Bush's Superficial Wounds in the Vietnam Era

If you don't check out Juan Cole's website, "Informed Comment," regularly, you're missing an excellent source of news and opinion. He's a history professor at the University of Michigan and an expert on the Middle East with lots of contacts there. His very popular website reveals alot of day-to-day details about what's really happening in Iraq. In this piece, he comments on the Swiftboat Vets situation and compares Kerry's experiences during the Viet Nam war with those of young Georgie:

The debate that a handful of Texas multi-millionnaires close to the Bush family have cleverly manufactured over John Kerry's war record is absurd in every way. The charges that they have put some vets up to making against Kerry are false and can be demonstrated by the historical record to be false. Most of those making the charges have even flip-flopped, contradicting themselves. Or they weren't eyewitnesses and are just lying.

But to address the substance of this Big Lie is to risk falling into its logic. The true absurdity of the entire situation is easily appreciated when we consider that George W. Bush never showed any bravery at all at any point in his life. He has never lived in a war zone. If some of John Kerry's wounds were superficial, Bush received no wounds. (And, a piece of shrapnel in the forearm that caused only a minor wound would have killed had it hit an eye and gone into the brain; the shrapnel being in your body demonstrates you were in mortal danger and didn't absent yourself from it. That is the logic of the medal). Kerry saved a man's life while under fire. Bush did no such thing.

What was Bush doing with his youth? He was drinking. He was drinking like a fish, every night, into the wee hours. For decades. He gave no service to anyone, risked nothing, and did not even slack off efficiently.

Click here to read the rest of this story, including an NPR interview with people who worked at the campaign in Alabama where Georgie worked while allegedly on National Guard duty down there: Juan Cole: Informed Comment