John Kerry resurrected the "Bush AWOL" trope again today, demanding Bush prove his service in the National Guard, after accusing Bush of using others to question whether Kerry deserved the medals he was awarded in Vietnam. Said Kerry:
"If George Bush wants to ask me questions about that through his surrogates, he owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it. That's what we ought to have," Kerry told NBC News in an interview. "I'm not going to stand around and let them play games."
Okay, Bush doesn't have documentary evidence of where he was 33 years ago. Conversely, everybody knows where Kerry was—he was busy protesting the war and accusing the US of committing "war crimes". What is not clear is whether or not he was in the Navy Reserve at the time. His website and spokespersons keep changing the story on his dates of service. The question I have for Kerry is this:
Were you in the Navy Reserve while you were protesting the war? If so, isn't what you did punishable under the UCMJ?
Bush has his honorable discharge. Kerry's outrageous grandstanding notwithstanding, that is all Bush needs to prove that he fulfilled his obligation. Likewise, Kerry has his three Purple Hearts; he does not need to prove that he "deserved" them, because he was awarded them. Both sides need to dial back their rhetoric, but Kerry needs to recognize that the last four years of rabid-dog attacks on Bush by the loons on the left are coming back to bite him in the ass. Bush is no more responsible for the blogosphere uprising against Kerry than Kerry was for last year's relentless attacks upon Bush by the Indyidiots and the Buried Donks and Terry McAuliffe.
Besides, as Kerry himself has said in the past:
We do not need to divide America over who served and how. I have personally always believed that many served in many different ways.
Of course, he was speaking of Bill Clinton in 1992. I'm sure that the fact that Clinton was a Democrat and Bush is a Republican has absolutely nothing to do with his most recent waffle. And if it doesn't make a difference, why does he continually refer to his status as a decorated veteran when discussing Iraq and the war on terror?
posted on April 26, 2004 11:25 PM
