War Stories: Ronaldus Magnus.

[kpete]

War stories

Compared to a some of our most revered and loathed politicians, Brian Williams is a piker. A lot of people have been reminding the Republicans about Ronald Reagan's tall tale about having been there when the allies liberated the Death Camps. Brian Beutler wrote about this one a while back:

Ronaldus Magnus. The most beloved man in all of conservatism repeatedly confused (or "confused&quot scenes from his acting career with heroic battlefield moments...that he never participated in or witnessed. Reagan, for instance, is reported to have boasted to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal of photographing concentration camps at the end of World War II. He even told Shamir he'd helped liberate Auschwitz. In his autobiography he wrote "by the time I got out of the Army Air Corps all I wanted to do--in common with several million other veterans--was to rest up, make love to my wife." But as Michael Schaller wrote in his bookReckoning with Reagan, "This obscured the fact that unlike most of the "several million other veterans," Reagan had left neither home nor wife while in military service."

oh yes, there is MORE:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/top-moments-in-politicians-lying-about-military-service

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and here is war-hero O'Really:

"I tell you what, I've been in combat. I've seen it. I've been close to it. And if my unit is in danger and I got a captured guy and the guy knows where the enemy is and I'm looking him in the eye, the guy better tell me. That's all I'm gonna tell you. If it's life or death, he's going first."

As noted above, and contrary to his statement, O'Reilly has never been in combat. Consequently, he has never commanded a unit or had to contemplate how he would deal with an enemy prisoner. His pretend bluster and machismo is all just a bunch of fantasizing of himself as a hero. So how is that any different than the offenses for which Williams is being pilloried?

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/07/1363060/-When-Will-Fox-News-Fire-Bill-O-Reilly-For-Lying-About-Combat-Duty

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MORE LIARS:

That is a quote from Donald Rumsfeld, & he was disabused of his statement by Ray McGovern.

RAY McGOVERN: And so, I would like to ask you to be up front with the American people. Why did you lie to get us into a war that was not necessary and that has caused these kinds of casualties? Why?

DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, first of all, I haven’t lied. I did not lie then. Colin Powell didn’t lie. He spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence Agency people and prepared a presentation that I know he believed was accurate, and he presented that to the United Nations. The President spent weeks and weeks with the Central Intelligence people, and he went to the American people and made a presentation. I’m not in the intelligence business. They gave the world their honest opinion. It appears that there were not weapons of mass destruction there.

RAY McGOVERN: You said you knew where they were?

DONALD RUMSFELD: I did not. I said I knew where suspect sites were, and we were —

RAY McGOVERN: You said you knew where they were, "near Tikrit, near Baghdad, and northeast, south and west of there." Those were your words.

http://thinkprogress.org/rumsfeld-called-tscript/

[gordianot]

1. I do expect Republicans to try this with Hillary using the old Kosovo story.

In a brief flipping on the radio dial I heard Hannity bring it up I did not stay long enough to listen much. By the way Hannity was plugging Sherry's Berry's I will never buy anything from them. Another supporter of hate radio.

[Octafish]

2. Ronaldus McMangus campaigned with the story a B-17 pilot who went down with the wounded gunner.

One of his favorite stories, one that he told over and over again to different audiences, concerned a pilot in World War II who told his crew to bail out of their crippled B-17 bomber. When the tail gunner said he could not move because he was badly wounded, the pilot replied, "Never mind son, we'll ride it down together." When he told the story to a meeting of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society he added that the pilot was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously. In fact, no medal was ever awarded for such an incident and the story came, almost word for word, from the script of a movie starring Dana Andrews called "Wing and a Prayer."

SOURCE: http://www.snopes.com/glurge/military/ridedown.asp

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. Williams lied and pointing out every lie ever told won't change that.

If I were NBC I'd shed him and get this behind me. The furor is gone in a week and won't be remembered by the GenPub until the next time a similar situation comes up.

[GGJohn]

4. Yep, they lied, as did Williams,

one's just as bad as the other.

[Thor_MN]

5. Rumfeld claimed he didn't lie, but doesn't support that.

He says that Powell didn't lie because Powell believed what the CIA told him. Notice that he says Bush gave a presentation, but he doesn't say that Bush didn't lie. Rumsfeld is a pathological liar. He will use weasel words to skirt the truth.