I'm surprised at the number of people who find fault with Dean on Vietnam

Just in the past few days I've seen many posts which accuse Dean of dodging the draft or comparing him to AWOL.

First, are we forgetting about how wrong the Vietnam war was? Second, Who in their right minds would want to go to Vietnam. I know both Kerry and Clark did and they served with distinction. But I know of people who went to college just to get a deferment (hello Dick Cheney) or even went to Canada--with their parents full support.

Finally--Dean did not avoid anything. He went to his physical. He had evidence which indicated he had a back problem and the army evaluated this and rejected him for service. Case close. Some people have mentioned Dean's comment last night on Hardline that he was happy about this. Boy, I sure would have been. At least he is being honest and not trying to "dodge" the issue.

Why on DU which I always thought was pretty anti-war especially a war like Vietnam (or Iraq) is there such a strong minority outcry against Dean on this issue? It really bewilders me.

:crazy:

Agreed!

that's a bum rap. He turned up for his physical and got rejected for service.

He's no chickenhawk either.

Since Kerry was protesting the war at that time.



But hey, if you think it's a bad thing that Dean didn't want to serve in an immoral war, more power to you.

Kerry joined the US Navy and went to Vietnam to protect the United States. When he got there, he discovered that the war was a lot different than what was portrayed at home. As soon as he got out of uniform and into civvies, John Kerry did all he could to stop the war.

Howard Dean did neither. He did not fight in the war. He did not protest the war. He went skiing. That's not funny. That's cowardly.

And Kerry supporters can go on for ages about how much of a coward Dean was or whatever. That's irony.

So he figured out Vietnam was wrong after he got there. If everyone had this attitude - that you have to go there and be a tool of the invasion before you protest it - then no one would have avoided the draft and the U.S. would probably still be fighting the Vietnamese.

More recently, he figured out the PATRIOT Act was wrong after he voted for it.

And he's sort-of figured out that Iraq was wrong, after he voted for that.

And no doubt he'll figure out what he did wrong as President once he is out of office.

And probably he'll speak openly about his extensive research into the BFEE one day in the distant future, when it no longer matters.

Kerry is the giant who consistently chooses to be a midget. Why?

And why shouldn't I prefer candidates who are more consistently right in the first place, before they make such well-meaning mistakes?

Kerry could have ducked service but did not.

He served honorably under terrible conditions.

What is more, he came home and took a brave and eloquent stand against the war.

I wish he could find some of that clarity now--I like the guy, but Dean is runnning a much better campaign.

Meanwhile, the cowardice and mindless hypocrisy of these attacks on two of our excellent candidates makes me sick.

What is this, Free Republic?

If only the whole army had ducked service - in the end, a large part of it revolted! In the end that's why this crime against humanity came to a stop. There is no honor in serving a massive and obvious criminal enterprise, because Authority told you so. Kerry's great work was when he came out of the military - and through his actions encouraged others not to go there in the first place.

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Ya Ya served bravely and defended our country in Desert Storm...Senator Ya Ya for Prez 2023!!!! Killing your brothers in illegal wars is nothing to be proud of...best one can say is 'It wasn't my fault.. I went...I was young...wish I hadn't killed those people...

Dean '04...

P.S. 'went to Vietnam to protect the U.S.????' from what?? a rice embargo??

ad hominem attack of our candidates that is useless and divisive.

I do agree with the opening post, however. I lived through Viet Nam and saw friends, neighbors and relatives come back fucked up. If I were a male of draft age, I would have done whatever it took to avoid going.

.

For not being eager to serve in a war that Kerry was protesting at the time.

And Dean even went to the draft board.

It pretty much makes anybody who didn't enlist a draft dodging coward according to their standards.

on both sides that make GD a poisonous sespool rather than a valuable tool. It is like one who sits in traffic bitching about traffic as though they are not the traffic.

I really don't care whether somebody went to Vietnam or not. Dean just should have told the whole truth from the start. Just like last night on Hardball. He starts off with he showed up, they didn't want me. Leaving the impression he was willing to serve.

After several questions, he puts out a little more and a little more until we have the truth. He had the advantage of being able to afford doctors to give him a thorough physical, who also gave him a letter, which he took in hopes of not having to go. (And made a special appt. before the regular draft physical, which didn't get discussed, but oh well) Good for him, no big deal. He had an out and he made sure the military was very well aware of it. Just tell the whole truth from the start.

