I was glad to see Billy Bush hoisted on the pitard he thought he had avoided.
And as for his skirt chasing. I find it interesting you do not appear to be as outraged with BC’s actual actions of rape and “I did not have sex with that person”. Or how the Press ignored all the womanizing Jack and Ed Kennedy did. I guess thoughts and words are more important than actual facts to arm chair generals 🙂
The simple question here is which of the running candidates Hillary or Trump would probably look out for those our country sends in Harm’ Way? And if you are Honest with yourself, I think you will see it my way. And if you do, why expend all the energy on this? Or are you still put off that Hillary didn’t win? 🙂 Have a good day 🙂
MikeII Says:
“And as for his skirt chasing. I find it interesting you do not appear to be as outraged with BC’s actual actions of rape and “I did not have sex with that person”. Or how the Press ignored all the womanizing Jack and Ed Kennedy did. I guess thoughts and words are more important than actual facts to arm chair generals :-)”
You asked about which of the three I would want. I chose none of the above, wrote in my candidate and explained why.
You must be a young pup yet or something. I was around through the Bill Clinton years. I was in favor of his impeachment for lying under oath to prevent losing a case of sexual harassment. I was as critical as anyone about his womanizing, but aside from the rape charge, he and Trump were pretty much equivalent, both using their power and/or money combined with their con artist personalities to seduce every skirt in sight.
I also believed Hillary’s lead role in the bimbo assassination squad should have been thrown into the face of the whole “War on Women” crowd, too (neo disagrees, and is probably correct, for reasons that do not reflect well on either gender.)
I see you didn’t address my utter contempt about his comparison of his sexual exploits to the service of those who risked it all in Viet Nam. (I found this especially offensive, as someone who spent 19 months in that sh*thole at the height of the war.) Yeah, the man really gets the kind of personal sacrifice it takes to protect this nation, doesn’t he?
Now that he is in, I think we’d better be on guard for a shift to the left, given his obsession with deal-making, his NY values and his strange “respect” for Hillary, Reid, Schumer, Pelosi, et al.
Look, I voted for the orange creep but only because he was not Hillary, not because I wanted him to be POTUS. I suspect I’m not the only conservative who did so, either. If I had had the prescience to invent a cheap set of industrial-strength hydraulic nose clamps, I could have sold tens of millions of them to other Trump voters.
geokstr :
On these points we agree:
“Now that he is in, I think we’d better be on guard for a shift to the left, given his obsession with deal-making, his NY values and his strange “respect” for Hillary, Reid, Schumer, Pelosi, et al.”
“Look, I voted for the orange creep but only because he was not Hillary, not because I wanted him to be POTUS. I suspect I’m not the only conservative who did so, either.”
I am just saying I chose not to waste energy discussing how “bad” he was when he was 22.
He like the weather is what it is. Just like I don’t waste time discussing Obozo as it does no good. I just hope the damage done can be reversed. And by your logic, John Kerry is a more honorable man for having served. I would disagree with you, I view Kerry as below Trump, not that either are honorable
As for me being a “young pup” lets just say my number drawn was #242. My roommate drew #1 and went down and signed up for ROTC the next day. He was planning to continue into Graduate School until that hell hole over there ended. And to the best of my knowledge that is what he did. I see the end result between myself, my roommate and Trump being the same-Survival. Do I think they are all honorable means? I didn’t say that. I merely said of the choice between Trump and Hillary, Trump will do more for them. Hence, his actions when he was 22 do not enter into my calculations though they may your since you have a more personal involvement . Just my thoughts. 🙂
Remember that Barack Hussein had the Bergdahl parents in the Rose Garden to celebrate Bergdahl’s “release”, at which time Papa B., wearing an Islamic-style beard, made a statement in Arabic. I never saw that speech translated, but he was clearly speaking to the enemy.
MikeII Says:
“And by your logic, John Kerry is a more honorable man for having served. I would disagree with you, I view Kerry as below Trump, not that either are honorable.”
