Cohen: From Guardsman… (Cohen played hookey from Guard, too)

[kskiska]

During the Vietnam War, I was what filmmaker Michael Moore would call a "deserter." Along with President Bush and countless other young men, I joined the National Guard, did my six months of active duty (basic training, etc.) and then returned to my home unit, where I eventually dropped from sight. In the end, just like President Bush, I got an honorable discharge. But unlike President Bush, I have just told the truth about my service. He hasn't.

(snip)

It hardly matters what Bush did or did not do back in 1972. He is not the man now he was then -- that by his own admission. In the same way, it did not matter that Clinton ducked the draft, because, really, just about everyone I knew at the time was doing something similar. All that really matters is how one accounts for what one did. Do you tell the truth (which Clinton did not)? Or do you do what I think Bush has been doing, which is making his National Guard service into something it was not? In his case, it was a rich kid's way around the draft.

In my case, it was something similar -- although (darn!) I was not rich. I was, though, lucky enough to get into a National Guard unit in the nick of time, about a day before I was drafted. I did my basic and advanced training (combat engineer) and returned to my unit. I was supposed to attend weekly drills and summer camp, but I found them inconvenient. I "moved" to California and then "moved" back to New York, establishing a confusing paper trail that led, really, nowhere. For two years or so, I played a perfectly legal form of hooky. To show you what a mess the Guard was at the time, I even got paid for all the meetings I missed.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27178-2004Feb9.html

[grannylib]

1. Whoohooo! Shoots all their current ammunition all into a puff of dust...

[quarbis]

2. AWOL/Desertion

Cohen's argument is self-serving. The fact is that he was a deserter.
A--holes like him justify things because they got away with it. It's still a morally indefensible postion. I didn't have any connections so off the Vietnam I went.

[madrchsod]

3. as far as i know

this asshole didn`t send a whole hell of alot of people to their deaths on a lie . how many people have ever read the letter clinton sent to the draft board?

[Old and In the Way]

4. BFD, as far as I know his service history is incinsequential to this

discussion. Did Cohen lie about WMD and send troops to die for oil?
The point he misses is that perhaps the voters would not have elected Bush if his trial of questionable character markers had not been covered up. The man's character is the issue, as we've painfully learned these past 3 years.

[indepat]

5. Maybe GWB needs to get Peggy Noonan to create a wonderful

character for him in the manner she did for the Gipper.