TITLE: "What did Dubya do in the war, daddy?"
It's often said that people just won't go into politics any more because of
the intense media scrutiny one faces for even the smallest indiscretion in
one's past. In fact, the media are temperamental beasts; fierce one day,
gentle as lambs the next.
Certainly the media showed its soft side last week. As George W. Bush
piously observed Veterans Day, media pundits somehow restrained themselves
from pointing to the irony that the U.S. Commander-in-Chief, who's
sometimes referred to as a "former fighter pilot," has an embarrassing
military past. His records show that for months at a time during the
Vietnam War, Bush could be classified as, at best, "absent without leave"
(AWOL) or, at worst, as an army deserter.
This would be equivalent to the media withholding comment as former U.S.
President Bill Clinton publicly espoused the virtues of marital fidelity.
Indeed, one hardly needs to wait for Veterans' Day to note the irony in
Bush's military fervour. The man can scarcely contain his enthusiasm for
war �?? or at least for others going to war. As he inches closer each day
to sending tens of thousands of American soldiers into Iraq (to be followed
likely by hundreds of Canadian soldiers), any day would be appropriate for
the media to satisfy its allegedly insatiable appetite for dirt on the rich
and powerful by reporting the president's own military past.
The legwork has already been done by the Boston Globe, which dug up Bush's
military records and interviewed his former military commanders.
While the paper published its dramatic findings during the presidential
campaign of 2000, the rest of the media all but ignored the story and
continue to do so, even as Bush has turned himself into arguably the most
hawkish president in U.S. history.
It's not that the media are not hard on military laggards. While there were
only 49 media stories about Bush's military past during his presidential
campaign, there were a whopping 13,641 media reports on Clinton's
Vietnam-era draft dodging during his first presidential race, according to
former Clinton aide Paul Begala.
Begala made the observation on a media panel at a labour conference shortly
after Bush's election. Other panelists, including journalists from major TV
networks and Time magazine, agreed that Bush had had a much gentler ride,
but attributed it to the media's alleged exhaustion after all the
Clinton-era scandals.
Of course, it's possible Bush was so morally repelled by the U.S. slaughter
in Vietnam that he just couldn't bring himself to participate. But probably
not. Here's what we know.
Upon graduating from Yale, Bush applied for a position in the Texas
National Guard, a coveted spot that required only part-time military duties
at home, far from the battlefields of Vietnam. Bush was catapulted to the
front of 500 other applicants after a friend of his father, then a wealthy
Houston congressman, phoned the Speaker of the Texas House, according to
the Boston Globe.
After completing training as a pilot, George W. Bush requested and
immediately received a transfer to an Alabama National Guard unit in May,
1972. But Bush never showed up for duty there, according to the Alabama
unit's commander and the commander's assistant, who were interviewed by the
Boston Globe.
Military records show that Bush's two commanding officers back in Texas
reported George W. did not show up for duty there either for a year, and
that they believed he had been transferred to Alabama. Meanwhile, when Bush
failed to take his required annual medical exam in August, 1972, his pilot
status was removed.
It should be noted that reporting for military duty is not something that's
optional, particularly during a war. Those caught shirking National Guard
duties were usually punished by being drafted into the real army the one
that landed you in Vietnam, where some 350 American soldiers were killed
each week. But, despite more than a year absent from duty, nothing happened
to the well-connected George W. Bush.
Favouritism is a sore point among those who actually went to war, including
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. As Powell wrote in his autobiography:
"I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful and well-placed ...
managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units ... Of the many
tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most
damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal ..."
You've got to marvel at Powell's anger management skills.
Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and political commentator who
appears every Sunday.
www.thestar.com
