"What am I doing in front of this US flag? I look like a damn conservative nativist. My liberal buddies aren't gonna like this."
Posted on 04/15/2007 3:02:41 AM PDT by Liz
.... Rudy Giuliani carries a lot of baggage - but it's his draft-dodging past that may prove the biggest drag, prominent veterans tell New York magazine in tomorrow's issue. Speaking about terrorism and the Iraq war last week, Giuliani boasted, "It is something I understand better than anyone else running for president." But it was draft deferments that kept Giuliani, 62, out of Vietnam while he attended law school. He was granted a 2-A occupational deferment for his job as a law clerk in 1969 after his boss, the late Manhattan federal Judge Lloyd MacMahon, wrote a letter to the local draft board - a move criticized years later as rare and questionable. Law clerks were not on the 1968 list of critical jobs that qualified for occupational deferments. Giuliani "has made it clear that if he had been called up, he would have served," Giuliani spokeswoman Katie Levinson told New York magazine. He was opposed to the war in Vietnam on "strategic and tactical" grounds," she added, although she wouldn't offer specifics.
"If Giuliani is the nominee, we're going to hammer him with ads, and it's going to be easy because the issue is simple: He's a draft dodger," Jon Soltz, an Iraq vet who served as a captain and runs VoteVets.org, a left-leaning version of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth .......a sense that a candidate can handle the role of commander-in-chief remains important to most Americans.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Mandatory military service is a tax. Two years out of, say, a 45 year employment career, equals a 4.4% tax. Not substantial, but still a tax. Mandatory military service can hinder or derail one's career path. It causes a loss of momentum during the prime formative years of an individual's life.I agree that you need money to provide for your family and that you only have a finite amount of time to create that wealth for your family.
I'll make that decision when the time comes, and not until.
I understand your desire, but at some point it is going to be impossible to find a candidate who has served.
I disagree. There will be more eligible candidates than ever now.
And with regards to Rudy and his lack of military training, that's only one of many problems I have with our poll driven, media anointed "leader".
Of all the candidates, he is one of the worst.
He does not represent me and he does not represent the long standing positions of the Republican Party.
If Rudy supporters spent as much energy and money on a real conservative candidate as they did arguing for a social liberal, we'd stand a much better chance of not only winning, but advancing our conservative agenda.
Not sure they even knew it was a liberal mag. *snicker*
The Anti-Rudy Ranters have morphed into the DUmmies who attacked GWB’s service.Well you might not like the rest of my argument, but that's the point I was trying to make :)
“But Rudy gets a pass because he can beat the other Clinton? Does that really make sense?”
Let me first say that I don’t think his perverseness the ex-mayor is morally fit to be dog-catcher, much less president.
However, Beelzebubba committed a felony to escape the draft; one that should have seen him jailed for ten years. Rudy Soprano, it would appear, had a legal deferment. That is not draft dodging, even if one suspects privilege.
"What am I doing in front of this US flag? I look like a damn conservative nativist. My liberal buddies aren't gonna like this."
The only one here attacking GWB's service is ketsu, in what could easily be a quote pulled directly from DU:
? uuuuh... I'm sure Texas was under great danger from the North Vietnamese. --post #16, as one example.
This website fought that BS in 2004. Now the Rudyphiles are regurgitating it, in throes of desperation, to try to pull other candidates down to Rudy's level. I guess liberal views beget bad liberal behavior.
I think that should Giuliani become the nominee and if the following quote of actions to be taken by the leftist groups is bought into by the stay at home crowd then we may sure enough get an anti military person elected to the CinC position.
"If Giuliani is the nominee, we're going to hammer him with ads, and it's going to be easy because the issue is simple: He's a draft dodger," Jon Soltz, an Iraq vet who served as a captain and runs VoteVets.org, a left-leaning version of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth .......a sense that a candidate can handle the role of commander-in-chief remains important to most Americans.
Hey, the truth is right on the site if they care enough to look.
Rooty's the Taco Bell candidate. He thinks outside his buns.
Not me. And not any others as far as I can tell.
Except 'ketsu' at post # 33
"While what you say is true, if the president had been truly interested in serving his country why wouldn't he have enlisted in a true military unit?"
That quote from post 33 is particularly obscene. What the poster is doing on FR I can’t understand.
Rudy's jury-rigged deferment stinks mightily. Calling it technically "legal" doesn't remove the stench.
I prefer a stink-free commander-in-chief.
If there is another post here by a “Rudy hater” that denegrates the President’s service, please point it out to me, ‘veronica’.
“That quote from post 33 is particularly obscene.”
Agreed.
“People need to ignore this stuff, because what is really going on is an attempt to have us lose confidence in ALL candidates, not just Guiliani. “
Precisely. It worked like a charm with Bob Dole.
The demonrats know that anybody they nominate is going to be a vile moral leper. Their only chance to win is to suppress the non-leftist vote by convincing people that the Republican candidate is no better.
This, of course, is false. Martha Stewart is a convicted felon and a jailbird, but who would you rather have watching your kids: Martha or Charles Manson? Whatever dirt they may put out about Republicans, the truth about the demonrat candidate would make them look like Stewart and Manson.
If Clinton ends up in the White House, you can thank the Rudy groupies for the result.
I served from 1967-69. Combat Vets came back to be spat upon.I think we should bear in mind the circumstances going on during that era and make a distinction between those who did not serve and appreciated the ones who did and the other ilk that took every opportunity to belittle those of us who did. I have no ill will to the people who avoided the draft, only the ones that trashed us during and after(John Kerry)to gain political points. We only did what our country asked, we didn’t need some creep calling us baby killers.
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