It takes more than just military service to have honor.
Kerry ended up being a traitor by making up gruesome atrocities he claimed to have witnessed being committed by the US military.
But I still have a YUUUUUUGE problem with the disgusting comparison Trump made between the dangers inherent in his skirt-chasing and those of serving in a war.
“Kerry ended up being a traitor by making up gruesome atrocities he claimed to have witnessed being committed by the US military.”
Agreed but I don’t think Trump would have supported Kerry the way the Democrats in power provided a platform for his lies. Somehow we as a country just ignore the enablers of these Aholes.
“But I still have a YUUUUUUGE problem with the disgusting comparison Trump made between the dangers inherent in his skirt-chasing and those of serving in a war.”
To be honest with you I don’t remember that comment and if I had heard it I would categorize it in the same vein I put comments from “Hulk Hogan” or “Jessie Ventura” or “Obozo” 🙂 Thanks for the dialog, I think we’ve beat this horse enough 🙂
MikeII:
Yes, it has been beaten to a pulp, but here’s one of his statements from 1997 about his “personal Viet Nam”. Make up your own mind:
Red State: Trump’s Vulgar Admission: Avoiding STDs Was “My Personal Vietnam” With “Few Uninfected” Women
Maybe being #242 gives you a somewhat different perspective on this issue than mine. I wasn’t drafted. I enlisted.
As for his comments being nothing more than WWE theatrics, is that your opinion also of the vicious, vile and dishonest tactics towards his primary rivals? It’s one thing if he uses them to excoriate the left, but his sleaziest lies were used to character assassinate good people on our side. I suppose Ben Carson’s career, being retired now, won’t be hurt by Trump calling him a pathological, homicidal maniac and a lousy doctor.
(Maybe rolling over and exposing his belly to Trump in exchange for a cabinet post will, and should.)
But should Cruz ever try to run for POTUS again, the left’s ad hominem attack ads write themselves, using footage out of a future ex-president’s own mouth – “lyin’ Ted”, “ugly wife”, “cheated on her”, “father involved in JFK assassination”, ad nauseum. Those may not affect those who already know of and support Cruz, but to the “moderate” middle who gets nothing but negative coverage already on him from the alphabet media, it could easily cost him the election. Trump’s smears turned much of the Texas Tea Party against Cruz this year.
The Republican Party should have told Trump to go run in the Democrat primary where he belonged as soon as he declared.
One more for the road,
“As for his comments being nothing more than WWE theatrics, is that your opinion also of the vicious, vile and dishonest tactics towards his primary rivals? ”
As you have said before and I agreed:
“Look, I voted for the orange creep but only because he was not Hillary, not because I wanted him to be POTUS. I suspect I’m not the only conservative who did so, either.”
I choose to waste as much energy energy on his past or present an I do on the WWE participants. None
I can only hope his stint is better than Hildabeast’s would have been or Obumma’s has been the last 8 yrs.
Perhaps if the Republican Party had more principled statesmen, the choice of the masses to choose outside the “normal” would have gone better. But all I see in the leadership of the Republican Party are tongue tied establishment types that cannot present their views logically or without offending their donors. I also notice the Democratic Party never does the circular firing squad as we do. As an old Pogo strip said “We have found the enemy and he is us.”
The instant I heard about the Bergdahl “request” for a pardon, I assumed that the closed door meetings had already been completed and the decision made. I assume the pardon will happen soon. I could be wrong; maybe the Bergdahl defense wants to attempt a little presidential arm twisting in the media.
Bergdahl truly does wish to be a martyr. I’d give him less than a year to live if he gets a pardon, and that’s if he stays in the US. If he bails for parts unknown, 6 months tops.
For the record, Fox News aired a puff piece on Trump the other night as a kind of mini bio. They sketched out his early years at the military academy with accompanying pictures of him at the time, and then followed up with his years in college, all without a mention of his draft evasion, but plenty of personal comments by him to the effect that he felt a special kinship with the military because of his “military training.”