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Originally posted by mrnoodle
But I can't agree on several key points in your argument. First of all, attacking Bush's service record is one thing. Degrading service in the National Guard is another thing altogether. And that's exactly what the liberals are doing, whether intentionally or not. There are Guardsmen getting shot at right now in Iraq, yet the liberal side wants to paint Guard service as some kind of 'military lite' for people afraid to get their hands dirty. That's just plain untrue and insulting.
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The only place I've heard the degrading of the current National Guard is conservatives attributing it to liberals, or Bush himself trying to deflect a question. But there are a lot of people, and you may have heard something I didn't. Attacking Bush's service record has no bearing on the current National Guard, because at the time Bush was in it,
the National Guard didn't get sent overseas. So when Bush jumped the line to get in, he was avoiding the draft. Equating that type of service to today's Guard is what really denigrates the men and women in Iraq. Just ask Colin Powell:
"I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed managed to wangle slots in the Army Reserve and National Guard units... Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to their country."
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It's also dirty campaigning. Bush might or might not have missed a couple of monthly meetings, training sessions, etc. while helping someone run for a Senate office. People opt out of Guard meetings all the time for various personal reasons, and it's never met with this kind of scrutiny. If there's any wrongdoing there, it's an administrative foulup on the part of the Guard, not some conspiracy.
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If Bush was forgiven more absences than the average Guard member, I sincerely doubt that it was an accident.
"never met with this kind of scrutiny"? Are you kidding? Bush is the president! He should have more scrutiny than some random joe off the street. And Clinton's activities during the war were indeed scrutinized this heavily, but he was upfront about not wanting to go to Vietnam. As with most scandals, Bush's ridiculous attempts to control the release of records is likely to be worse for him than if he just admitted that he "had other priorities" during Vietnam, like Cheney.