Posted on 02/03/2004 9:16:01 PM PST by Utah Girl
The contrast could not be more striking.
In March 1969, John Kerry, a 25-year-old Navy lieutenant, reached down from the boat he was piloting in Vietnam's treacherous Bay Hap River and in a spray of enemy fire pulled a soldier out of the water to safety. For his valor, Mr. Kerry won the Bronze Star with a combat "V" and his third Purple Heart.
That very same month, George W. Bush was on far-safer ground in Valdosta, Ga., learning to fly fighter planes for the Texas National Guard, a coveted post that greatly reduced any risk that he would be sent to Vietnam — and one that he might not have obtained had his father not been a member of Congress.
Mr. Bush went on to miss a number of National Guard training sessions, although his spokesmen say he made up the dates and his records show he was honorably discharged.
Now, three decades later, the contrast between the military service of Mr. Kerry and Mr. Bush has exploded into a campaign issue.
Democrats, who this week accused Mr. Bush of being "AWOL" from the National Guard, are using it as a weapon to undermine Mr. Bush's greatest electoral strength, his record on national security after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Republicans roared back on Tuesday, accusing Mr. Kerry of "smear tactics" for saying the president should answer questions about his service record. Taking the rare step of angrily rebutting the charges directly from the White House, the Republicans are trying to turn the issue back on Mr. Kerry and question the character of a man who they say is running a vicious campaign. But they are concerned enough about the political impact of the charges to consider sending Mr. Bush out to begin his official campaigning early, rather than waiting until spring as previously planned.
"Obviously we're in a period where the Democrats have been center stage politically and they've said a lot of tough things about the president," said one Bush campaign official, who was reacting in part to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released on Tuesday showing Mr. Kerry leading Mr. Bush by 53 percent to 46 percent among likely voters. "But it won't be too long now before there are two candidates in the race."
Although Democrats are not unified in the view that the strategy will work, Mr. Kerry's campaign advisers say the dispute, and the intense Republican response, keeps Mr. Kerry's military record as a central focus of the campaign and allows him to show he can engage in the same kind of brutal political warfare as the Bush White House.
In that sense, Democrats called the attack on Mr. Bush a loud warning shot aimed directly at Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's chief political adviser. Terry McAuliffe, the chairman of Democratic National Committee, led the way on Sunday when he called Mr. Bush AWOL, a charge that Mr. Kerry has not made himself, but also not disavowed.
"The Republican attack machine that's gone nuts today is going to discover that John Kerry is pretty tough," said Bob Shrum, Mr. Kerry's senior adviser, in an interview on Tuesday. "He's going to fight back on national security and the issues that he himself brings to the table."
Republicans countered that the Democrats and Mr. Kerry had gone overboard, that the strategy would backfire and that the charges were old. Questions about Mr. Bush's National Guard service first surfaced during the 2000 campaign when he ran against Al Gore, who served in Vietnam. The issue was revived last month when the filmmaker Michael Moore called Mr. Bush a deserter at a rally for Gen. Wesley K. Clark.
"I think it's a little over the top," said former Senator Bob Dole, who was seriously wounded in World War II but did not make his military record an issue in his 1996 campaign against the incumbent Bill Clinton, who avoided serving in Vietnam. "You have to walk that fine line that you're not exploiting it."
Other Republicans said that voters would not judge the candidates on their military service but on how they best presented themselves as a potential commander in chief charged with protecting the security of the United States. In that regard, Republicans said, Mr. Bush had the overwhelming advantage.
"You've got Bush who's already commander in chief, and has deployed military forces in a successful way, and has proven what he's willing to do," said Bill Dal Col, a Republican political consultant. "And you've got somebody who was in the military 30 years ago, different time, different era. What he did in Vietnam does not play out to what he has to do on the world stage now."
Some Democrats agreed. "This election is not going to be about the military, or the lack of military record of the president, but his performance in handling Iraq and leading the country in a time of uncertainty," said Peter Hart, a Democratic pollster, who is not working for a presidential candidate.
But Mr. Kerry is showing no signs so far of backing off. In recent days, he has been assisted by former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, a triple-amputee from his service in Vietnam who has been virtually sainted in Democratic eyes after being defeated in 2002 when Republicans questioned his patriotism.
"We need a real deal, like John Kerry, not a raw deal, like what's in the White House now," Mr. Cleland said on Friday in Columbia, S.C., with Mr. Kerry at his side. "We need somebody who felt the sting of battle, not someone who didn't even complete his tour stateside in the Guard."
The White House went into a furious counterattack on Tuesday. "It is outrageous and baseless," Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's press secretary, told reporters, breaking the White House practice that all political questions be answered by officials at Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters in Arlington, Va.
Ralph Reed, the Bush campaign's Southeast regional chairman, went even further. "It's gutter politics," Mr. Reed said in an interview. "We're absolutely convinced that the American people will reject these smear tactics."
Late Tuesday night, Mr. Kerry fired back. On Fox News, he subtly slashed at Mr. Bush by implying that joining the National Guard was just another way of dodging the draft.
"I've never made any judgments about any choice somebody made about avoiding the draft, about going to Canada, going to jail, being a conscientious objector, going into the National Guard," Mr. Kerry said. "Those are choices people make."
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