The privilege of a 'war president'

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0220/p09s03-cods.html

The privilege of a 'war president'

By Daniel Schorr

WASHINGTON --

The issue is not how many of his assigned duties George Bush actually
performed in the Air National Guard.

Nor is the issue why Bush refused his periodic physical examination
and stopped flying in 1972 shortly after drug testing was introduced -
a coincidence, the White House says.

The real issue, painful in a society that prides itself on being
egalitarian, is privilege - who got to serve in the Guard's "champagne
unit" as his unit was called, and who went to Vietnam, perhaps to die.

It was all inside and cozy back in Texas then. Lloyd Bentsen III, son
of a future senator, got a coveted slot in the Houston-based guard
unit.

John Connally III, son of the former governor, got another.

And in 1968, George Bush, son of Houston's congressman, made it after
Ben Barnes, Speaker of the Texas House, talked to the head of the
National Guard on the young man's behalf.

Bush's first solo flight made headlines in the Houston papers.

No one expresses himself more passionately about this kind of
favoritism than Colin Powell, who came up from the streets of the
Bronx and is now President Bush's secretary of State.

In his 1995 memoir, "My American Journey," General Powell wrote:

"I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the
manpower for that war [The Vietnam War]. The policies determining who
would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who
would escape, who would die and who would live, were an
anti-democratic disgrace.... I am angry that so many 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 and owe equal allegiance to our country."

Powell couldn't have realized in 1995, as Joint Chiefs chairman, that
he'd be talking about, among others, his future commander in chief,
who was one of the privileged and well-placed.

There is some irony in the fact that the Bush National Guard
controversy has come bubbling to the surface just as the president
announces that he is "a war president."
--
Who could forget Barbara Bush on "Good Morning America"? "Why should we hear
about body bags and deaths and how many...It's not relevant. So why should I
waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" Babs declared in all
seriousness.

>Subject: The privilege of a 'war president'

>From: "Oklahoma Joe" ok-no-spam@okie.net

Didn't hit the blue link on your post. Will you still get paid?


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