Friday, May 16, 2003 | 4:30 a.m.
Mike O'Callaghan is the Las Vegas Sun executive editor.
WEEKEND EDITION: May 17, 2003
Why is there such a political uproar over President George W. Bush traveling to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln? He went there to greet thousands of the Navy's finest after their almost 10-month tour of duty in foreign and international waters. We sent them there to participate in real combat with our enemies and their commander-in-chief arrived by an S-3B Viking jet to thank them for that service.
Was his arrival on deck neatly packaged for national television? It sure was, and evidently this has stirred up some political criticism. His critics had better find more serious issues than this for the 2004 presidential campaign. The president's handlers saw his arrival by plane and mixing with the crew as a great photo opportunity. They were right on target with that assumption.
The Los Angeles Times wrote the following: "About six hours after arriving aboard the Abraham Lincoln Thursday, Bush delivered a prime-time address to the nation, declaring and end to the major combat phase of the Iraq war.
"Since then, his highly choreographed visit to the ship, which was returning after more than nine months of duty in the Persian Gulf region, has drawn criticism from some Democrats. They have accused the White House of staging a political event aimed at bolstering Bush's expected re-election bid, featuring stirring images likely to end up in campaign ads.
"After the president emerged from an S-3B Viking jet in a green flight suit, his helmet under one arm, he was surrounded by admiring servicemen and servicewomen -- who later turned out by the thousands to cheer him during his speech on the flight deck. The carrier was positioned during Bush's speech so that television cameras would show an open sea in the back ground, rather than the California coastline."
About the only blip on Bush's political radar screen was a statement by White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. During a news conference the press secretary said that the plane was necessary because the ship was too far out for a helicopter ride. Later this was found to be wrong and Fleischer had to backpedal and admit the carrier was only 30 miles off the coast of California. Some of the same criticism would have been showered on the president if he had arrived by a chopper, submarine or had swum the trip in a wet suit. Let's face the political reality that an incumbent office holder has some advantages when seeking re-election.
The New York Times newspaper noted some of the criticism as follows: "'I do not begrudge his salute to America's warriors aboard the carrier Lincoln, for they have performed bravely and skillfully, as have their countrymen still in Iraq,' said Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia. 'But I do question the motives of a deskbound president who assumes the garb of a warrior for the purposes of a speech.'
"Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, called for the General Accounting Office to determine how much Mr. Bush's trip to the carrier had cost taxpayers.
"The president and his top aides had made no secret of Mr. Bush's excitement at landing on a carrier in a plane designated Navy One and being brought to a halt by an arresting cable."
Ten years ago I, along with a photographer and another writer, flew out to the aircraft carrier USS George Washington a couple of hundred miles from the Virginia coast. Yes, the landing and departure from the carrier deck was a special experience. My only previous experiences at sea had been on large crowded troop ships, landing craft or short fishing excursions. One night I stood with the landing signals officer on his tiny platform as he guided in or waved off the incoming jets. You can bet your bottom dollar that I was impressed as the F-14B Tomcats and F/A-18C Hornets made their landings.
That night I wrote: "All of the danger doesn't ride in the cockpits of the jets. It doesn't take long for a visitor to pick up the excitement and pride of the sailors when the first jet fighter noisily hits the landing deck and stretches the arresting cable, which moments later recoils with an equally loud scraping sound. From that moment on, for several hours, the planes keep coming in only to be catapulted back into the air to make another approach and landing. There's only a short pause between dusk and darkness, when these same pilots will start repeating this activity and continue until past midnight. The fiery jet engines leaving the catapult and the sparks of the tailhook dragging the arresting cable across the landing deck make night operations even more exciting."
Politics or not, I believe Bush's plane landing on the Abraham Lincoln was exactly what he, as commander-in-chief, should have done.
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