Posted on 02/12/2004 10:46:51 PM PST by ambrose
Pointless debate on Bush service
The release of what records remain of President Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard ought to put to rest criticism, if only on the grounds that the critics don't have any evidence.
The president has been accused of shirking his Guard duties while he was politicking for a family friend in Alabama. The president said he didn't, and the evidence that is available after the passage of 30 years is negligible -- some pay stubs, and Bush's honorable discharge.
That doesn't prove he wasn't absent without leave at some time -- but is the campaign going to be consumed by a question about which little can reasonably be known?
We hope not.
The contrast between the president's limited but apparently honorable service in the Guard and the heroism of John Kerry, now the leading Democratic candidate for president, does not constitute a beginning of a useful debate this year.
The story goes: Bush was supposed to report for duty at the 187th Tactical Recon Group in Montgomery, Ala. The unit's commander at the time was quoted by several news organizations as saying he had no recollection of Bush showing up. "I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered," The Boston Globe quoted retired Gen. William Turnipseed as saying.
The Globe quoted Bush as saying through his spokesman Dan Bartlett that he recalled reporting for nonflying duty in Alabama, performing "odds and ends" under supervisors whose names he could not recall.
Bush himself later was quoted directly by The Dallas Morning News as admitting he missed some weekend drills while in Alabama, but saying he made them up afterward: "I was there on a temporary assignment and fulfilled my weekends at one period of time," he said. "I made up some missed weekends."
This does not constitute "desertion," a word thrown around by liberal critics.
Many people joined the National Guard to avoid the draft during the Vietnam era. That said, Bush's service included flying -- one of the more dangerous duties of guardsmen. There is no damning evidence that the prominence of Bush's father helped him get a placement in the Guard, and after all this time there is little likelihood that evidence will surface.
We believe this is much ado about nothing.
The policies that Bush has embraced as president, and the policies that Kerry has embraced as a senator from Massachusetts, should be what voters focus on in this election.
Bump!
Three are dead, two toes, one ear and one eyelid are the only body parts we know the whereabouts of the fourth.
Okay... I'm kidding. It was only one toe.
Heh heh heh...
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