And my only problem with him skiing is that so many others, and all our candidates, were protesting the war, fighting for civil rights, something. Dean was skiing. :crazy:

that had he NOT been deferred, he wouldn't have fought. Is that an assertion you are making?

He could've pulled a boy-king routine and dubbed it "off limits" like Jr had to cause he partied like a frat-boy till he was 40.

But know, honesty, not wanting to go kill folks/be killed for no good reason and being willing to admit it is now BAD at DU. :eyes:

Julie

If I were drafted, I would have done whatever it took to get out of serving in an immoral war. My vote is not affected by a candidates trying to avoid the VN draft. However, my opinion is not the same as everyone else's.

There are a lot of voters who will NOT vote for anyone who gives the slightest suggestion of draft-dodging, and they are NOT all Republicans. The fact that Dean did nothing illegal or immoral is irrelevant to these people. And Dean's saying he was happy about this is NOT going to help him win those people's votes.

The didn't exactly kill Clinton's campaign. Shrub either.

and ignoring there's a problem (a Dean specialty) won't help. There are millions of them.

wrt Clinton: Would we be talking about him if it weren't for Perot?

Simple analogies won't get you very far. Clinton didn't say "The US isn't always going to have the most powerful army", or that he was happy to avoid being drafted.

In fact, he ended up going into the draft and his number wasn't called. (And look at the stink that was made about even that.)

Of course Dean did something he shouldn't be embarassed about. It's not his fault he was born wealthy with plenty of options, just as it isn't Clinton's fault he was born poor to a single mother.

The issue is that this whole thing raises uncomfortable questions about privilege, which Dean might be addressing sufficiently just by rolling up his sleeves, staying in cheap hotels, and keeping a messy kitchen. Then again, maybe he isn't doing enough to draw attention away from the uncomfortable issues of class and privilege this episode raises. We'll see. It's worth paying attention to this issue at the primary stage.

So, your point?

Many poor kids get a pain in their back when they're running long distances, their prep school, I mean "high school" (if they're in one) doesn't care, and they certainly don't go to a doctor to get an X-ray to use to get out of the draft.

One of the reasons Vietnam came to an end is because so many sons of the middle class and upper class got drafted, and their parents not only got pretty vigilant about working the sytem in terms of getting out of the draft, but also in terms of pressing their elected reps for a solution.

When it's the poor who are the people who bear the brunt, they don't know how to work the system like families like the Deans do.

That's my point.

1) oppose the Demo candidate, even if he is Clark or Kerry,

2) support the shrub, and swear that he didn't go awol, it's all a Damnocratic lie.

So why worry?

By the way, I am a Kerry supporter -- I regard him as a proven liberal on domestic issues, and I don't regard Dean as a liberal at all -- but this is a diversion for Dean. Irrelevant in the last analysis.

I don't know where you got the idea that they won't vote Dem, when many do.

even if, for example, they also believe blacks should be sleeping in the barn?

Then again, the military history of their leaders doesn't seem to amount to much in their estimation--they just go Zzzzz when they hear something they'd rather not.

to Vietnam, if that is what you meant by "Dean's saying he was happy about this...".

Would you please share his "happy" statement?

http://www.msnbc.com/news/1000254.asp?cp1=1


" MATTHEWS: When you went in to the draft board that day, were you hoping to get deferred?
DEAN: I was not looking forward to going to Vietnam.
MATTHEWS: Were you hoping to be deferred?
DEAN: Yes. "

Or do you think it's fair to say that when someone gets what they hope for they are "happy"?

now answer mine.

Are you going to say that Dean was NOT "happy" when he got what he was hoping for?

You said: "Dean's saying he was happy about this...".

Prove Dean said exactly that. Show us his words, provide the quote where he says he is "happy about this" - his words, not yours.

You can't, and that is why you refuse to answer.

Those who demand that you meet certain criteria in your posts are rarely willing to meet their own terms.

Dean said he was "happy"? Lie.

I demand proof or a retraction.

Julie

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what you said he did.

What a shock. Pulled it out of.....thin air. ;-)

Julie

some people's hate blinds them to actual logic.

