September 7, 2008

Obama: I think I wanted to be a soldier once.

Obama, yearning to play soldier, sad there wasn't a war on when he was young:
"You know, I actually did, [want to be in the military]” Obama said. “I had to sign up for Selective Service when I graduated from high school.[*] And I was growing up in Hawaii. And I have friends whose parents were in the military. There are a lot of Army, military bases there. And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honorable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979.[*] The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren't engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it's not an option that I ever decided to pursue.” -Obama considered joining military, regrets abortion answer - Mike Allen - Politico.com

[Emphasis added]
Translation: 'At this point, I'm sorta making stuff up as I go along.'
* On March 25, 1975, Pres. Gerald Ford signed Proclamation 4360, Terminating Registration Procedures Under Military Selective Service Act, eliminating the registration requirement for all 18-25 year old male citizens. Then on July 2, 1980, President Jimmy Carter signed Proclamation 4771, Registration Under the Military Selective Service Act, retroactively re-establishing the Selective Service registration requirement for all 18-26 year old male citizens born on or after January 1, 1960.-- Selective Service System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia [Emphasis added]
Text added at the suggestion of my commenters.

UPDATE: Regardless of his intention and recollection, the fact remains that Obama did register for the draft soon after Carter's Proclamation went into effect. See Pajamas Media - Did Obama Actually Register for Selective Service?

Pajamas Media obtained official confirmation from the Selective Service System via email that Barack Obama did indeed register for the Selective Service as required by law, and is eligible to run for the presidency.

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Posted by Vanderleun at September 7, 2008 5:02 PM | TrackBack
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AMERICAN DIGEST HOME

"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.

Evidently his memory is faulty . . . registration for the draft was not in effect in 1979 when he graduated from High School . . . it had been suspended by Gerald Ford in 1975 . . . Jimmy Carter signed it back into effect in 1980 . . .

Posted by: Punditarian at September 7, 2008 5:27 PM

The junior senator is approaching presidential levels of mendacity; people of all stations are beginning to recognize that the lies start when the lips begin to move.

I cannot get trackbacks to work through HaloScan, but I've linked you.

Posted by: TmjUtah at September 7, 2008 6:08 PM

Are the wheels going to come off?

Posted by: Fat Man at September 7, 2008 7:30 PM

If the O-man camp doesn't find a cure for their Palinitus soon, there going to have to put a net over his mouth.

Posted by: David McKinnis at September 7, 2008 7:48 PM

The biggest con in history is about to come apart. And what a story it will be once it is written.

Posted by: chuck at September 7, 2008 8:07 PM

Fat Man's video is... disturbing. It's not the gaffe; it's Obama's demeanor throughout the clip.

He has a loop that turns on when he's confused. It's so obvious that Stephie tries to walk him through the interview.

Stock phrase... mention enemies of the Narrative... look earnest... lean forward, project interest in interviewer... stock phrase...

It's a studied mechanism designed to counter a known weakness. I imagine that Obama's handlers never bothered to contemplate that they'd be this close or actually even down in the polls, and facing anything like the scrutiny they are undergoing now. The Denver acceptance speech was an explicit signal to the media that they campaign was over and the interval to Denver was their chance to maneuver for favor with the new administration.

Liberals. Like their communist bedfellows, they never do quite make that jump to reality from the happy fantasy of theory. Thank goodness these guys didn't make it to November before screwing the pooch. Better all the way around they wasted Dem and Soros money and didn't get much of a chance to waste ours.

And man... Obama is confused a lot, ins't he?

Posted by: TmjUtah at September 7, 2008 8:59 PM

It isn't for nothing that he is called Barack the Unready.

Posted by: pete at September 8, 2008 10:29 AM

This is way to funny to be true :-)

Posted by: Marvell at September 8, 2008 12:54 PM

Y'know, I wish he had joined back in '79. Particularly the Navy. He'd have experienced:

Scrounging parts from mothballed ships to help keep his ship going.

Getting a paycheck in October that he couldn't cash, because Congress couldn't agree on an already-meager defense bill.

Getting a 2-percent pay raise (great news to bring home to the family that's already on foodstamps)

Not being able to deploy on a WestPac or Med cruise because the skipper filed a report saying his ship didn't have enough crew, or

Getting told "you're sailing on this other ship, because they don't have enough crew" or,

Sailing on a ship deploying to a WestPac or Med cruise with not enough crew because the skipper valued his career more than his ship's margin of safety.

Sailing through the boat people off the Straits of Malacca, seeing their signs asking for help, and having to sail by because you were ordered to do so by Washington.

Carving trenches in the Indian Ocean for months on end. Just in case the Iranian 'students' felt like releasing a hostage or two.

Getting harassed by the Soviets, the Chinese, New Zealand anti-nukers, Iranians, Canadians, and your fellow Americans when you return.

And to cap it off, being told by some Undersecretary that if you didn't like any of it, you could vote with your feet.

Posted by: Pappy at September 8, 2008 7:01 PM

Pappy, the Army wasn't much better back then, either. I was a lieutenant in an infantry battalion in Korea, and we had vehicles that stayed "down" for months on end due to a lack of spare parts, we fired live ammo maybe twice a year (and this was far better than what our brethren in Europe and CONUS were able to do, because we faced the NK Army just across the DMZ and had to be "combat-ready". Riggghht). My 30-man weapons platoon never had more than 20 guys in it, and my personal .45 pistol was made in 1938. You could practically field-strip it by holding on to the barrel bushing and giving it a good shake. More than once, the mess hall ran out of chow, so the troops had to eat at the snack bar or "on the economy" in the local Korean village. No Burger Kings on-post at that time. This is what BHO would have experienced on the Army side at that time.

Posted by: waltj at September 9, 2008 5:09 AM
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