Is Chris Matthews Unable or Unwilling to understand a simple exchange between Bush and Russert?

I just saw Chris Matthews on Lester Holt, and Lester asked him whether the National Guard issue would continue. Chris said that it would because Bush didn't answer the question.

Lester mentioned Terry McAuliffe's statement about Bush being AWOL. Chris brought up the president's answer about people not bad-mouthing the National Guard, and said that Terry McAuliffe had not said anything bad about the National Guard. Well, Russert did not ask Bush to comment on Terry McAuliffe, he asked Bush to comment on the National Guard issue. I've seen many stories in the press about how the National Guard is not real service and that people enlisted in the National Guard as a way of avoiding going to Vietnam. Thus, I think Bush's statement was right on.

Then Lester asked Chris about Bush getting out of the Guard 8 months early in order to go to HBS. Chris responded that HBS started in September and the period in question was from May of the previous year to May of that year. Well, that may have been Chris's period in question, but Tim Russert specifically asked the president if he had gotten out of the Guard 8 months early in order to attend HBS, and the president said yes.

Here's the text of the Russert interview, and I think the president answered the questions fully.

I would be careful to not denigrate the Guard. It's fine to go after me, which I expect the other side will do. I wouldn't denigrate service to the Guard, though, and the reason I wouldn't, is because there are a lot of really fine people who served in the National Guard and who are serving in the National Guard today in Iraq.

Russert: The Boston Globe and the Associated Press have gone through some of their records and said there’s no evidence that you reported to duty in Alabama during the summer and fall of 1972.

President Bush: Yeah, they re they're just wrong. There may be no evidence, but I did report; otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged. In other words, you don't just say "I did something" without there being verification. Military doesn't work that way. I got an honorable discharge, and I did show up in Alabama.

Russert: You did were allowed to leave eight months before your term expired. Was there a reason?

President Bush: Right. Well, I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military.

Russert: When allegations were made about John McCain or Wesley Clark on their military records, they opened up their entire files. Would you agree to do that?

President Bush: Yeah. Listen, these files I mean, people have been looking for these files for a long period of time, trust me, and starting in the 1994 campaign for governor. And I can assure you in the year 2000 people were looking for those files as well. Probably you were. And absolutely. I mean, I

Russert: But would you allow pay stubs, tax records, anything to show that you were serving during that period?

President Bush: Yeah. If we still have them, but I you know, the records are kept in Colorado, as I understand, and they scoured the records.

And I'm just telling you, I did my duty, and it's politics, you know, to kind of ascribe all kinds of motives to me. But I have been through it before. I'm used to it. What I don't like is when people say serving in the Guard is is may not be a true service.

What the dems don't understand is that there are many of us alive today who still have huge, gaping wounds that have been carefully papered over for years. This is ripping that off and exposing those wounds. Perhaps this will cause them to heal, who knows, but I really don't think the dems realize just how dangerous this is to them.

FAST FORWARD to IRAQ!!

Many of us have watched in HORROR as the DEMS try to do the same thing to our brothers and sisters today!

We sat in utter shock, as we listened to Charlie Rangel say our troops were killing little children, or that we murdered Saddams kids (not exact quotes.. but darn close!!). We sat in shock as we listened to DEMS not PRAISING OUR TROOPS, but crying out against our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, BEFORE ANYTHING EXISTED to say our intelligence wasn't as up to date as we had expected.

We HEAR CONSTANTLY from the DEMS that we are in an ILLEGITIMATE war! So, I guess all those brave men and women died in VAIN?

KERRY, KENNEDY, McCAULIFE & COMPANY didn't allow for the normal one week breather between primaries. Because they want a front runner. The other candidates feel this is rushing the process through. You BET it is!!

Kerry is Kennedy's candidate. He is McCaulife's candidate. And I hope it sticks. Because Kerry is a liar and his record will come out. He has a horrible record as a vet, a horrible record as far as what he did on our nations intelligence. He voted against the Gulf War, and if he were to win, we'll lose everything we've gained in this war against terrorism. In otherwords, all the lives given to win, will have been in vain.

God protect us all, if this coward wins.

Maybe the conservative voters will unit better than those we elected but there has to be a pay day someday. One that doesnt come at the expense of most of the country.
I believe the Republicans would rather sacrifice one of their own rather than go face to face with the Democrats. I am almost of the opinion the elected Republicans are cowards.
The legislature here in South Carolina is controlled by Republicans and they are going to appoint a Democrat to the Public Service Commission and this very Democrat has worked as hard as possible against every Republican that ever ran and will do it against Sanford next time. I cant figure it and I had been contemplating joining the Republican Party or donating. But under no circumstances could I ever march in lockstep save for saving this government from being overthrown and that looks like where we are headed.I cant vote Democrat and dont trust the Republicans to take a stand when the going gets tough.

