"It was thirty years ago," some people will argue, and rightly so. It's not fair to critique or laud a man for what happened that far in the past under most circumstances. Arguably, though, when every attempt has been made to obscure his record, when scrutiny brings to light things which attempts were made to hide, there should be no escaping the burden of responsibility.
Today's Boston Globe breaks a story detailing that
Bush fell short on duty at Guard, despite the Bush campaign's repeated claims that his military committments were fulfilled; and the candidate himself continues to state. Recently, on "Meet the Press," Bush said, "I put in my time, proudly so." When pressed by host Tim Russert on why news reporters who previously investigated the charge could find no records of his Alabama service, Bush said, "They're just wrong. There may be no evidence, but I did report; otherwise, I wouldn't have been honorably discharged. In other words, you don't just say 'I did something' without there being verification. Military doesn't work that way. I got an honorable discharge, and I did show up in Alabama."
The Globe report cites an absence of record that Bush did report in Alabama, but that upon his release to attend Harvard Business School in 1973 he signed documents pledging to complete his training committments with a unit near Cambridge. Citing the article: "But Bush never signed up with a Boston-area unit. In 1999, Bush spokesman Dan Bartlett told the Washington Post that Bush finished his six-year commitment at a Boston area Air Force Reserve unit after he left Houston. Not so, Bartlett now concedes. 'I must have misspoke,' Bartlett, who is now the White House communications director, said in a recent interview."
Continuing the citation:
Bartlett, in a statement to the Globe last night, sidestepped questions about Bush's record. In the statement, Bartlett asserted again that Bush would not have been honorably discharged if he had not ''met all his requirements." In a follow-up e-mail, Bartlett declared: ''And if he hadn't met his requirements you point to, they would have called him up for active duty for up to two years."
That assertion by the White House spokesman infuriates retired Army Colonel Gerald A. Lechliter, one of a number of retired military officers who have studied Bush's records and old National Guard regulations, and reached different conclusions.
''He broke his contract with the United States government -- without any adverse consequences. And the Texas Air National Guard was complicit in allowing this to happen," Lechliter said in an interview yesterday. ''He was a pilot. It cost the government a million dollars to train him to fly. So he should have been held to an even higher standard."
Even retired Lieutenant Colonel Albert C. Lloyd Jr., a former Texas Air National Guard personnel chief who vouched for Bush at the White House's request in February, agreed that Bush walked away from his obligation to join a reserve unit in the Boston area when he moved to Cambridge in September 1973. By not joining a unit in Massachusetts, Lloyd said in an interview last month, Bush ''took a chance that he could be called up for active duty. But the war was winding down, and he probably knew that the Air Force was not enforcing the penalty."
But Lloyd said that singling out Bush for criticism is unfair. ''There were hundreds of guys like him who did the same thing," he said.
Lawrence J. Korb, an assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs in the Reagan administration, said after studying many of the documents that it is clear to him that Bush ''gamed the system." And he agreed with Lloyd that Bush was not alone in doing so. ''If I cheat on my income tax and don't get caught, I'm still cheating on my income tax," Korb said."
Clinton dodged the draft. Bush skipped out on his service. Cheney got multiple deferments. So what. They're not the point of contention here, at least as far as i'm concerned. This isn't about the hours- did he or didn't he complete his service- because at the time he apparently failed to do so, the war was over, and there wasn't a particularly pressing need- but about the matter of moral fibre which it indicates.
Our leaders are held to higher standards than the run-of-the-mill citizenry. Cutting his service short wouldn't be a huge issue if it had been disclosed and he'd taken responsibility of any sort for doing so. But that as recently as that press appearance, this was a refusal to accept any personal responsibility.
Commander in Chief, leader of the nation, and, at least by extention, leader of the free world are ponderous titles, and we need people who are responsible for what they do, have done, and for the orders they issue.
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