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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (36847)	2/3/2004 8:46:52 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

My suggestion is, "Get used to it". White House denounces Democrats' attacks on Bush military service The White House and its Republican allies angrily denounced Democrats on Tuesday for suggesting President Bush had shirked Vietnam-era military service. They called on Democratic front-runner Sen. John Kerry to disavow the criticism. The Democrats' comments represent "the worst of election-year politics," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "It is outrageous and baseless." But the counterattacks gave fresh impetus to an issue Bush successfully fended off in the 2000 campaign, and they were unusual for a White House that tries to cast itself as being above the political fray. Kerry and retired Army General Wesley Clark, another Democratic contender, both received the Purple Heart for combat wounds and the Silver Star for gallantry in action. Democrats are trying to contrast those records with doubts about whether Bush showed up for all his National Guard obligations. The Republican National Committee struck back Tuesday by distributing excerpts of an interview in which Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a Navy pilot who was held as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for 51/2 years, defended Bush. "Everything that I've heard, every bit of information I've ever heard -- I never got into it, because I wasn't that interested -- is that he served honorably and well," McCain told MSNBC. "And I assume that to be the case." McCain was Bush's chief rival for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination. He joked during that campaign that as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, he slept more soundly knowing that Bush was defending the shores of Texas from invasion. Bush joined the Texas Air National Guard in 1968 and spent most of his service time based near Houston. In May 1972 he requested and received a three-month assignment with the Alabama National Guard so he could serve as political director on the Senate campaign of Winton "Red" Blount, a family friend. Retired Gen. William Turnipseed, a commander at the base Bush was assigned to, has said he never saw Bush appear for duty. Bush, however, says he remembers meeting Turnipseed and performing drills at the base. In 2000, The Associated Press reviewed nearly 200 pages of Bush's military records released by the National Guard Bureau in Arlington, Va. They contained no evidence that Bush reported for drills in Alabama. Ari Fleischer, then a Bush campaign spokesman, quoted Bush as saying he did "paper shuffling" in Montgomery. "He thinks it was desk work," Fleischer said. Bush later left the Guard early to attend Harvard Business School. Kerry said Monday he could not judge whether Bush fulfilled his military commitment. "It's not up to me to talk about them or to question them at this point," Kerry said in Arizona. "I don't even know what the facts are. But I think it's up to the president and the military to answer those questions." That drew a sharp response from Marc Racicot, chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign. "President Bush served honorably in the National Guard. He was honorably discharged," Racicot said. "To suggest, as Sen. Kerry has, that the military should answer questions about President Bush's honorable discharge is an outrage. The furtherance of these charges is despicable." Some of the toughest criticism came from actor-director Michael Moore, who said Bush was "a deserter," and Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe, who said Bush was "AWOL" during the Vietnam conflict. "Senator Kerry is supporting a slanderous attack on the president by refusing to repudiate" McAuliffe's assertion, Racicot said. Kerry's campaign dismissed that contention. "It is up to President Bush whether he wants to answer these questions that continue to persist about the year missing from his National Guard service," said spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "John Kerry will stand up to the slanderous tactics of the Bush attack machine, and if the president wants a debate on patriotism and national security, we welcome that debate." sfgate.com lurqer