Posted on 09/03/2004 7:15:01 AM PDT by Bob Hyneman
Cheney’s “five deferments.”
[b][color=orange]In the summer of 1967 D ick Cheney was a married 26 year old man with a daughter.[/color] [/b] Twenty-six year old men cannot be drafted but (gasp) he was married and had a daughter BEFORE he turned 26 and that means he had two deferments!!!
[b](Everyone who had a daughter in 1966 was draft dodger right?).[/b]
Anyway, a half-truth is as good as a truth to John Kerry, so all you need to know is the two deferments part right?
Except, that many many years before the draft, D ick Cheney had also - attended Community College - and then University. Since any slick lawyer-type can tell you transferring schools can legally be counted as two deferments, that brings the total to four. (Never mind that he acquired both of these [b][u]years[/u][/b] before Vietnam was a war, or had draft, or could even be found on the amp by most Americans).
So what is number 5? Well in 1965 the US sent its first contingent of 3,500 Marines to Vietnam. (The draft would begin in earnest in 1966-67), Only a few years earlier in 1964-65, that damn D ick Cheney began applying for graduate schools and grad school acceptance counts as another. (This time Mr. Kerry DID successfully count to five).
So, if you believe John Kerry’s version of events, D ick Cheney began dodging the Vietnam draft five (or six) years before troops were being drafted and sent there. (Look this is politics and ad hominem attacks are allowed but if that is the best you got then you ain't got ad hominems)
[b]The fact is that D ick Cheney: - was accepted to community college - was accepted to the U of Wyoming - was accepted to graduate school - was married - was an expectant father all MORE THAN A YEAR before the draft began.[/b]
I note here that Cheney was married and an expectant father both during grad school and after Kerry COULD count that as SEVEN deferments, (but that would imply the ability to count to seven).
I suppose a 26 year-old daddy with a graduate degree and a newborn daughter COULD have volunteered to go to Vietnam, but I don’t think it is altogether honest to portray him as a draft dodger, do you?
You're right, I was wrong. Some men born in 53 were drafted.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1198342/posts
My comment on this is that this is an argument we can win but it won't get us a mandate.
Focusing on what Bush said about a second term, the forward-looking liberty century is what will get Bush a Reagan style mandate.
If Kerry wants to spend five minutes of every speech until Nov 2 saying Cheney got five deferrments and Bush only served in the Texas ANG, let him waste his breath.
The Swifties are going to send a torpedo about Paris before November I believe anyway.
A gay American, or a pompous Twit...that.s who wears spandex.
Not only were they legal, but in another venue, serving in the Air National Guard was an honorable way to fulfill the military requirement.
You've got it. See my post #38. Larry Elder is the man with the story.
Kerry is desperate to scare the Republican away from the National Defense issue.
Kerry vs. Cheney is a dream matchup for the GOP. Attacking the #2 doesn't help Kerry look presedential and every moment spent on Vietnam is moment lost to the Kerry campaign. Plus it invites more attention from SBV4T.
If this is all Kerry can do, then BC04 just needs to run out the clock.
Edwards turned 18 in 1971 and the draft was starting to wind down then.
LOL! DemonRat = Immoral
Does anyone know if VP Cheney's birthdate was EVER selected in the lottery WHILE he was even eligible for the draft?
This is the kind of stuff that makes the dems look SO BAD when it's brought to the notice of people. They realize that someone's playing word games with them...and word games are lies in sheep's clothing.
Then they stop listening to anything the opposition said because they see a pattern of lie after lie after lie.
At that time, the Draft Boards did not take men who were married, and had a child. I was married, and my first child was due to be born in about two months. According to the form that came with my Draft Notice, if I supplied a copy of my marriage license and a letter from my wife's obstetrician, I would not be taken in the draft.
So, I filled out the form, including telling my Draft Board my new address in California. They did not take me. I had not known until this very moment that, according to John Kerry, I am a draft dodger.
I had one other chance to go to Vietnam. I was fluent in French, and had taken a minor in Southeast Asian politics. The US Information Agency offered me a civilian position in Saigon. It seemed a little less desirable to be in Vietnam without a weapon, than to bed there fully armed. So I declined that job offer. I suppose in Kerry-ese, that makes be a draft-dodger squared?
John Kerry was a putz when I met him in 1963. He is still a putz, today. I am gratified that his campaign is going straight down the porcelain facility.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, "I'm Mad as Zell, and I'm Not Going to Take It Anymore."
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Many stay home. In a war with 500,000 peak combatants, most American males were not drafted whether they had a deferment or not.
I am not going to the ghetto, so I can't support the war on Poverty?
I am not going to Afghanistan, so I cannot support the war on terror.
You're our resident peacenik, aren't you? Did you oppose the war on the Taliban?
Excellent point!!
Can you imagine what folks at Hannity's board would be saying about Dick Cheney's deferments if he had been antiwar Democrat? They certainly didn't give Clinton, who at least openly *opposed* the war, a pass.
This is covered in Unfit for Command and extensively on FR.
Hannity should do better. There was a draft from the end of WWII straight through the end of the draft lottery stage. That Dick Chenney got automatic student deferments ala John Kerry means nothing. And yes since Kerry completed college before going to the military he too had a draft deferment.
Take? What law prevented Dick Cheney from *volunteering* for service?
By that year, however, there was a great deal of pressure to make the war more egalitarian (the left was protesting, among other issues, that the burden of soldiering was being unfairly borne by those not fortunate enough to be attending college; college students were deferred.) Many deferments were no longer to be given, and the fairest system imaginable--a lottery-- was instituted, with one's date of birth being the random number. Link . I lost my defense deferment, got a low lottery number (i.e., Number one was first to go--I had #37--the top 100 was surefire induction), and promptly enlusted in the Air Force for a 4 year stint. So, technically, I had two deferments. Maybe John Kerry or Terry McAuliffe will call me a coward.
Ah so. John Edwards could have volunteered to go to Vietnam but chose not to.
By the DNC and Kerry's reckoning, anyone who did not volunteer for Vietnam is a coward.
How old was Cheney when he had his first heart attack? I really don't think he was ever combat material.
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