The whole thing started out when Allys Boyer, an 84-year old constituent of Congressman Jason Altmire's and Gold Star Mother, wanted to go visit the White House in late June. Her son, Cpl Larry Boyer, was killed in Vietnam in May, 1969. Coincidentally, President George W. Bush was just completing his first year in the comparatively cushy (certainly compared to Vietnam) Texas Air National Guard in May, 1969.
Fortunate son.
Turns out there's a policy in place at the White House for Gold Star Families to be pushed to the head of the line when looking to get a White House tour.
Sounds like good news for Allys, doesn't it?
Not so fast. The policy is for only for those families who lost a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan. And remember, Allys Boyer lost a son in Vietnam when dubya was guarding the air over Texas.
Prose wrote about it here (sub. req - sorry), but the full text can be found here (if you can wade through the freerepublic garbage that surrounds it).
That's when Quinn, the well-armed terrorist, chimed in. Here's how Prose wrote it this weekend:
Then the nutcase case really got moving. There were allegations by Quinn that the Boyers were big contributors to the Democratic Party. Here's where the fact-checking happened. Prose continued:Now, we don't know what Quinn said and we weren't bothered enough to find out, but from the e-mails and comments, we gathered that we're lazy, stupid, unethical, anti-military and a shill for U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire, D-4, McCandless Township.
Whew! At least nobody called us ugly.
We were mainly accused of being duped by Altmire and his spokeswoman, Christina Stacey, who informed us of the Boyer family's request for a White House tour and the subsequent rejection.
Quinn's apparent claim was that Altmire knew Vietnam mothers weren't eligible for preferential treatment, but he offered up Mrs. Boyer as a pawn to make President Goofy, uh, Bush look bad.
"You are a sucker, J.D.," wrote Luke Snatchko of Burgettstown on the Web site. "They submitted their request knowing it would get turned down."
"Dem. leaders mis-represent soldiers' status to the White House knowing that it will be discovered and denied later. They are using the press to develop non-stories," wrote Jerry Linger of Cincinnati.
Riiiiiight. See? It was A VAST LEFT-WING CONSPIRACY!!
With Bush enjoying such immense popularity (29 percent) and riding a wave of success in Iraq (cough, cough), House Democrats decided to knock him down a peg by concocting lies about the White House ignoring mothers whose sons died fighting in Vietnam. Brilliant!
Don't these guys think that someone might actually check their work?Center Township reader Robin Cox, who's been no fan of ours, posted a critical comment, but then showed the initiative we lack and checked out Quinn's argument.
Here's what Cox later wrote: "Mr. Quinn used an anonymous source, someone he calls 'Son of Deepthroat.' I'm always skeptical of anonymous sources ... Mr. Quinn claimed a Lexis/Nexis search uncovered contributions from the Boyers to Howard Dean and George Soros-related 527s. I checked FEC data on the Center for Responsive Politics website for the 2000 through 2008 campaign cycles and found no contributions to anyone under any of the Boyer names mentioned in the Prose column ... Mr. Quinn alleged there were at least four other cases similar to that of the Boyers. A Google search found no hits to support that allegation."
But the bigger issue here is what Quinn was trying to do. In order to deflect from the issue (that there are two tiers of support in dubya's White House for Gold Star Families, when there should only be one), he raises non-issues (who knew which rules and when) and manufactures "facts" (the Boyers non-existent campaign donations).
Jim Quinn, Pittsburgh's own crazy-ass wingnut.
