Whatever folks may not like about W Bush, the whole underlying theme that Bush joined the Texas National Air Guard because he was a coward is incredibly weak.
The argument assumes a couple factual errors:
Error #1) Texas Air National Guard members were never deployed to Vietnam.
Error #2) the assignment W accepted was “safe” duty.
#1) Under the “Palace Guard” program, at the time Bush signed on to the TANG, pilots in TANG were on active duty deployment flying combat missions in Vietnam.
#2) Bush was trained to fly the F-102, which was the aircraft the Texas Air Nat Guard flew in Vietnam.
#3) The F-102 was a notoriously dangerous aircraft. Thirty percent of them crashed, burned on the runway or were otherwise destroyed. In the book “The Right Stuff” Tom Wolfe devotes a couple pages to the inordinate dangers faced by F-102 pilots, and the extreme difficulties in controlling their aircraft. While W was training in the F-102, it was determined that they were not effective in the Vietnam theatre and their use was discontinued. Shortly thereafter, the plane was retired because of its horrible safety record.
This issue likely had a little-known effect of forcing moderate Democrat Dick Gephart out of the race for President. While the CBS story ran in the 2004 election cycle, the issue of W’s Air National Guard service was raised early and loudly in the 2000 election. It was said that Bush joined TANG to avoid Vietnam and only served some 200-some-odd days and therefore reflected badly on his character. Dick Gephart of Missouri (”the milkman’s son”) dropped out of the campaign in the Spring. He had joined the Air National Guard at the same time as Bush, did no hazardous duty, and served fewer than half the days as George Bush. While this was only lightly reported, due to JournalismWorld’s slavish devotion to double standards, Gephart may well have realized that eventually what goes around comes around, his story would get out and the collateral damage of the attacks on Bush would perforce have wounded his candidacy mortally as well.
Let me just add to my above post that there was a charge that the Air National Guard was an assignment only those with “special connections” could get into. But then how is it that Dick Gephart, who used every opportunity to remind voters of his humble family origins, was able to get into the Air National Guard?
Gephart was such an inconvenient candidate.