deserter in chief

[rone]

(via ratphooey) I'm not Michael Moore's biggest fan, but you should read this. Money quote (from MoveOn.org):

Bush was apparently absent without official leave from his assigned military service for as little as seven months (New York Times) or as much as 17 months (Boston Globe) during a time when 500,000 American troops were fighting the Vietnam War. The Army defines a "deserter" — also known as a DFR, for "dropped from rolls" — as one who is AWOL 31 days or more.

I don't see how anyone can vote, in good conscience, for George W. Bush given this information, added to all of the things he's done. If he's done such a good thing for Iraq, he can go run for president there. We don't want him here anymore.

Comments

[lots42.livejournal.com]

The local goverment agency...some employees there can't even find my info reliably. One time I wasn't in the computer at all, five minutes later I was.

My point? Goverment records aren't the most reliable of sources. I'll need more to condemn Bush

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

Factcheck.org has a good, fact-filled article (http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=131) about whether Bush is a deserter or not.

My opinion is that Bush may or may not have missed some time, but if he did go missing it apparently wasn't a big enough deal for the Army to file paperwork or keep a record of the problem. When he left the National Guard he didn't get DFR for going AWOL as implied by Moore: he "requested and was granted special permission to end his six-year hitch eight months early."

There are enough huge, non-debatable problems with Bush that we don't need to waste our time pursuing minor or fictional ones. Doing so dilutes the message and undermines credibility on other issues.

[palecur.livejournal.com]

He spends like a thing there isn't an appropriate metaphor for. A drunken sailor would at least get laid instead of flinging cash into the gutter.

He's weak as all get-out on free trade. The steel and airline protectionism makes me seethe.

While the OMGPATRIOTACT stuff can get pretty exaggerated, and it is, it's pretty safe to say he's not the hugest booster of individual liberties.

I'm still voting for him.

Why?

Two reasons.

Imprimis:

A genuine commitment to breaking down and reshaping the culture that breeds terrorists. Blaming our crappy foreign policy for terrorism is insufficent; where are the Guatemalan, German, Japanese, Colombian terrorists? The Italian fanatics blowing themselves up in shopping malls? There's a long list of regions with arguable grievances of similar, if not greater, scope vs. the US. 'Ask yourselves why they hate you' does not suffice. There are specific pathological things wrong with this specific culture, and the conquest of Iraq is a critical first step in the decades-long process of destroying that culture and replacing it with something less relentlessly inimical. The President is the only person standing for election this cycle that has a strong commitment to that process, and I consider it vital to the long-term well-being of the nation.

Secundus:

Judicial appointments. The judiciary has become a de facto legislative branch; judicial fiat reshapes and flat-out creates more and more of our laws. I want to restrain that trend, or failing that, balance the courts with roughly equal activism on both sides. Strict constructionists would be ideal, but I'm not going to hold my breath on that one. I consider four years of Democratic judicial appointments an unacceptable risk. Republican judiciary appointments have a spotty record of partisanship (coughSoutercough), but Demo judiciary appointments are a lot more reliably (to me) bad.

[tongodeon.livejournal.com]

Another good article about Bush-as-deserter. (http://slate.msn.com/id/2094496/)

The jist is more or less the same as the one that FactCheck.org reported: he didn't exactly remain on active duty once he went to Alabama, but it's definitely not clear-cut butand lack of incriminating documentation to the contrary, the honorable discharge essentially exonerates him.