Tuesday morning started off with a bang for Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe - when he attacked President Bush for serving in the Texas Air National Guard, then found himself on the defensive over the draft record of his friend and political ally Bill Clinton.
The fireworks started when McAuliffe told WABC Radio's Curtis Sliwa and Ron Kuby that Bush's Iraq war victory announcement from the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln last week gave new legitimacy to questions about Bush's military service.
MCAULIFFE: He's got to stop doing photo ops. All he does is photo ops. You know what happened in April? There were 400,000 people who watched George Bush land live on that aircraft carrier. They wished they'd seen it on the evening news. But you know what? They lost their jobs in the month of April.
SLIWA: Wait a second. No, no. Let's go back to that issue. Are you suggesting that the president should not have been on that aircraft carrier, should not have been meeting the naval personnel that fought so valiantly and should not have been addressing the nation and the world from that aircraft carrier?
MCAULIFFE: I though it was a blatant photo op. He can meet the troops anytime he wants. But to get off that plane and run around in his jump suit - I, politically, thought it was not smart for him because it opens up all those issues again of how he never fought in a war ...
SLIWA: Where are the complaints coming from ...
MCAULIFFE: ... how he was in the National Guard in Alabama and was MIA for a year ...
SLIWA: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second, wait a second. He did National Guard service. Where was your guy, Bill Clinton - a draft dodger who went and protested against America in Moscow?
KUBY: John Kerry, I think, was a Navy combat veteran ...
SLIWA: We're talking about Bill Clinton. Terry McAuliffe and Bill Clinton are gombarahcheeches. How do you answer that?
KUBY: Clinton isn't running.
MCAULIFFE: First of all, George Bush ran against Al Gore, who did, gentlemen, serve in Vietnam, was over in Vietnam. You know, at some point you've got to move on from Bill Clinton. In 2004, we will not have Bill Clinton on the ballot. We won't have Al Gore. We'll have someone new on the ballot. George Bush will be on the ballot. He opened it up, walking around with his flight suit. He was MIA in Alabama. His father [unintelligible] out of trouble.
SLIWA: You are so vile. You are so vile.
KUBY: Boys, boys. We have to move on. Terry McAuliffe, thank you so much for being with us.
MCAULIFFE: Let's do this every day.
KUBY: We'd really like you to come back, and I hope you have a better day in New York for the rest of the day than you did here.
MCAULIFFE: People really got their coffee going now.
SLIWA: Okay. It's 7:33, with the hillbillies and thugs in Arkansas who hijacked the New York State Democratic Party. [End of Excerpt.]
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