LAT: Kerry Allies Take Shots at Bush, Cheney on Vietnam

[DeepModem Mom]

THE RACE TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Kerry Allies Take Shots at Bush, Cheney on Vietnam
The decorated veteran, angered at the campaign to discredit his service, lets his surrogates do the disparaging of his rivals' records on this day.

By Matea Gold and Nick Anderson, Times Staff Writers


STEUBENVILLE, Ohio — After being targeted for weeks by criticisms of his service in Vietnam and his later protests of the war, Sen. John F. Kerry looked on Saturday as a series of his supporters lambasted President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for avoiding combat service during those years.

Rep. Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) made the strongest attack at an evening rally here on the banks of the Ohio River, saying that Kerry "was carrying a gun through the jungles of Vietnam while George Bush was neglecting his military service and carrying out his responsibility as a cheerleader at Yale University."

That prompted both laughter and boos from a crowd of several hundred.

After graduating from Yale, Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard and on temporary assignment in Alabama during the Vietnam War. He received an honorable discharge, leaving the Guard early to attend Harvard Business School. But records have never clearly detailed how he completed his service during his time in Alabama.

The sharp commentary by Strickland and three other Kerry supporters during a long day of campaigning appeared to be part of a Democratic strategy to have surrogates try to tar Bush's status as commander in chief, while freeing Kerry to focus on job creation and other domestic issues....


http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-security5sep05,1,3918622.story?coll=la-home-politics

[Catfight]

1. A cheerleader never won a game for the people on the field...it's

time for a leader who walks the walks, not one who stands by and watches as everyone else is doing the work. Bush has always been on the sidelines observing, never getting into the trenches, never working as a team, it's all play for him.

[wildeyed]

2. chearleaders for truth

More importantly, did George Bush actually earn a Varsity Letter in Cheerleading, or was this, too, awarded to him (like his place in the freshman class) because of his wealthy family's longstanding relationship with Yale? Were the injuries he supposedly sustained on the field athletic injuries, or did he hurt himself simply because he was intoxicated at the time?

http://www.cheerleadersfortruth.com/

I want the truth, dammit!

[Voltaire99]

3. Kerry is paving the way for a military draft

All of this talk about "avoiding service" and "reporting for duty" is unfortunately helping to pave the way for a draft.

Kerry, sadly painted into a corner by his campaign's insistence on turning Vietnam combat duty into a badge of honor, is doing the unwitting work of the culture of war. Ironically, it's just another version of "you're either with us or against us": you're either a soldier-hero, or a non-soldier-shmuck. Gee, what a choice.

We may hate Bush on the left, but we hate war regardless of who's promoting it. Stop, John. Just stop. Fuck your medals: we want restoration of peace, jobs, liberties, and a massive scaling down of the hysterical rhetoric we've heard for the past four years. That's the duty you should report for.

[Toots]

4. I can understand your cynicism but Kerry is still the same man

who spoke out so loudly against war. We need to have faith that he has enough wisdom and intelligence to keep the US free from war or a draft for the foreseeable future.