Originally posted by BuddyLee
Posted by billmaher at 06:39 PM
CLEANED UP QUOTES... cont'd...
BUSH DRAFTDODGER ...
The president said in his Teatime with Tim Russert interview that, regarding his time in the Guard, “And I would have gone (to Vietnam, that is) had my unit been called up, by the way.”
How brave, seeing that during Vietnam, over 2.5 million Americans went to Vietnam, and out of that, the number of guardsmen called up was 8700. 8700 out of 2 and a half million, which is less than .3%.
So to say “I would have gone” when he knew he never would (on top of which, he flew an obsolete plane that never would have been called to Vietnam) – fine, but once again, not the kind of thing that, to me, shouts “honor and integrity.” Although, I guess even the president’s fans have realized by now that ‘honor and integrity’ was more of a Campaign 2000 thing. Oh well, still better than a “liberal.”
Bush also said to Russert, basically, ‘you can go after me, but don’t denigrate the Guard,” to which I said, “there he goes again” – creating a straw man! No one’s denigrating the Guard!
But what I think has gotten lost in this debate is that the Guard is a completely different institution today that it was in the Vietnam era, and The Master of Morphing is trying to morph the National Guard of today with the one he was in back then, the same way he morphed monogamy into integrity in the election and Bin Laden into Hussein in the War on Terror. The numbers speak for themselves: 0.3% then; today in Iraq, 22% of the force serving are Guard.
People get nervous if we speak of the military in anything less than hagiography, but I remember the last 60s, early 70s – even in 8th grade, we knew the National Guard was a place to hide, not fight.
As Colin Powell says in his autobiography: “I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well placed managed to wrangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units” –
I don’t think anyone’s wrangling spots in the Guard today. So isn’t Powell talking about the president in this quote? If George Bush, jumping over hundreds to get that slot in the Champagne Division, is not the “powerful and well placed” wrangling a spot, who is?
To try and talk about the Guard as the president is doing as if its the same one today as then is not to give the Guard of today their due – and by implying that the kind of service it was back then is the kind of more heroic service it is today – isn’t he the one who’s denigrating the Guard?
Its like implying a Model T is an Explorer SUV because both are called Fords.
