Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaah hahahahahah when draft dodgers aren't draft dodgers!!

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. The whole "fact check" turns on Schuback's definition

A draft dodger is someone who got drafted and has then fled, or it also might be a person who made a statement by not registering (for the draft).

But that's a completely subjective definition. There is no legal category named "draft dodger." It is a cultural designation only. Now, if Schuback - a lawyer(!) - wants to argue that none of the named GOPers are technically guilty of draft evasion under the law, that's one thing. But claiming that they are not technically draft dodgers is nonsensical, since there is no such technical category. Draft dodger, rather, is a cultural category used to designate people who avoided the draft, by hook or by crook, as it were. To be sure, it usually doesn't get applied to people who received legal deferments - especially among those who tended to receive legal deferments! The Schuback's of the world want to consider others to be draft dodgers, not themselves. But there's no good reason it couldn't be so applied, and there's plenty of evidence that people who were unable to receive legal deferments (for all kinds of reasons) at least looked with sidelong glances at those who did. (Needless to say, the specter of race and class privilege loom fairly large here, which is why Schuback's try to retreat into a non-existent technical category).

The article is also deceptive to some degree. It notes that the draft lottery for Vietnam began in December 1969. Well, yes, but there was a general draft in place in the United States between 1948 and 1973. Millions were drafted into service in the Vietnam era, or coaxed into volunteering through the draft (i.e. volunteering for a specific posting rather than being thrown into general infantry).