Salon nicely distills the damning evidence (as opposed to the faulty memories and outright lies that constitute the Swift Boat Liars' ads) against the so-called military record of the current Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces as exposed in the Ben Barnes interview on 60 Minutes II last night. The CBS page on this story reproduces the damning memos.
It's unfortunate that instead of talking about the issues, we're fighting the Vietnam War yet again. And yes, both candidates are at fault.
Before you flame, hear me out.
Last year, when I was working with the Dean campaign and the "electable" meme started being kicked around (the assumption being that Kerry was more "electable"), I said to just about anyone who would listen, "If anyone thinks that Kerry's status as a war veteran is going to stop the Karl Rove smear machine, you'd better guess again." In a rational world, it would count for something, but we don't live in a rational world. If John Kerry had been one of the revisionists, like the Swift Boat Bullshitters, who believe that if we had only waited a few more months and killed a few tens of thousands more Vietnamese, we would have "won" the Vietnam War, perhaps he would have been inoculated. But then it's unlikely that he'd be a Democrat, wouldn't it? The minute he came home and spoke out against the war, the die was cast for what we're seeing now.
That the Kerry camp didn't anticipate this is appalling. After watching what happened to Max Cleland, how could one believe anything OTHER than that these people will stop at nothing to win. By emphasizing his Vietnam service instead of his terrific ideas about weaning ourselves from Middle East oil and for universal health care, he has opened the door to this.
As for the "AWOL blow monkey faux-Christian pawn of the Cheney Administration" [/Maron again], he set himself up for his National Guard service to be fair game the day he put on a flight suit, stuffed the crotch with old (and presumably smelly) socks, and strutted onto the deck of an aircraft carrier, waving his dick around as if to say, "I am Biggest Dickus!"
No one's saying that non-combat veterans are unqualified to be President. But George W. Bush has such a hard-on for war that an exploration of his own service IS warranted.
George W. Bush has mocked the United States Armed Forces at every turn. He has equivocated a cushy job stateside in the National Guard with combat duty by saying "I've been to war" (January 27, 2002, CNN.com, article no longer available online). He challenges insurgents to "bring them on", putting our soldiers at even higher risk while he sits under 24-hour guard at the White House. When the soldiers return home, they face reduced benefits -- cut by their own commander-in-chief. He talks like a cowboy when it's not his own ass getting shot at. And when there WAS a time when his own ass could have been shot at, every string was pulled to keep said sorry ass safe.
Bill Clinton never served, but he understood the costs of war. This is why he was reluctant to deploy American troops unless absolutely necessary. George W. Bush, by contrast, treats our soldiers like virtual cartoon characters in a video game, to be pushed around a screen with his joystick (pun absolutely intended).
George W. Bush's cavalier attitude towards the realities of soldiering was forged over 30 years ago, when the influence of his family enabled him to treat military service as a lark. This was his attitude then, and it is his attitude now. And that is why his National Guard Service -- or lack of same -- is important today.
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