Mission Accomplished

Some contemporaneous coverage from CNN five years ago:

"Yes, I flew it. Yeah, of course, I liked it," said Bush, who was an F-102 fighter pilot in the Texas Air National Guard after graduating from Yale University in 1968. [...] The landing came just hours before Bush is to tell the nation that major combat operations in Iraq have ended. The speech will be delivered from the carrier's flight deck at 9 p.m. EDT.

The picture-perfect landing, covered live on television, marked the latest effort by the White House to showcase Bush as commander in chief. The president's address about the success in Iraq comes as Bush's domestic agenda is under renewed fire by Democrats, especially by a flock of White House hopefuls.

Since that time, thousands of Americans have died, who knows how many more have been wounded, hundreds of billions of dollars have been spent, and millions of Iraqis have been killed or displaced. Naturally, current policy calls for us to stay in Iraq, possibly fighting for decades in the hopes that peace eventually breaks out on terms that allow us to establish a permanent military presence there. Makes sense to me.

Comments

Happy Mission Accoplished Day, Matt! I hope you are happy with the results of the war that you cheerled and failed to participate in!

At least you and Sully atoned for your sins. I'm sure Goldberg will go out with his Kurdish buddies and torture a couple of Arab prisoners to celebrate Codpiece Day. If there was any justice in this world, people like that would be on permanent corpse burial detail in Baghdad.

Posted by calipygian | May 1, 2008 8:39 AM

The sad thing is that they are still lying that the banner referred to the accomplishment of the mission by the sailors on the ship, as per his press secretary yesterday.

The sadder thing is that they expect us to believe the lie.

Posted by gregor | May 1, 2008 8:50 AM

Notice the suggestion - not of course an assertion - that Bush landed the plane on the aircraft carrier, as well as flying it - i.e. taking the controls for a bit in midair. Landing a jet plane on an aircraft carrier is extremely difficult and dangerous: see Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff. The throttle position at touchdown is, according to Wolfe, fully open - you have to be able to fly off if the arrester hook misses. No way would Bush even dare to try this, or the Navy allow him.

Posted by James Wimberley | May 1, 2008 8:53 AM

I remember watching that on TV and Chris Matthews nearly pissing himself over how "manly" he looked.

Posted by yep | May 1, 2008 9:28 AM

I remember watching that on TV and Chris Matthews nearly pissing himself over how "manly" he looked.

Tweety talking to noted thug, felon and asshole, G. Gordon Liddy, who described Commander Codpiece thusly:

Well, I -- in the first place, I think it's envy. I mean, after all, Al Gore had to go get some woman to tell him how to be a man. And here comes George Bush. You know, he's in his flight suit, he's striding across the deck, and he's wearing his parachute harness, you know -- and I've worn those because I parachute -- and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run those -- run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman's vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn't count -- they're all liars. Check that out. I hope the Democrats keep ratting on him and all of this stuff so that they keep showing that tape.

Shorter Liddy - "Go-o-o-o-DAMN! That guy has got big dick!"

Well you know what Liddy? I hope they keep showing that tape, too.

Posted by calipygian | May 1, 2008 9:43 AM

Five years later -- Iraq, torn to pieces for no honest reason beyond the egos of human waste like Perle, Feith, Wolfie, Billy, and Shooter.

Hundreds of thousands dead. An ocean of tears and grief; generations of people who will pass on a hatred of the United States like a treasured heirloom. Four thousand of our own dead, and counting.

The rich: So much richer. The rest of us, about to find out what the term "deflationary recession" means -- only, no one believes it, because many can still watch Matthews and Kyra Phillips on their teevees, and drive their leased SUVs.

America, its Constitution kicked to the curb six ways from Sunday.

Mission Accomplished, courtesy of the Bush family. Enjoy the place in history your issue has bought for your clan, Poppy.

Posted by Jemand von Niemand | May 1, 2008 10:15 AM

And yet there are still those who post on this board who argue that the slaughter of Iraqis is good for them. Who argue that any who suggested not murdering Iraqis, not turning their nation into a basket case, and not installing George W. Bush as their unelected dictator is guilty of enslaving the Iraqis.

