How will it fare? Probably no big deal in the grand scheme of the election. Why? I might be completely off-base (oh heck, just assume that I am completely off-base) but I would say because:
At this point, the Kerry military service issue has gained a whole lot more traction in the minds of the public, even though the Bush military service issue has been around a lot longer. This means something, although I don’t know what.
Ben Barnes can pretty easily be painted as a Democratic fundraiser with an axe to grind. See link. I know, the RNC isn’t exactly a paragon of unbiased citing, but they pull their cites from reputable sources and have clearly done their homework on how to best show Barnes for their advantage. Damage the accuser, the accusation loses steam.
People just don’t care about this. I reckon the same people that don’t care one whit about Kerry in Vietnam, don’t care one whit about Bush in the National Guard. My assumption would be that these people are mostly undecided/moderates who are looking for present day reasons to pick a candidate. The only people who will really get up in arms will be Kerry people screaming “See, Bush is evil/silly/lazy/cheating/certifiable/covered in Chilean goat droppings” and Bush people screaming "Shut your piehole. Your biases color your perceptions of this issue, plus who cares what happened 30 years ago. Oddly enough, these two groups make the exact opposite arguments about Kerry and Vietnam.
What the heck? For those just joining us, my double posts at the top of this thread (which I only submitted once but that’s a whole different story) was actually posted at 1PM Easter time. The OP of this thread is Hampshire’s
How in the world did I manage to pull this maneuver off?
You folks had better be careful. There’s lots of grumbling in the ranks.
Most of my family are, basically, working-class and union Democrats. What I’m getting from them is sheer disgust that Vietnam is even an issue, thirty-five years on.
My dad was an Army reservist for six years in the Vietnam era. He’s not really happy about reservists and Guardsmen being portrayed as dishonorably dodging the draft. Likewise, deferments honestly obtatined under the law at the time, was made available to lots of young men. These men are now older, generally established voters, and wouldn’t like to have their patriotism questioned.
The Democratic Party is playing with fire here, and I’m predicting that they’ll get burned badly by it.
Cite? (I did just hear on the radio that the Bush campaign is threatening to skip one of the scheduled debates – October 8 at Washington University, St. Louis, MO – because they object to the proposed format – a “town meeting” format in which undecided voters will get to ask questions of the candidates. They say they’re afraid Kerry supporters will sneak in pretending to be undecideds.)
Yeah, but I fear the people who do give a whit about Kerry in Vietnam (read: were influenced by the Swift Boaters’ filth), but don’t give a whit about Bush’s past. Cokie Roberts recently pointed out that if mileage was to be gotten from the blank spots in Bush’s National Guard record, it would have happened in 2000. At that time, the Dems either didn’t want to look too slimy going after him on it (can you imagine the bizarro universe where Republicans actually worried about that? ) or realized no one cared about it and let it go.
What Dubya did in the early 70’s resonates now because of the actions of his administration.
It’s not just that Dubya got his daddy to pull strings to get him into a champagne unit that had no chance to go to Viet Nam.
It’s that Our Fearless Leader posits himself as a “man of the people”, yet back in the day was quick to fall back on his daddy’s connections to get out of 'Nam–connections that even you have to admit were unavailable to the common man;
It’s that even when he got to his unit, he couldn’t be bothered to actually show up for a year;
It’s that his campaign is absolutely SMEARING the reputation of a contemporary of his who, when it came to the same decision as Dubya, instead decided to join the Active service, who ended up in 'Nam, who could have died there yet displayed character that Dubya can’t even hope to comprehend, much less equal;
And what is most offensive of all, after his shirking of his responsibilities in 1971, he is trying to come off as a “war president” who thinks himself fit to command the same Armed Forces that he weaseled out of, that he has sent 1000 of those servicemen to their deaths, and that he gets a macho rise out of telling the Iraqi insurgents to “bring it on” while he’s hidden away in D. C. behind bulletproof glass and an army of secret service agents. Mr Moto, I don’t begrudge you your conservative politics, and if you want to vote for Dubya on that basis, go for it. But you’re a military guy (as I understand it). Doesn’t our current president’s past behavior not reek of the exact same shiftiness that you hated in President Clinton? With the difference, of course, that Clinton never ordered such a large mobilization of our armed forces, a mobilization that even now lacks a clear justification? What exactly is the difference, to you, between Dubya and Clinton?
*–I’m not saying the Kerry campaign will connect the dots, either; but this is how I would do it if I were them.
And yet, the SBVFT are getting mileage out their 35-year old stories.
[QUOET]My dad was an Army reservist for six years in the Vietnam era. He’s not really happy about reservists and Guardsmen being portrayed as dishonorably dodging the draft. Likewise, deferments honestly obtatined under the law at the time, was made available to lots of young men. These men are now older, generally established voters, and wouldn’t like to have their patriotism questioned.
[/QUOTE]
And yet, the Republicans are getting mileage out of making fun of Purple Hearts.
Where is the outrage from others with Purple Hearts?
