Another Day, another Far Right lie via chain e-mail

Yet another one of those blatant lying accusations leveled against President Obama without a scintilla of truth.

The e-mail reads: (Accompanied by a photograph of five aircraft carriers docked together)  "What’s wrong with this picture? 

The picture is of the five first line U.S. nuclear carriers docked together in one place. Just like Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. This picture was taken February 2014 in Norfolk, Va.  Obama ordered five nuclear carriers into harbor for ‘routine’ (?) inspections. Heads of the Navy were flabbergasted by the directive but had to comply as it was a direct order from their commander-in-chief." It continues, "This is the first time since WWII that five nuclear-powered aircraft carriers were docked together. USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, USS George H.W. Bush, USS Enterprise, USS Harry S. Truman and USS Abraham Lincoln are all in port at Naval Station in Norfolk, Va., the world’s largest naval station."

Of course, the allegation is that the President, for some reason known only to him (and speculated on by the far right Obama bashers) decided to place the nation at risk by commanding the Navy to do this. 

 Essentially every facet of this is a lie except that there are in fact, five carriers in the shot!

First: The picture was taken in December 2012, not February 2014, as the email claims. The email is also wrong about why the carriers were there. They were not docked for "routine inspections" -- they were brought to shore so that crew members could spend Christmas with their families.  Moreover, December 2012 was not the first time since the war that five nuclear powered aircraft carriers were docked at the same place at the same time. A similar unintentional gathering took place at Norfolk in July 1997.

As to the “First line carriers” claim - not so either!  First line implies sea and deployment ready. 

 One of them is the Enterprise(CVN 65),  which at over 40 years old, is being defueled prior to scrapping and, per the Navy,  "will never again go to sea under her own power."

So, that leaves four Carriers. The Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), which was in port being prepared to cross Hampton Roads to Newport News Shipbuilding  (now Northrup Grumman, Newport News) for a refueling overhaul. (The refueling was delayed by the Republican initiated sequester!)

Down to three:  The George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) was in port doing sea trials preparatory to a training cruise, having  completed a major overhaul in early December and was in the early stages of deployment work ups.

Down to two:  USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) was in port due to the need to resurface its flight deck so it would once again be operational.

The only remaining carrier was USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), which is fully operational, was spending Christmas in port prior to early January deployment

The important issue here is that only one of the carriers was deployment ready and the President had nothing to do with its being in port. The ignorance of the e-mail’s originator is blatantly obvious, especially to anyone with a military background, in that evidently  they believe the President sits at his desks and plays with little ship models and moves them around at will,  apparently to put the nation at risk.

Nothing of this nature or scale of intentional untruth has come from the left in my memory.