Of course, those people haven't got the sense God gave your ordinary common houseplant.

Posted by Not as stupid as Will Allen | May 1, 2008 11:27 AM

you people are being too harsh. five years later, the green zone is secure, iraqi govenment officials can safely walk the streets of baghdad, the malitias no longer control large swathes of the countryside..... ah wait.......

Posted by dj spellchecka | May 1, 2008 11:35 AM

it was not a picture perfect landing. the pilot almost missed the aircraft. there are a fixed number of cables to stop the plane, i think 6, and the plane hit the last one. if it had missed it would have had to circle around and try again. a small point but a good friend of mine is a marine aviator and he loves to tell that story. there is a connection with the this and the administration in general however i am not smart enough to make it.

Posted by Anonymous | May 1, 2008 12:11 PM

It's amazing how this "he flew the plane" thing got legs, complete with references to Bush's fighter dog aptitude. Part of it is probably deliberate White House exploitation of lingusitic ambiguity: he flew to the aircraft carrier isn't clear whether he was a pilot or a passenger. But to do serious flying you have to stay current, which Bush obviously didn't. He didn’t fly the plane. He sat in the co-pilot seat and fiddled with the controls for a few seconds while the plane was in flight. Even the reporting at the time got it right. So there's no need to retell that "he flew the plane crap". Thanks for forcing me to use the Google to debunk this idiot story, Nimrod
quote
Cmdr. John "Skip" Lussier, with his boss in the co-pilot's seat, brought his S-3B Viking jet in for a landing on the flight deck of this carrier as it cruised home to San Diego.
A hook hanging from the jet's belly snagged a fourth and final cable stretched across the carrier's deck. The jet screeched to a stop and out jumped Lussier's co-pilot and boss -- President Bush. It was the first time a president had landed on an carrier in such a way, historians said. Bush took off from San Diego for the 30-mile trip to the carrier.
"Yes, I flew it!" Bush shouted to reporters on the flight deck as he emerged from the aircraft. "Of course I liked it!"
Landing at 125 mph and stopping within 350 feet subjected the president and crew to twice the force of gravity, or two Gs. But nothing moved the president, a former National Guard pilot, more than flying the Navy jet for a few moments.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2003/030502-bush-fly01.htm

Posted by China Hand | May 1, 2008 1:40 PM

"And yet there are still those who post on this board who argue that the slaughter of Iraqis is good for them."

Who has made this argument?
I have heard many argue that supporting the existing government of Iraq as it attempts to deal with the myriad of problems it faces is a more responsible and moral choice than abandoning them to chaos and sectarian war. Do you think that simply leaving means we bear no responsibility for what happens? And Bush as the dictator? What kind of dictator is not informed about a military operation (Basra). And what about stealing the oil? I thought that was why we went in right? Where is that oil, it seems like we could use it now, right?
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
What happened to the left?

Posted by Duane | May 1, 2008 1:41 PM

"And what about stealing the oil? I thought that was why we went in right? Where is that oil, it seems like we could use it now, right?"

It was never about stealing oil. It was about ensuring the peak production of Iraqi oil at all times. Prior to 2003, Iraq was pumping far below maximum output. The neo-con PTB couldn't bear to see that. They just didn't count on a violent, post-invasion insurgency blowing everything up. Former Deputy Sec. of Defense Wolfy just characterized the war backers as "clueless" to this possibility. Thus the lack of Iraqi oil flooding the market.

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
What happened to the left?"

I'm a big fan of the late President Kennedy. Where exactly did you read that he supported the notion of a full-scale foreign invasion to fight a war solely on the basis to help spread the notion of Western-style democracy?

Posted by Raindog | May 1, 2008 3:11 PM

"If there was any justice in this world, people like that would be on permanent corpse burial detail in Baghdad."

No. They'd BE corpses in Baghdad.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | May 2, 2008 12:31 AM