LA Times covers Dean draft history while covering up for Bush

[Karmadillo]

It does print the quote from Cleland saying Dean "weaseled out of going to Vietnam on a medical deferment for a bad back and wound up on the ski slopes of Aspen." It also manages to get in a dig at Clinton. Does it then mention Bush's rich kid's entrance into the National Guard or his decision to go AWOL during a time of war? Of course not. I don't want to violate fair use, so I won't quote the amusing Bill Schneider lie in the article, but it's worth going through registration to read what we're up against in 2004.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-deferment23nov23,1,7351893.story?coll=la-home-todays-times

<edit>

A Kerry supporter, former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, said Dean "weaseled out of going to Vietnam on a medical deferment for a bad back and wound up on the ski slopes of Aspen." Cleland said that record stood in stark contrast to that of Kerry, who he said served heroically in Vietnam.

Cleland suffered devastating wounds — losing both legs and one arm — while serving in Vietnam. He later headed the Veterans Administration under President Carter.

Whether candidates had avoided or served in Vietnam has become a standard presidential campaign issue since Bill Clinton ran against President George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Clinton defeated Bush, a decorated World War II veteran. Clinton had lobbied successfully to get his Army induction canceled during the Vietnam War.

The current President Bush also did not have to serve in Vietnam; he took an assignment in the Texas Air National Guard.

more...

[onebigbadwulf]

1. Umm hypocrisy?

"current President Bush also did not have to serve in Vietnam"


Dean didn't have to serve either.

[joeybee12]

2. Am I the only one who thinks the Kerry camp is behind this recent spate

of articles?

Kerry does drop the Vietnam Vet card a lot.

Still, the whole thing smacks of hypocrisy after Dumbo's free ride.

[realFedUp]

3. BS remark

snip
Political analysts predicted that Dean's actions 33 years ago, as a 21-year-old Yale University student, would disturb some voters, but probably wouldn't bother those who have rallied around the front-runner largely because of his opposition to the war in Iraq.

"The other Democrats can't call him a coward or a draft dodger, because what he did was legal," said longtime national political analyst Bill Schneider. "And, particularly among Democrats, there is no disgrace in having avoided service in that particular war."

(not to mention all the Republican chickenhawks sending
in other parent's children to fight for their corporate
interests....talk about strawmen arguments...)

[Nashyra]

5. Although you can tell that I am a Clark supporter

If they insist on making Dean's Vietnam an issue he is one fellow who will start to get them to pay attention to *'s AWOL. I think it will disappear if he is the nominee because Dean is a fighter and will bring AWOL to the forefront. It could however help Clark in the primaries. Clark/Dean or Dean/Clark will work hard regardless although I do think that Clark will appeal to the moderate swingvoters in larger numbers.

[blm]

6. Bill Schneider's comment is a SLAM at Democrats.

Schneider is part of the GOP propaganda team. Read his words carefully. He's saying Dems are WEAK in this area at the same time he digs at Dean he digs on ALL Democrats as accepting anyone that the average American would judge as "a coward or a draft dodger."

The media whores built Dean up for months and now that they see him as the likely nominee they will tear at him and smear the whole party with Dean's deficiencies in character. Plays right into Rove's plan for the general election.

[AP]

9. This is true. This article is impugning all Dems, and pretends all Repubs

are beyond reproach on this issue.

Good reading.

[shance]

18. Exactly. They are trying to distract from Dick Cheney, Tom Delay,

Trent Lott, Rush Limbaugh, and ALL the Republicans who didnt serve and yet SUPPORTED the war.

What a joke.

[tsipple]

4. Would Somebody Tell Me How Long It's Been...

...Since a Vietnam veteran was elected President of the United States? Or Speaker of the House?

Veterans have lost the last three Presidential elections in a row, and Georgia voters didn't really care that Max Cleland lost two limbs in Vietnam.

Dean was 1Y and obeyed the law. Bush? Well...

Nominating a "war hero" really won't help. Didn't help Bob Dole. Didn't help the first George Bush. Didn't help Max Cleland. I don't know if that's good or bad, but it's a fact.

[realFedUp]

7. and Rush's deferment didn't seem to keep him from sitting down....

:eyes:

[AP]

11. But when was the last time the richer, more priveleged guy won an election

?

This is about privilege as much as it about service. Clinton might have not served in Vietnam, but it wasn't like his daddy got him out of it.

Gore actually was almost the identical candidate to Bush in terms of service and privilege, with a slight advantage going to Gore (he put on a uniform and showed up for service, albeit non-combat service, and his daddy wasn't as rich as Bush's), and we know he got more votes.

