If Gordon decides he wants to write a column for the Times, and leave Foreign reporting, he will get it.
DISPATCHES - NYT
Of Arms and the Men
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - For days, my colleagues in the news media have been pouring over the records that the White House has released concerning President Bush's service in the National Guard.
Having glanced at the record of one of the physicals, I can assert that it tells nothing about how the experience helped prepare Mr. Bush for his duties as commander in chief (and more than one would like to know about the anatomy of Lieutenant Bush).
There is no question, however, that the dynamics of the presidential election have been altered by the issue of military service during the Vietnam war.
The Republicans have long sought to portray themselves as the party of national security and the soul mates of the military, and have tried to cast the Democrats as weak on defense. But now, in George W. Bush, the Republicans have as their standard-bearer a self-described "war president" who has nonetheless come under renewed criticism for his own wartime service long ago in a unit that had virtually no chance of actually going to war. And if Senator John Kerry is indeed nominated, the Democrats will have as their standard-bearer a man whose private views and public record on war and national defense were forged in large part on the battlefield, where he served with distinction.
With Mr. Kerry's ascendancy in the primary process, the Democrats are clearly trying to make the most of this role reversal. One recent Democratic rally in Wisconsin looked and sounded more like a get-together at an American Legion post.
"Sir, requesting permission to come aboard - the Army's here," Wesley K. Clark, the former NATO commander and candidate, told Senator Kerry when the former general ventured onto the platform to endorse his former political rival.
A beaming Senator Kerry, a former Navy lieutenant, responded, "This is the first time in my life that I've had the privilege of saying 'Welcome aboard' to a four-star general."
The real issue, however, is how relevant military experience is for the election of the next president and whether the quality of that experience counts. It is not as straightforward as it seems, and it affects each candidate in different ways.
Let's start with the challenger. In terms of politics, there is no question that Mr. Kerry's command of a patrol boat in Vietnam and his war wounds help to inoculate him and fellow Democrats from traditional Republican sniping that their rivals are weak on defense.
In the 1988 campaign against the first President Bush, former Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts, an Army veteran who served in South Korea during the mid-50's, was ridiculed for what came off as a nerdy ride in an M-1 tank for the cameras. Senator Kerry will not need to resort to those sorts of stunts. He already has campaign ads that show him tromping through the jungles of Vietnam, and he is benefiting from "Tour of Duty," a book on his Vietnam experience by the historian Douglas Brinkley.
Senator Kerry's Vietnam experience is not an unqualified plus. Critics have been dredging up statements that he made in the early 1970's, shortly after leaving the military, when he severely criticized the Vietnam war and even some of the troops who fought it, citing accusations of atrocities.
But Senator Kerry has the backing of General Clark, who also fought in Vietnam and was wounded there, and Mr. Kerry has the visible support of some of the men - at least one a registered Republican - with whom he served in Vietnam. For every aging photo that shows the protester Kerry there will be pictures of the warrior Kerry and joint appearances of the senator with General Clark or some of Mr. Kerry's Vietnam buddies.
It will be hard for President Bush, or more likely his surrogates, to raise the issue of Senator Kerry's criticism of the Vietnam war without running the risk of having the electorate reminded that Mr. Bush himself found a stateside billet that allowed him the freedom to changes units and bases to accommodate civilian pursuits like working on a political campaign.
In terms of governance, Senator Kerry's military experience is also important. If he becomes president, his own military record and his familiarity with military culture will enhance his standing and facilitate his relations with the military, from four-star officers to the lowliest recruit.
Because Bill Clinton lacked that insight and credentials, some former Clinton administration officials say, he found it difficult to order the military into Bosnia and make other decisions that were unpopular at the Pentagon. He had to coax the military along. A President Kerry, on the other hand, could be expected have more confidence in dealing with military leaders and military issues and in exercising civilian control of important decisions.
A more central question, however, is whether it is necessary to be in the military and to be shot at in order to be a good president. Eliot A. Cohen, a military historian and the author of "Supreme Command: Soldiers, Statesmen, and Leadership in Wartime," a book that makes a strong case for assertive civilian control in wartime, says there are some impressive counterexamples.
"Look at the Civil War," Mr. Cohen told me. "Jefferson Davis was a West Point graduate, a colonel and a combat veteran, and he was a lousy commander in chief. Abraham Lincoln was a lawyer who had served one month in the militia during a small Indian war, and he was a superb commander in chief. Franklin Roosevelt was a great commander in chief and had no military service. The qualities you look for in a commander in chief do not necessarily correlate with prior military service."
Lawrence J. Korb, a former official in the Reagan Pentagon and now a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Democratic think tank, differs. "Operational experience is a plus for someone to be commander in chief," he says. "Eisenhower was able to stand up to the military and keep the defense budget from exploding."
The issue has somewhat different implications for President Bush than Senator Kerry. Politically, the focus on Mr. Bush's service in the Texas Air Guard is not to the president's advantage, though he has virtually invited scrutiny by reveling in his role as a former military man, wearing flight jackets and, in a famous episode he would possibly now like to forget, flying in a warplane to the carrier Abraham Lincoln in May to proclaim that major combat operations in Iraq were over. One could not have asked for a more vivid example of how prior service in the armed forces does not necessarily lead to prescient judgments on military affairs.
George W. Bush's own military record during Vietnam also brings up the issue of shared sacrifice as the casualties from Iraq continue to add up on his presidential watch. But Mr. Bush did serve honorably in the military and found a pursuit that required discipline and entailed risk: flying a fighter jet.
My own view is that military experience, like experience in business or government, can be useful preparation for a political leader but should be considered neither a requirement nor a bellwether. In fact, because of the end of conscription and the establishment of the all-volunteer force, it may become an increasingly rare item on politicians' resumes.
All things considered, President Bush's National Guard days may tell us something about his character as a young man, but the president now has a track record as commander in chief. And in this role, there is plenty for supporters, critics and the undecided to examine: his success in toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan and depriving Qaeda terrorists of a sanctuary there; his determination to invade Iraq and topple the Saddam Hussein regime without the approval of the United Nations; and the preparation, or more accurately, lack of it, that went into consolidating the American military's impressive invasion victory there.
President Bush was aware of the assertions by Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, a former Army chief of staff, that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to pacify Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein, but he chose to back the more optimistic forecasts of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, another former pilot. Put another way, the two former pilots turned a deaf ear to the ground-pounder.
The news media will no doubt continue to scrutinize Mr. Bush's National Guard records to try to determine how many days he showed up for training three decades ago. But there is a more telling yardstick by which the voters can measure President Bush's performance on national security. And it won't be found in the files of the National Guard in Texas or Alabama.
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