Kevin Drum offers up a nice comparison of the military records of Bush and Kerry, and the atttitude toward those respective records by the right-wing political set: A tale of two soldiers.

I’d say that pretty well sums up what our two presidential candidates were up to 30 years ago.

I really do find the double standard interesting. If Bush had Kerry’s military record, the right-wing machine would be engaging in public masturbation over it. But since it’s Kerry’s record, it’s grounds for criticism. (You know, there’s a rumor he really didn’t get injured all that badly in order to receive that first Purple Heart…) Meanwhile, Bush “served his country with honor and distinction” (by pulling strings to jump to the head of the National Guard line, getting a taxpayer-funded chance to fly jet planes as far from the fighting as possible, then losing interest, going AWOL, and being quietly discharged before serving his full term).

It isn’t surprising to see this double standard in action. Given the many other actions Bush and his team have been involved in more recently, things that dwarf, in their seriousness, the charges under which Republicans in Congress impeached Clinton, but that turn out to be no big deal when committed by the Bush people, it isn’t surprising at all.

But it sure is unseemly. Guys: you’re not fooling anybody. There’s no principle involved when you trumpet the one guy’s glorious service, while cutting down the other guy based on sly innuendoes. You’re just being craven tools of a particular agenda. Craven. Tools. Look the words up.

Oh, don’t bother. I’ll do it for you.

Craven:

adj : lacking even the rudiments of courage; abjectly fearful; “the craven fellow turned and ran”; “a craven proposal to raise the white flag”; “this recreant knight” –Spenser [syn: recreant]

Tool:

3: a person who is used to perform unpleasant or dishonest tasks for someone else [syn: creature, puppet]

This entry was posted by jbc on Thursday, April 22nd, 2004 at 7:03 am and is filed under the_usa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.