[blm]

14. The sniper story at the time covered up what the RNC did to Max.

Max is going around the country TELLING veterans how he was treated and what Bush has done to them legislatively. Vets have REASON to distrust anyone who got out of the draft. The working class men were unable to get doctor's xrays to take to their induction dates.

Since Max is also a member of the 9-11 commission, I would think NONE of you really want him to lose his megaphone at this point, do you? BushInc. certainly wants him silenced.

[JI7]

19. one right winger

one right winger actually told me that he hopes the sniper doesn't stop at least until the elections because it helps bush . can they get any lower ?

[shance]

21. Theres the answer. "Dean was 1Y and OBEYED THE LAW."

He obeyed the law. Case CLOSED. (I wont go into the fact that everyone knows now Vietnam was wrong, it was also a war about oil interests, and this issue should be more than irrelevant by now.)

I hope Dean and other Dems will fight back hard, including us, on this one. Its no secret how many Republicans* (if these guys are really Republicans in the true sense) avoided the Vietnam war.

This should be a letter writing campaign within itself.

[Zhade]

31. Not quite accurate.

Veterans have lost the last three Presidential elections in a row, and Georgia voters didn't really care that Max Cleland lost two limbs in Vietnam.

1. Gore did not lose. Bush did not win. The election was stolen. (It really stuns me that I actually have to remind progressives of this fact!)

2. Max Cleland, if BBV investigations are right, probably DIDN'T lose in 2002. There's an extremely good chance this vote was rigged (especially considering the unheard-of swing away from Cleland right before the vote).

[AP]

8. 2 comments about hypocrisy, and one pat on the back

This article is totally hypocritical in the sense that, although Bush I was decoraated, there are legitimate questions about the event for which he is decorated -- apparently he violated protocol and bailed out of the plane he was piloting at the first sign of smoke, leaving his crew to crash to their deaths. OK, so I don't expect an artilce like this to go in depth on this issue, but it's worth noting here at DU. Second, Bush II's "service" in the ANG is every bit, if not more, problematic than Dean's deferment. We all know, thanks to Dan Quayle, what it meant to be in the NG. Bush II "served" (when aWol bothered to show up at all) with the sons of a couple guys involved with the Dallas cowboys and with other sons of Texas wealth and privilege.

Also, yesterday I posted to a long thread that tried to hash out the, well, facts of this situation. The point I tried to make (that this is about symbols and not facts) is echoed in this article:

Dean's actions could make him a more difficult candidate to sell in the South, said Susan MacManus, a political science professor at the University of South Florida.

The avoidance of Vietnam could be most damaging if it reinforces an image that Dean is a privileged Northerner.

"For Southerners, military experience has been something that has been expected of people, and the essence of it for people here will be the genuineness of his deferment," MacManus said. "That ski thing resonates with the average person. They can't go skiing. They don't have enough money to go skiing. That just looks like 'rich boy gets out of it' to them."

If I were a Deaniac, I'd keep making the point that, even though it was Aspen, he poured cement while he was there. Also, I'd talk about how the only money he ever got from his father was $25,000 in '71 (but I wouldn't want people to know that that's like over $110,000 in today's dollars, if you go by the CPI inflation rate, and I wouldn't want to know the circumstances of how Dean got his Wall St job when he left Aspen, or whether he and his brothers inherited half his father's estate when he died, or got checks for christmas and birthdays).

(By the way, there's an interesting story in John Edwards's Four Trials. When he and his wife went on their honeymoon, they stayed in a motel which cost $22 a night. All they had on them (including all the change they could find in their car) was $20. Elizabeth Edwards's parents were meeting them at the motel to take them out to dinner. The hotel wouldn't let them check into the room without paying cash up front, so they had to wait in the lobby for a couple hours, on their honeymoon, until EE's parents arrived and gave them $2. That's about $6 in today's dollars. And then they both went to different cities to work in government jobs they got because they were both great students. When Edwards was born, his father had to borrow $50 to get his wife and son out of the hospital. Today, that's about $325.)

[tsipple]

10. What's this Crock about Southerners?

Saxby Chambliss, anyone?

[AP]

13. People from the south are rerpresented in the armed service

in proportion greater than their representation in the population as a whole. And there are more military bases in the South than there are in any other part of the country, I believe.

It's because of the class issue, which is at the heart of this issue.

[tsipple]

20. True, So Why'd They Vote for Chambliss?

Veterans just haven't been doing well lately in major political contests.

[JI7]

23. voting machines

won by unfair voting machines. chambliss even joked about how he feels everything should be done to make sure the voting machines are fair unless when it comes to him running.

[AP]

29. And why do they need to fix the voting machines? Becaue Chambls wouldn't

win without them.