Amazon.com has some very interesting reviews of the out of print The New Soldier. The first questions why no copies are up for sale (not even for re-sale, which I might add is quite unusual on Amazon), implying that it's "because this book shows John Kerry's views of the American military when he isn't running for office" etc. The second through fourth go in this vein:

Reviewer: mercyst from Oakland, CA USA
I know this book was first published in 1971 and is completely out of print and yet all these negative reviews are dated from January/February 2004. It couldn't be because the Neocons have started flooding the internet about this book (which is a compilation of writings by Kerry and other Vietnam Vets) as a result of an article posted in the Atlanta Journal Constitution in late January by a grumpy "America - love it or leave it" style vet? Couldn't be because right wing outlets like the Weekly Standard (owned by Rupert Murdoch) and Newsmax.com have picked up the thread in an effort to stop Kerry's momentum or to distract from GWB's non-service in Vietnam or the fact that there aren't any WMD's in Iraq, could it? Nah, that's cynical. Probably just cuz y'all love to read so much.

I, of course, registered my vote on whether or not I found such reviews "helpful."

Please feel free to post it and the one posted below! Not all Vets will forget what he has said and done.

The next one is from a "Vietnam *ERA* Vet". He's a writer, and this article is extremely well written. Notice the last paragraph, which speaks to Kerry's ability to be President! His ability to LEAD! Repost that one too!!

FRegards, VH&W
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http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0204a/09veteran.html

Kerry no hero in eyes of Vietnam-era veteran

By CHRISTOPHER WARD

Growing up in the 1950s, I was frequently exposed to the late-night discussions of my father and his friends, all of whom had served in World War II.

One of these men, Ed Fitzpatrick, served in the U.S. Coast Guard and was a launch driver during D-Day, delivering squads of U.S. boys to the beaches in France.

Rob Helb served as an Army Air Corps gunner and lost an arm over the oil fields of Turkey. After crashing, he asked a crew member to retrieve his bloodied and severed arm so he could remove from its wrist the gold watch his father had given him.

My dad, at 17, joined the Navy and served in the Pacific. Enlisting in mid 1943, he arrived in the islands as the war was ending and served in the supply section for the duration, rather than as an aviation gunner's mate, for which he was trained.

I often sat at the bottom of the stairs to my attic room late at night, listening (which was against the rules) to their stories as they sat around the kitchen table, drank beer and laughed about a lot of things I was still too young to understand.

These men respected each other, and no matter the circumstances of their service, each was considered a brother veteran; each was a member of what is now sometimes called the "Greatest Generation."

In 1970, during the Vietnam War, I enlisted in the Navy to do my part, as I believed was my duty. I assumed I would someday sit late at night around a kitchen table, recalling my experiences with my veteran friends as had my father.

But Vietnam was not WWII, and the vets who served during the '60s and the '70s drew -- and still draw -- a distinction between those who saw combat in Vietnam and those who did service elsewhere. Ours was a band of brothers divided.

I spent four years in Europe as an enlisted man working in signals intelligence. Those who served with me, and thousands of others who never saw combat, almost always refer to themselves as "Vietnam-era veterans," rather than Vietnam vets.

We draw a distinction between those who actually saw combat and those who served in other roles, and unlike our fathers, who thought all vets equal, we believe the title "Vietnam veteran" belongs only to those who saw service in the war zone.

But all those who served during the Vietnam years hold clear that each of us did our job and had, for the most part, no control over what position we were given or where we were stationed. Each who did serve is special and a brother veteran.

For this reason I find it difficult to understand why Sen. John Kerry's campaign is attempting to belittle the service of President Bush during the Vietnam conflict.

We all know the differences. Bush was a pilot in the National Guard; Kerry was a combat veteran. The Boston Globe recently pointed out that Kerry, in less than two months of combat, received the Silver Star and three Purple Hearts, which made him a hero and allowed him to request early termination of his combat duty.

But what happened next bothers me. According to the Globe, Kerry became involved in the anti-war movement upon his return, and asked for and received an early discharge from the Navy so he could continue those efforts.

How could Kerry so easily abandon his comrades in Vietnam, and then, 30 years on, call on those same men and women to back his presidential ambition?

Kerry now holds himself up as a war hero and asks for my vote. Yet, 30 years ago he stood with Jane Fonda and gave aid and comfort to an enemy still killing our brother veterans by the hundreds.

Bush's honorable service in the National Guard bothers me less than Kerry's abandonment of his brothers, his switching sides and his active contribution to an enemy's efforts to kill Americans.

Time often softens the dark edges of military service, leaving grown men the ability to sit around a kitchen table late at night to laugh about the exploits that left them less than whole. But the dramatic difference between Hero Kerry and Hanoi Kerry leave me to wonder who he might next abandon, and at what cost to America.

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