The Hindu : Opinion / Leader Page Articles : It is Bush's turn now

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Monday, Sep 13, 2004

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It is Bush's turn now

By A Special Correspondent

Democrats have seized upon emerging revelations in the mainstream media to turn the spotlight on Mr. Bush's Vietnam service record.

THE DEMOCRATS and their supporters are seizing upon new revelations about American President George W. Bush's spotty record of service during the Vietnam war to bolster the campaign of Senator John Kerry, his embattled challenger, as the close fight for the White House enters its final phase.

It is well known that Mr. Bush — and his Vice-President, Dick Cheney — avoided active duty in that war, whereas Mr. Kerry served in Vietnam with distinction. Instead, Mr. Bush enlisted in the National Guard, a reserve force, which allowed him to evade combat duty. In military records made public in instalments since February, each one it claimed to be the last, the White House maintained that Mr. Bush, trained as a fighter-interceptor pilot, received an honourable discharge from the National Guard, citing it as proof that he had fulfilled his commitments between 1968 and 1973.

Now, in a re-examination of those records, the Boston Globe reported on September 8 that "Bush fell well short of meeting his military obligation." The paper says that Mr. Bush pledged to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active duty. "He didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the records show," the paper says.

In 1968, when he joined the National Guard in his home state of Texas, Mr. Bush signed commitments pledging to ensure 24 days of annual weekend duty and 15 days of annual active duty as part of his Guard service. But, the Globe reports, Mr. Bush "performed no service for one six-month period in 1972 and for another period of almost three months in 1973."

In 1973, before he moved from Houston to Cambridge to attend Harvard Business School, Mr. Bush signed a pledge to locate and be assigned to another reserve forces unit within 60 days. "But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit," reports the Globe. Although Mr. Bush's attendance at required training drills was very irregular, his superiors neither disciplined him nor ordered him to active duty in 1972, 1973 or 1974. His political opponents now point to this tolerance of his absenteeism as evidence of his privilege and influential family connections.

In another damaging revelation this week, Ben Barnes, a former Lt. Governor of Texas, told the CBS 60 Minutes show that he used his political influence to get Mr. Bush into the Texas Air National Guard in 1968, at the height of the Vietnam war.

Mr. Barnes said he did the same "for a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names" — for which he is now "very ashamed." The White House has dismissed Mr. Barnes, today an adviser to Mr. Kerry's campaign, as a partisan Democrat. But the essential facts in the Globe's compelling investigation remain undisputed.

Also keeping the public scrutiny on Mr. Bush's military service is a pro-Kerry group, Texans for Truth, which is airing a commercial in five swing States that have suffered high casualties in Iraq. The ad features a former Guardsman in the Alabama National Guard, where Mr. Bush enlisted in the 1970s, as saying that he never saw him in the unit.

Democrats have seized upon these and other emerging revelations in the mainstream media to turn the spotlight on Mr. Bush for his spotty Vietnam service record, in an effort to retaliate against the vicious and largely unsubstantiated allegations about Mr. Kerry's record made by a group calling itself the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

Levelled by a group of Vietnam war veterans with links to the Republican Party and a longstanding grudge against Mr. Kerry, a decorated veteran, for coming home and becoming an anti-war campaigner, these charges have dominated the campaign for the last month and cast doubts about the Democratic challenger.

Although the new documents being unearthed about Mr. Bush's Vietnam-era military service revive issues that have long shadowed his political career, they seem unlikely to dent the lead in the polls he gained over his rival after the Republican Party's national convention early this month.

In what must seem a surreal role reversal, Mr. Bush, the spoiled scion of an influential family who evaded combat in a war that claimed more than 50,000 American lives, appears to still be the choice of voters over his rival, a man who volunteered to serve, was decorated for his valour and who, says Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times, "still has shrapnel from Vietnam in his thigh."

Nor has Mr. Bush's handling of Iraq caused public opinion to turn against him. Despite mounting casualties, with American deaths now crossing 1,000, unremitting violence and insurgency and no evident plan to win the peace, Bush has a solid 53 per cent to 37 per cent lead over John Kerry in the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll of voters who were asked who would do a better job of handling the situation in Iraq.

Quoting analysts, the Post said the results could be because the Iraq combat deaths may seem remote to voters in a large country where military service is not compulsory. Most voters also don't have a sense of what Mr. Kerry — who supported the decision to invade Iraq — would do differently there.

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