Is Cheney the Next Target? The Vietnam War war could turn to the vice president.

National Review Online ^ | February 24, 2004 | Byron York

[Consort]

Edwards is toast and Kerry is ninth of the Ten Little Indians. The tenth indian killed all the rest. Who is it?

[af_vet_rr]

Cheney, who was born in 1941, received a series of draft deferments as a student, a husband, and a father during the Vietnam era.

I have to ask "so what?". Anybody and everybody who could get deferments got them.

I can see anger from those who were students, husbands, and fathers who tried and didn't get deferments, but Cheney was not the only one who got deferments. I think it's probably unique that he got several, however this was the early on, and Vietnam wasn't in full swing. Had he been born around 1948, and been called up in '66 or thereabouts, I have no doubt that he would have served. He's that type of guy.

He didn't do anything wrong by getting a deferment - that's why they existed. He sure as hell wouldn't have burned his draft card and ran off to Canada.

[af_vet_rr]

I think a wife and kid is considered high priority and I respect Cheney more for his honesty.

I think most people ignore this, deliberately. As far as I can recall, going back to his Wyoming days, he has always been blunt and honest about this, unlike many other politicans. I believe he would have served if he was needed.

[The G Man]

When you're wrong, you're wrong ... a concept I am all too frequently familiar with (or so my wife would say)

[RANGERAIRBORNE]

The ORIGINAL version of this story was pretty much as I related it. Later, it became important to Cleland and the Democrats to obfuscate the facts- they are aided by the natural sympathy tht we all have for someone who was injured so severely-as well as the complicity of the Democrat-controlled media. there have been at least half-a -dozen new and improved versions of this grenade story since Cleland was elected to the Senate.
Tracking them all down and disproving them is likely to be very difficult now- the Democrats are almost as good at rewriting history as Winston Smith was in 1984.
As for me, I regard the latest version as a fairy tale, pure and simple, designed to help Kerry with his milking of the Vietnam War for political gain.