You've surely noticed the phenomenon. When it comes to candidates, the Democrats love the military. From Mr. 'Reporting for Duty,' to a crop of Iraq and Afghanistan campaign veterans running in recent election cycles, the party of McGovern likes to combat its weak-on-national-security reputation by running the roughest, toughest GIs and jarheads it can find.
And woe to the Republican who hasn't served. Dems will deride him as a chicken hawk or worse. Maureen Dowd's pay-per-view column of this morning offers a good example of the syndrome. In the course of her broadside against Henry Kissinger, Dowd writes:
"Thirty-five years later, Mr. Kissinger, the consummate fawner, was once more able to sway a president with faux deference. Dr. K encouraged W. to play the tough guy on the war, even though he’d never gone to war himself."
Just whom did Dowd mean to demean? Who was it that Dowd claimed had "never gone to war himself" - Kissinger or Bush? At first, as a matter of pure parsing, I assumed Maureen meant to malign Kissinger. But I was virtually certain the Kissinger had served in WWII, and a quick Googling confirmed that Kissinger had been drafted in 1943 and served beyond the end of the war, including, ironically, service as an Occupation officer of the very German town from which as a child his family had fled to escape anti-Jewish persecution.
So either Dowd was flat-out mistaken, or, as seems likely on reflection, she was referring to Pres. Bush. Now it's true that W never went to Vietnam. But by the same token, he famously served in the Texas Air National Guard. The president-to-be trained to fly the missile-equipped supersonic F-102 Delta Dagger jet interceptor fighter, racking up about 300 hours of flight time. War zone? No. Dangerous duty? Mos def.
Dowd was surely part of the anti-Vietnam war crowd [full disclosure: so was I at the time]. But mere risky service in the National Guard ain't good enough for Mo. This is one lady who definitely likes her men macho.
Finkelstein lives in the liberal haven of Ithaca, NY. View webcasts of Mark's award-winning TV show 'Right Angle' here. Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net
