AWOL

Friend Tom in Minnesota sends this message.

This is an editorial from the Strib. It makes some good, balanced, points:

Editorial: Pilot Bush/Be careful with accusations

Published February 11, 2004 ED0211

As President Bush was preparing to leave Yale University in 1968, he contemplated his future. "I'm saying to myself, 'What do I want to do?' " he said in a 1989 interview. "I think I don't want to be an infantry guy as a private in Vietnam. What I do decide to want to do is learn to fly." And he did, with the Texas Air National Guard. In this superheated political season, everyone should exercise care in evaluating whether Bush performed the National Guard duties he said he did.

A whole lot of issues are getting whirled together in this discussion. First, there's the issue of Bush not wanting to be an infantryman in Vietnam. Millions of young men felt likewise, and many of them used connections, loopholes, exemptions and whatever else was legal to avoid service. President Bill Clinton was one of them. One major difference between the two is that Clinton was a vocal opponent of the war; Bush supported it. But, then, so did a whole passel of others who also sought to avoid war service; in Washington, they're called the "chickenhawks," and they are many.

Then there's the issue of military records. Accurately translating them into something everyone can understand is an art form. Right now what we have is a feeding frenzy by folks who couldn't tell you the difference between a DD214 and an Article 15. Bush is partly responsible for this confusion because for a decade -- since he entered public life -- he has played games with the issue.

Even after promising Sunday on "Meet the Press" to release all documents on his service, Bush continues to play games. The pay records and retirement point documents released Tuesday hardly qualify as "all documents." They tell very little and won't cause this issue to go away. Nor can the White House offer even one National Guard colleague who recalls serving with Bush in Alabama during the time he was supposedly on duty there. As for the "honorable discharge" argument, it has been pretty well debunked by others who skipped attendance at guard drills but still were paid and honorably discharged. This is going to take effort to sort out and must have the full cooperation of the president. He needs to be far more forthcoming than he has been.

Also on "Meet the Press," Bush warned against denigrating service in the National Guard. No one's doing that. But everyone also should know that the muscular National Guard of today -- part of the military's "total force structure" -- isn't the National Guard of 1972. Then it was truly soft duty, an easy way, used by many, to avoid service in Vietnam.

But 1972 also was different in other ways: Vietnam was beginning to wind down, and the military was actively seeking to slim its ranks -- a process called "reduction in force." Officers not slated for promotion were turned out of the forces by the bushel; enlisted men were seeing their service shortened by a year and more.

Even service in Vietnam was being shortened from a year to 10 or 11 months. There was a lot of movement in the military, and a lot of confusion. No one was probably going to be too much up in arms about lax attendance by a National Guard pilot who had flown a plane that was being retired from service.

Bush may well have played fast and loose with the rules -- probably never realizing that someday he would want to run for governor of Texas or president of the United States. He may not have been a very good airman, but he was neither a deserter nor absent without leave. Still, he needs to open all his records to set the record straight.

There's an urban legend making the rounds that Clinton was a draft dodger who was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter. Neither is true, but the charges dog Clinton still. Let's not repeat the mistake with Bush. And most of all, let's definitely not let this sideshow detract from serious discussion of the missing WMD, prewar intelligence, the economy, the Plame affair and the many other issues that go to the question of who should be president of the nation for the next four years.

My only comments are these:

1) Yes, Diddle-head definitely needs to be "more forthcoming" and open all his records.
2) The thing is, I don't think all his records are still in existence.
3) The reason those records don't exist may be simply because they show his lack of attendance, but I'm going to suggest that they show something much more incriminating - serious recreational drug use. Why haven't they come up with a logical reason that aWol didn't take that physical? And what was that "community service" stint he did at that time? The goodness of his heart? Sure.

I don't think what any of these men were doing in their youth necessarily discredits them. What's important is their character and their abilities. That will tell you how they handle their affairs, and the affairs of the nation. Everybody has moments they're not terribly proud of. Everybody is learning here. But there's a general underlying character to people that makes them trustworthy, regardless of an incident or two of bad judgment. Bush has neither an upstanding character or intellectual abilities. He's a cheerleader - his talent is whipping a crowd into a frenzied moment.

I don't care for Clinton - he certainly is not my idea of a man of sterling character (and that's not because of his sexual pecadillos, but there is the point of him not having the sense to stifle them while holding public office in a sexually repressed and dysfunctional nation) - but I appreciate the fact that he can think, analyze and articulate. And, I appreciate the fact that he stood for what he believed in during the Viet Nam war - he didn't simply find a way to avoid service that would still look as though he served.

The editorial is correct in stating that this is a sideshow, and there are serious issues that give us reason to rid ourselves of the Menace of Pennsylvania Avenue. However, those issues are not the ones that America's boob-tubed populace will respond to. It's this sideshow.

So....bring it on.