Asian Times: Presidential War Games by Ian Williams ("Deserter")

[Keirsey]

This week Republican Senator John McCain showed an unusual nuance in United States politics. He supported his party's president, sort of, even as he dealt him one of the deadliest subtle put-downs in recent US history.

snip

The contrast is killing. The advertisement, paid for by "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", alleges to be from a group of veterans who seem to have some form of recovered-memory syndrome, since they have only chosen to speak out some 35 years late. They have ties to the Republican Party going back as far as Richard Nixon. But as McCain so subtly implies, they all inadvertently confirm one thing. Kerry was in Vietnam, in combat.

In contrast, not even the best investigator's dirty-tricks department can find a single veteran who saw Bush in any military capacity whatsoever in Vietnam. Nor during his National Guard service in Alabama for 12 months from May 1972.

Indeed, there are no veterans to dispute the merit of First Lieutenant George W Bush's combat medals or the quality and depth of the wounds that he suffered for his Purple Hearts. Because he was never in combat.

Of course, that is the whole barb of Vietnam veteran McCain's nuanced knockout. Bush "honorably" chose the height of the Tet Offensive to engage in aggressive maneuvers - using his family influence to get into the Texas Air National Guard specifically to avoid being drafted to go to Vietnam.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FH07Aa01.html

[Cha]

1. Thanks for this link...this is an amazing complilation

of the military history of our two candidates.

I'm beginning to understand better exactly what happened with * and now I feel I can talk about it out on the street.