Why Bush's National Guard Service Matters

William Saletan, of all people, has an excellent piece in Slate today about why Bush's TANG service matters.

In fairness to Bush, Vietnam was a lousy war. And lots of guys who joined the Guard in those days lost interest in their duties once the penalty they feared—assignment to active duty in Vietnam—expired with the war. Maybe we should cut Bush some slack. But before we do, let's look at how much slack he's cutting the folks who serve in the Guard today.



[snip]



The Guard's primary purpose has traditionally been homeland security....There's just one hitch: "During national emergencies, however, the President reserves the right to mobilize the National Guard, putting them in federal duty status."



That's the language Bush has invoked to mobilize half the Guard's 450,000 troops.



[snip]



...the Army has sent thousands of guardsmen overseas and has instituted a "stop-loss" policy that prevents them from being released when their active duty commitments expire.



But these Guard troops aren't being sent to fight the people who attacked the United States in September 2001. They're being sent to—and locked in—Iraq. Some 40,000 members of the Guard are in Iraq today—six times the number of guardsmen sent to Vietnam. Already, more Guard troops have died in Iraq than in Vietnam.



In short, Bush has pulled Guard troops away from their homeland security duties to fight and die in a war unrelated to the service for which they enlisted. A guardsman who did less than he signed up for is coercing other guardsmen to do more than they signed up for.

And THAT's why it matters.



For some strange reason, George W. Bush, a child of Connecticut landed gentry, a son of money, a man whose path has been greased by his father's friends all his life, has succeeded in painting himself as a "man of the people" by never, ever being photographed at the family compound in Kennebunkport, let alone on the infamous family cigarette boat. By putting on a preposterously clean cowboy hat and blue jeans, and attacking a dead tree with a chainsaw, he plays the character of an American archetype. "I'm not a cowboy, but I play one on TV", the image says. And people believe it.



George W. Bush has about as much in common with the working class men and women he's sending to Iraq as Prince Charles does with blue-collar neopunks in Liverpool. When it was HIS turn to serve, even in a cushy position, he decided the rules didn't apply to him. Yet he's applying far more draconian rules to the men under his command.



THIS is why you don't put a spoiled, rich asshole with absolutely no empathy whatsoever in charge of the lives of hundreds of thousands of American servicemen. THIS is why if you support our troops, kick this chronic fuckup out of the White House on November second and let him spend the rest of his life in Crawford with his chain saw, his phony cowboy hat, and his phony folksy mannerisms.