Here we go again...the Democrats tried to make Bush's National Guard Service an issue during the 2000 campaign and again earlier this year and it didn't seem to hurt him any.
Missing in Action
Bush fell short on duty at Guard
Now, I'll be the first to say that if Kerry's war record is up for scrutiny, so is Bush's guard service. However, as a campaign tactic it won't work for several reasons:
- We already know that Bush comes froma wealthy family that used their connections to help their son.
- He's already been commander in chief for four years, so his fitness to fill that role can't be questioned based on some missing attendance records 30+ years ago. (His performance, yes.)
- No matter how many witnesses you have, it's impossible to prove that a person wasn't somewhere unless someone else claims to know where they actually were. That isn't happenig here.
- Records also released today did show that he flew 300+ hours of piloting time in military aircraft. It's not VietNam, but it's not risk-free either. I imagine more than one pilot died in training.
You see, this is what the republicans mean by the Democrats and their lack of new ideas.
2 comments:
I'd agree with the first 2 items. However, you should know that very, very few people ever die in pilot training accidents. My grandfather was a pilot trainer in WWII, and I remember him saying that they had no fatalities during training during that year. Injuries, yes -- fatalities, no.
As for your third item, that's a rather ridiculous claim, isn't it? It is perfectly possible to prove that someone wasn't where they were supposed to be. The Air National Guard took attendance records and when future-President Bush wasn't somewhere he was required to be, they noted it in his military records and penalized him for it. QED, he wasn't there. Otherwise, he would have fought to reclaim his pilot's status after they revoked it
I'd like to point out that questions about Bush's military service in the Texas Air National Guard would be ancient history by now if it weren't for the constant Republican attacks on Kerry's patriotism and military record. Those, coupled with nonstop political attacks that claim Kerry is weak on national security issues have practically begged an in-depth investigation into Bush's military service. The Democrats let this go months ago, but the GOP spin machine apparently didn't.
In that link above, Kristof had it exactly right: "Does this disqualify Mr. Bush from being commander in chief? No. But it should disqualify the Bush campaign from sliming the military service of a rival who still carries shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh."
You may call my point ridiculous, but in a court of law, I doubt that you can prove that someone wasn't somewhere without showing that he was definitively soemwhere else. Assuming Bush didn't go into hiding in a cave somewhere when he was supposedly not with his Guard unit, SOMEONE must have seen him - a campaign worker, relatives, ex-girlfriends, SOMEBODY. To date no one has ever said he was somewhere else while he was claiming to be with his Guard unit.
So far, I do not believe that any Republican has called Kerry "unpatriotic" or "un-American". I know that his wife and a multitude of others have claimed that it has happened, but I think that's based on the fact that any criticism of a "war hero" like Kerry is considered unpatriotic in their own eyes. I guess criticizing your government and your military comrades is patriotic, but criticizing an individual is "unpatriotic". Given that "patriotic" has to do with one's feelings about their country, it lends itself to the fact that Kerry's criticism could be unpatriotic (as it was against the country) while criticism of Kerry as an individual cannot be (as it is based on personal actions).
If you choose to believe that Kerry's actions were directed against the people representing the country (Nixon's government) and not the country itself, please give me an example of any action that could be considered purely unpatriotic. I can only think of taking up arms against fellow citizens, but then again who is to say that Southerners in the Civil War were unpatriotic?
Attacking one's record on defense and military issues is not the same as accusing someone of not being patriotic. One might argue that lying before Congress or repeating lies of others in front of Congress during a time of war might not be patriotic, but I'll leave that up to the readers.
However if one were to define the opposite of patriotism as treason, and John Kerry met with leaders of America's enemies during a time of war when he was still an officer of the armed forces, the least one might be able to say about him was that he was being unpatriotic.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1091943/posts
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