San Diego readers, please respond to: Bush, Kerry and partisan hypocrisy

[question everything]

By David Boaz
May 30, 2004

Republicans are criticizing a decorated Vietnam veteran, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry, while liberals are denouncing President Bush for avoiding service in what liberals called an illegal and immoral war. That sort of reversal might seem odd if it wasn't so reminiscent of other partisan battles over the past decade. Washington has become mired in a Red Team-Blue Team battle that leads partisans on both sides into rank hypocrisy.

Just think back to the Clinton years: Conservatives used to think that sexual harassment laws were a good example of big government trying to regulate everything under the sun. Feminists, they thought, wanted to criminalize normal flirting and dating. Feminists pushed a law through Congress that allowed plaintiffs in a sexual harassment suit to examine the defendant's personal life in search of examples of similar behavior. It was the sort of thing that led Rush Limbaugh to call them femi-Nazis.

(snip)

Now we're seeing another example of the same Red Team-Blue Team partisanship on the issue of draft dodging in the 1960s. A dozen years ago Bill Clinton was the first Vietnam-era candidate for president. He famously evaded the draft, and conservatives and Republicans hammered him mercilessly for it. But Democrats, like wounded Vietnam veteran Sen. Bob Kerrey, defended Clinton, saying that Bush should "put the Vietnam memory behind us" and that politicians like Bush were responsible for the system that allowed privileged young men to duck military service. Voters didn't seem to mind whatever Clinton had done in his youth, as he defeated George Bush in 1992 and Bob Dole in 1996, both of whom had served honorably in World War II.

But this year providence has delivered the Democrats a presidential candidate who had a sterling record in Vietnam – three purple hearts, a Bronze Star, and a Silver Star. So liberals are badgering the younger George Bush about his own avoidance of Vietnam. For good measure, they've noted that Vice President Cheney and other leading Republicans also managed to avoid the military when it counted. They're hammering away at the question of whether Bush showed up for National Guard duty in Alabama.

(snip)

Boaz is executive vice president of the Cato Institute (www.cato.org) and author of "Libertarianism: A Primer."


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040530/news_lz4e30boaz.html

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The difference, of course, is that Jr. labels himself as the "War President.' I hope that readers of the San Diego Uniton Tribune will point this out.

[SHRED]

1. I live in SD County

Politically, the San Diego area is one big hypocrisy.