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In article ,
says...
In article ,
"Kevin Singleton" wrote:

Laisser-faire attitude toward serving in the National Guard?

Better than running off to merry old England to avoid service, ain't it,
Andy?

Vietnam was the crucible which tested able-bodied male Boomers' metal.

Clinton's studying with Carroll Quigley, at Georgetown, may have
informed him of the criminal nature of our country's role there. While
his later proven lack of character can be attributed to his unfortunate
and dysfunctional upbringing, only God knows whether it was wisdom or
cowardice which got him to a correct response on Vietnam.

... so since Clinton is "your guy", his moral failings weren't his
fault, it was OK for him to play games with the reserves and write how
many like himself "loathed the military" (parse it as you will, I'm sure
your parsing of the phrase will be most favorable to Bill), and go to
England and participate in anti-US protests on foreign soil. For all
these things you are willing to provide Bill with an excuse and overlook
those failings.

Bush, on the other hand, violated an American taboo: with his
Congressman father's assistance he cut past the front of the line after
LBJ had ordered that no further Guard or Reserve units could be called
up for duty in S.E.Asia, and admittance had been closed.

Let's see, George Bush Sr. served as a congressman from 1966 to 1970,
LBJ was president only during 1966 to 1968, Richard Nixon was president
for the last term Bush Sr served as a congressman. Bush Jr didn't go
into the Guard until after he graduated in 1968, the final year of Bush
Sr's term, during which he was running for a Senate seat in Texas. LBJ
was no longer president, so your statement about not being called up for
duty in SE Asia seems irrelevant relative to who was in charge.

You seem to have negelected the son of another prominent
congresscritter whose daddy made sure he did not see combat, but was
able to serve as a correspondent rather than as a normal soldier. While
he did go to Vietnam, his tour was short and his duty was in as safe a
place as was possible.

Unlike many millions of others confronted by the same challenge, Bush
has no DD214 and his "Honorable Discharge" is not from the U.S. Armed
Forces.

Any veteran of the era might easily imagine this was critical in his
staying drunk for the next twenty years.

What, no excuses for him here or any other of the "passes" you were
willing to give Billy-boy above?

His moral and patriotic failure at that time, while "other" Americans in
uniform bled for a lie his father helped develop,

LBJ escalated the war and then instituted such convoluted, self-
defeating rules of engagement that we never stood a chance of emerging
from that conflict victorious; Bush Sr. was only a congressman the last
two years of LBJ's term. How did Bush Sr exactly help "develop" this
lie?

is only compounded by
his unmilitary lack of responsiveness to the events unfolding on the
morning of September 11, 2001...particularly since without WMD it stands
as the "reason" middle-aged Weekend Warriors, institutionally exempted
from combat while Bush got free flying lessons, are now being sent by
him to kill and die in Afghanistan and Iraq.

While no WMD's have been found in Iraq, there is no (zero, zip, zilch,
nada) dispute that the Taliban in Afghanistan was supporting, protecting
and shielding OBL and his training camps of terror from which OBL
deployed the terrorists who killed over 3000 Americans in acts that by
any rational definition constituted a declaration of war on this
country. How exactly was our response in Afghanistan "unmilitary"?
What would have been "unmilitary" would have been to have continued for
months on end to "negotiate" and beg for the Taliban to "please, please,
please turn over OBL and close down those camps". Support (tacit or
open) for terrorists such as was being practiced by the Taliban
constitutes a de facto inclusion of those peoples' actions as officially
sanctioned by the government of Afghanistan.

Frankly, GW's response to Afghanistan was rapid, swift (within two
months of the attack on us, a full-scale response was in progress) and
decisive. The Iraqi confrontation simply constitutes a completion of
the conflict that had drug on for over 10 years. The administration was
not the only institution that believed WMD's were present in Iraq, other
foreign intelligence services also believed this to be true. A rational
person would be asking the question "Where are those WMD's?" since it
was known at one time that they did exist (without any doubt) and no
credible chain of custody has been established documenting that those
weapons have been destroyed.