Braised Lambchop
a nurse trying to work while suffering with chronic pain - she rambles a bit

I have a confession to make: Until Wednesday, I wasn't sure in my own heart that I cared if President Bush did or did not actively participate in his Guard unit in the 1970s. That may get me in deep trouble with some people I know, but I felt the same way about John Kerry, too. It was 35 years ago, after all, and I was having trouble believing that service, or the lack thereof, in Vietnam should be a relevant factor in a presidential election.

I no longer have that indecision in my heart. I don't think the service itself is relevant. But if one of the candidates lied and disobeyed direct orders to keep himself out of service, in an especially egregious manner, those actions need to be brought into light.

Today, there's light shining on George W. Bush.

According to the article I've linked to above, Bush got much more than simple preferential treatment to enable his jump over thousands of other young men to gain entry into the Texas Air National Guard.

It turns out that Bush wanted to go to Alabama not to work on a campaign, as he has repeatedly claimed. He wanted Alabama as a ruse to fool the Air Force. He wanted in the Alabama unit so he could lie about the type of aircraft he knew how to fly. If he couldn't fly their kind of planes, he reasoned in his relatively sober moments, he wouldn't have to attend drill, would he? He wanted to cut the ties to the Texas Guard completely, find a unit somewhere that didn't fly the plane he knew how to fly, and party for the next two years. Unfortunately for Bush, the Air Force caught on and told his Texas superiors, and even reprimanded them for blindly following the scheme. Didn't matter to George, though -- he just ignored his drill duties anyway. When it came time to go to Harvard, he ignored the Massachusetts guard as well.

That's not the worst of it, either. The full article is three pages long, and references the research of Paul Lukasiak, who has pored through policies and protocols for years in the desert.

Republicans whined and moaned for eight years about President Clinton and his draft deferments. Bitched and complained forever about 'Slick Willie' and how he managed to get out of 'doing his duty.' Couldn't wrap their arms around a commander in chief who didn't serve in Vietnam because he went to college.

Guess what - nothing Clinton did to avoid service in Vietnam was illegal. College deferments were absolutely legal. Hell, Cheney got three or four of them. Bush, on the other hand, scammed the Air Force Reserve, lied to the National Guards of at least three states, disobeyed direct orders from his superiors, and more - and got away with it. And now he's campaigning by disparaging the record of a decorated Navy veteran.

The documents released by CBS News on Wednesday are damning. Since the White House released two of the four documents themselves shortly after '60 Minutes' aired, it begs the question: What else does the White House have, where is it, and why are they hiding it still?

No wonder the man is so quick to send other men and women to die. He just doesn't give a shit about a living soul - except himself.