The "Deserter" Issue

One place to get an idea of why Bush's checkered career in the National Guard is an issue that resonates with many voters is at the Today in Iraq blog, which is an excellent daily roundup of links to war news. The anonymous blog owner was especially disgusted by Bush's "bring 'em on" comment last year. So he normally begins his daily entries with reports on attacks on US troops and allies, each introduced by "bring 'em on."

He began his 02/02/04 entries with this comment:

Today is “Bring ‘em on" Day! Six months ago today, Lieutenant AWOL, wanting to sound tough in order to hide the fact that he's really a pampered and cowardly mamma's-boy, issued that challenge to insurgents, terrorists – in fact, anybody who wanted to attack American troops. Since then, 377 Coalition soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq. Thank you George, you spoiled little prick.

Harsh? Yeah. But starting a war based on phony claims about non-existent Iraqi WMDs was even more harsh. His own frivolous conduct when performing his own military service makes his conduct now even harder for a lot of people to swallow.

Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler is still on the case of the press corps over the "deserter" issue: Times AWOL. For political junkies who have been poring over the details of this (like I've been doing in earlier posts), this Howler entry talks about why there's some question whether Bush showed up for duty at all between May 1972 and his early discharge in October 1973.