OK, I know it's circular, but GA is one of the states where it's obvious something just isn't quite right.

[Hep]

12. Of all people, Cleland should know better

Why would he engage in the tactics that got him ousted in GA? Oh, right, because it got him ousted. Poor guy.

[ozymandius]

26. Newsflash to Senator Cleveland...

Though I miss him as my Senator, I must say interject that Dean wasn't running for President when he was 21 years old. Dean's 10-month ski trip was not a very good idea in hindsight. However, this is why the Constitution sets the minimum age requirement for Presidents at 35.

[blm]

32. Cleland reflects what many who served feel. And the heartland voters

will agree with that assessment.

The key to bringing down Bush in 2004 was the veterans and military vote turning against him and the Fire Fighters (post 9-11) turning against him.

Dean blows that whole advantage for the Dem party.

[Hep]

33. If I may quote John Kerry

“I am saddened by the fact that Vietnam has yet again been inserted into the campaign, and that it has been inserted in what I feel to be the worst possible way… What saddens me most is that Democrats, above all those who shared the agonies of that generation, should now be re-fighting the many conflicts of Vietnam in order to win the current political conflict of a presidential primary.”

[TankLV]

15. Don't you people ever get it?

Dean was AGAINST THE WAR, got a legal deferment.
Clinton was AGAINST THE WAR, spoke out against the war, and didn't choose to go, didn't get drafted and refuse to go.
Gore was AGAINST THE WAR, but decided to volunteer for duty.

These men, and the countless other Democratic like them, are all honerable men, who BELIEVED AND ACTED THE SAME WAY.

Bunker boy was FOR THE WAR, but choose to avoid service, went AWOL.
Cheney was FOR THE WAR, but got as many deferments as he could, and "had better things to do".

Delay (or Lott or whomever - they're all the same) was FOR THE WAR, but avoided service because "all the blacks and minorities had taken all the available positions?!?

Pigboy IS (had) an anal cyst - his ticket to avoid the very war he supports to this day.

These men, and the countless other Repukes like them, are all HYPOCRITS and DISHONERABLE "men" - CHICKENHAWKS one and all, who believed one way and acted the opposite! These "men" are now perfectly willing to SEND OTHER MEN AND MEN'S & WOMEN'S SONS TO BE KILLED - FOR A BUNCH OF LIES!

THAT IS THE FACTS. THAT IS THE TRUTH!

Dean has nothing to hide or apologize for.

[Hep]

16. No they don't

But thanks for demonstrating the point for them AGAIN.

[slinkerwink]

17. thank you....

[billbuckhead]

22. We have trouble making the AWOLcase without running Clark ,Kerry

The "chickenhawk" factor in the this disastorous "war on terrorism" needs to be addressed in the next election. Once again, Dean's weak biography comes back to haunt us in our quest to dislodge the BFEE.

[Selwynn]

24. LA Times = historically liberal paper, right?

[JI7]

25. i wouldn't say "historically liberal"

i think they are a pretty good paper now. wouldn't go as far to say liberal though. but one of the better papers for this country.they try to be objective i think and unbiased. but it has not been a "historically liberal" paper if you go back and look at it's entire history.

[NashVegas]

27. LA Times is a VERY LIBERAL Newspaper

If you believe that waiting until the weekend before an election to do an exposé on Ah-nold's groping, and never paying any attention to his on-the-website-stated energy policies & meetings with Ken Lay & Rove are the hallmarks of a Liberal newspaper.

[realFedUp]

34. I disagree...it's not a liberal paper

I'd say that keeping Michael Ramirez on the editorial
board and printing his rightwingnut comics, printing
conservatives more heavily on Thursdays, editorials
that span all ideologies, doing heavy investigative
pieces that take weeks to get printed isn't liberal.
It's a good paper with good journalists, but I'd say
the editorial board spans all ideologies.

Conservatives like to call it a liberal paper because
it does print Robert Scheer on Tuesdays but I find
it's headlines favor the White House talking points
every day.

[AmericanDem]

28. Read the Whole Article Here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=762741&mesg_id=762741

[aeon flux]

30. I don't know if i would blame the LA Times

for not mentioning the AWOL story. It seems the Times covered Dean's draft history only because a Republican mentioned it first.

If one of the Dem candidates had the spine to bring up the Bush AWOL story, then there would be no reason for the Times not to bring it up or make it an issue.

I have never heard of any Dem candidates saying anything about Bush's less than honorable military service during any of the Dmocratic debates I saw. Not even ONCE. Not even SHARPTON or Kucinich brought it up.

Sorry pussies the lot of them.