Why weren’t Republicans worried about making fun of Purple Hearts?
I’m not sure why the Republicans don’t get burned about the two issues above.
Maybe it shows that the Republicans are good at playing with fire and use it to their advantage, whereas the Democrats aren’t able to.
And this is a really good example of how GOP leaders pick and choose only that information which would support their current smear campaign. The link provided paints Barnes as a deep-pocketed Democratic partisan.
What kind of Democratic partisan would contribute $51,500 to Texas Republican candidates since 2000?http://www.ethics.state.tx.us/ (Texas Ethics Commission)
According to the Dallas Morning News, October 25, 1994, he also contributed money to **Jeb Bush’s ** campaign for the Governorship of Florida. He was a member of a fundraising committee for Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and in 1995 he contributed to the Tom Delay Congressional Committee. www.tray.com I would really like to know if Republicans participating in this forum honestly believe that no strings were pulled to get George W. Bush to the top of the waiting list for the Guard?
I certainly don’t condemn those who enrolled in the Guard or avoided the draft to keep from participating in a war they believed was wrong. And I don’t condemn those who chose to serve their country in military service if they believed that what they were doing was the right thing.
But I have no respect for anyone who claimed to support the war, but used the wealth and influence of his family to pull rank on even one other human being to get to the top of a list – much less 500 names! I wonder how many of those men were morally opposed to the war or to combat. I wonder what became of them.
I have little respect for Barnes for allowing himself to be swayed by the Bush family connections so long ago. But the GOP is sinking lower and lower in their tactics. I guess that’s what it takes to get their man re-elected after the catastrophy of his Presidency. What can you expect of a man whose best day was at Ground Zero?
Really, after the attacks the Democrats made on the character of John O’Neill because he’s given some money to the campaigns of local Texas Republicans, you’ve got have giant brass balls to try and push this guy as anything other than a full-fledged member of the Kerry Campaign. Why should anyone believe a word he has to say? You managed to dismiss the words of a number of high ranking U.S. military officers on far flimsier evidence.
Mr Moto
I’m surprised that you have that attitude considering you are a veteran. (I am assuming this from your other postings).
Yes, a lot of the folks now running our country did get legal deferments - but they knew the right people to get these. Don’t you think it is a stretch of the imagination that John Ashcroft could get a draft deferment because his job of teaching law at Missouri State was “vital” to the Vietnam War effort?
What happened 35 years ago does matter. No doubt some kid went to Vietnam and got killed while someone else (Cheney) was able to stay stateside and eventually able to become CEO of Halliburton and make obscene amounts of money.
I do believe in the “2 Americas” school of thought. There’s the priveleged class that has all the right connections to avoid the ‘heavy lifting’ and allows them to get the best jobs. And then there’s the other class. The working slobs of America that actually DO something; that actually pays taxes; that doesn’t shirk responsibility - instead of those whose “struggles” in life are finding the best stock options, arranging ‘golden parachutes’ for themselves, finding the best tax “dodges”, finding slots for their kids at the right schools and having the connections so those kids can get the best jobs at the right corporations.
This is a non-issue because no one with an IQ higher than 6 ever believed that Bush went into the ANG in any other way. So a big Democrat claims that 35 years ago he palled around with his cronies in a bi-partisan way and got a few of their kids into the National Guard. So what? Bush is not running a campaign that encourages rich kids to join the Army.
If there is no great upswelling of indignation against Bush for skipping his last few months of duty, there is not going to be any great condemnation for Bush having used some pull to get the berth to begin with.
So, how will this fare for the Bush campaign?
How can Bush deny he got the coveted National Guard spot because of his family ties?
I suspect he’ll play the “If I don’t acknowledge it, it’s not an issue” ploy.
If Barnes is willing to stick the knife in then I hope Kerry is willing to turn it a bit.
During a debate would be nice.
Were this the only issue, I would agree with you. However, it is not. The issue is that once in, Bush does not appear to have lived up to his responsiblities. Some have said in this thread that the Democrats appear to be running down service in the Guard and Reserves with their claims. Actually, it appears as if the Republicans are running down service in the Guard and Reserves using their tried and true tactic of saying that if one criticizes the President’s service, then you are criticizing the Guard and Reserve. Clever, but wrong on many levels.
Bush got into the Guard through Barnes. I don’t have a problem with Bush on this aspect, but rather with Barnes. However Bush failed to live up to his obligations and that is the real issue. Bush’s actions have brought dishonor to the Guard and Reserves and he should be brought to account for it.
Barnes, however, is not supplying photographic evidence that Bush was partying down at Barnes’s pool when he was supposed to be showing up for his flight physical. Barnes is stepping into the discussion, long after it has passed the point of wondering whether Bush was given preferential treatment to get in (which I accept as a given–and don’t care about) to make the bold claim that “I got him in.”
That Bush may have ducked his obligation may or may not be an issue for various people, but I do not see Barnes “contribution” as shedding any light on that actual point of discussion.
) or realized no one cared about it and let it go.