Son of Privilege
Judging from my email, there are many, many people (especially Texans) out there who endorse the Certsian Philosophy of the documents controversy: the memos are forgeries AND George Bush got preferential treatment in getting into the Air National Guard. Reader Mark Stephens writes:
I read your blog regarding the TXANG memos. I agree with you. I believe the memos are fakes, but I'm also certain GWB got special treatment.
I have lived in Texas all my life. I became eligible for the draft in 1968. No way, no how could I have gotten into *any* National Guard unit back then. We all knew the Guard was for special guys, and everyone could else was hosed.
I also remember there was no way ordinary guys could sign up in Reserve Units (Naval, or otherwise). Has anyone asked Kerry how he managed to get into a Naval Reserve unit???? Who pulled strings for him? I haven't read anything about that.
Actually, I don't care about any of this one way or the other. I'm voting for Bush because I think he believes *something*, which is more than I can say about Kerry.
On Lone Star Reality, Scott Harris, a self-described "die-hard Republican," posts a hypothetical script for how Bush might have gotten into the Guard. It doesn't even contradict the White House's statements.
Reader James Ingram writes:
The dirty little secret here that no-one is discussing is that in 1968 nobody got in the National Guard without "special treatment." The connections necessary were not necessarily the high-powered kind that GWB could bring to bear. The Guard was an organization with a small town feel, kind of like the volunteer fire company, in many communities. Often the connection needed was, say, a father in the Guard, an uncle who ran a corner drug store and also served as first sergeant of the local Guard company or a teacher who was friends with someone in the Guard. But nobody who was of draft age during this period believes you could go down to your local recruiting office and join the Guard. Its a LOL idea.
Of course, Bush's Guard duty wasn't risk-free, as Lawrence Rhodes notes:
Peripheral to your recent blog entry, I haven't read any discussion of this point: while joining the National Guard might have kept Bush out of Vietnam (not a foregone conclusion at the time), training as a fighter pilot is one of the riskier things you can do. If you recall the first couple of chapters from "The Right Stuff," washing out often means a closed casket funeral. This risk is not significantly smaller than serving in Vietnam, though it does sound like a lot more fun. So you can't really infer a relative lack of physical courage on Bush's part, unless, I suppose, you contend he wasn't smart enough to realize the risk...
True enough on the risks, but the fun matters a lot too. There wasn't much fun in Vietnam, even if you had relatively safe Al Gore-style duty. And young GWB had a classic fighter pilot personality.
I think the reason this story can't get any traction as a scandal is that nobody thinks George Bush came from obscure poverty. And everyone old enough to care about the Vietnam-era draft knows that most young men were eager to find alternatives not only to Vietnam but, if possible, to the disruption of their life plans by conscription. The draft is a really bad idea, incompatible with both a free society and an effective, professional military.