Matthews himself said he felt bad because he had a chance to avoid the war while someone had to take his place. He felt bad about it and thought about it often. Dean's reply was something to the effect of , no i never looked at it that way.

That is my whole problem with this guy. He was able to get out of service with his supposed bad back. He had doctors notes and Xrays ,things many guys from the other side of the tracks ( as Matthews put it ) didn't have. He then was able to go skiing for 1 year prior to attending college.

It stinks to high hell! To not even think about what those other poor guys had to go thru says everything to me.

Have you served in the military? Are you of draft age?

and wasn't out in the jungle spraying villages with flame...

He has some sick twisted sexual fixation on a "stud" in a uniform. Seems to be a boy thang.

Did you enlist? Are you just projecting your own guilt about this?

Dean was honest. He was against the war, he hoped to be deferred, and he was. Then he went on living. Exactly what I would have done. Dean never said he wouldn't fight if called.

He's supposed to feel guilty that someone else had to go? I wouldn't look at it that way either. People using this to find fault with him never needed a reason anyway.

Hmmmmm....

like I'm supposed to feel bad for the people who didn't get in to my university, or didn't make the soccer team.

I wonder if any of these folks had problems in their childhoods, getting picked last to play backyard football.

is how these virulent Dean bashers would feel about being drafted to go to Iraq. Would they feel that it was their patriotic duty to go? Or would they get out of it if they could? How about if their children were drafted? Are they for or against the draft now? It seems to me that if they think Dean did something unpatriotic by not going to Vietnam, they should be lining up to go to Iraq.

The Kerry bashers too.

I despise all of these cowards.

I got a 1-Y rating myself and I didn't bring any supporting documents except my eyeglasses.

If he had a physical condition that disqualified him it was his right to bring it before the doctors during the physical. Nobody wants someone alongside him who could be disabled during combat.

The medical officer told me that if I lost my glasses I might shoot some officer or other by mistake. I don't know if he was joking or not. Certainly, a lot of guys with 20/20 vision shot officers so maybe he had a point.

And yet many would still expect people to serve in a criminal, pointless war.

Personally, I would disown my sons if they DID NOT avoid the draft for such a conflict. Serving would be antithetical to the way I have raised them.

I don't have a problem with Dean's deferment or opposition to the war. It is more defensible than vocally supporting the war, pretending to serve, then going awol/getting an early discharge as others have done.

Anyway, I don't think serving in an unjust war is honorable. I don't mean to slight those who did, but they should have resisted if they knew any better.

anything and they've swallowed Republican images of what constitutes security and national defense, hook, line and sinker. But here is the disconnect, they absorb it all without ever reconciling the fact that the Republican approach has been a dismal failure.

And I really like Dean's honesty on the issue. Were you hoping for a deferrement? "Yes". Pretty simple. He didn't dodge. He was honest and he did what he was supposed to do in that situation.

I'm not a Dean supporter and I know there will be people who will make this an issue but he has nothing but my respect on this one.

is that he will get killed on it in the south and west and that MAY be a concern. Of course, there are some that are just harping on it because they hate him. BTW, I thought he could've handled Tweetie better on it last night. When asked if he felt guilty about someone taking his place he could've responded with something like "Well, Chris I didn't invent the system, it is unfair, and I'm trying to change it."

that he was not arguing that the system was fair.

but for all that his country does do for me, the opportunity that I've been blessed with - I'd go if called, even to a war like Iraq. I know patriotism is a dirty word on DU most of the time, but I have a duty to serve my country when asked to.

Dean may be telling the truth, it just looks fishy, the whole skiing part of it. I don't blame him for not wanting to go to Vietnam - I wouldn't want to either.

It just looks like the typical elites getting out of war while the poor don't. John Kerry was an elite, and went anyways. That is what the difference between these two men are.

I din't know any elites. But I knew many young men that found a way to avoid Nam.

This was in the South and I applauded them and helped them, if I could, to keep them safe.

My heart still aches for those that went and it aches even harder for those that came back.

Just another excuse for candidate bashing...typical of several posters here at DU...

the draft. It seems hypocritical to me.

I don't think Dean did anything wrong, but I think his supporters are being a little dishonest when they say he wasn't trying to avoid the draft.

please explain to me how showing up at the Army office for induction, as specified on his draft notice, presenting evidence of a back condition that would preclude him from serving, having the Army review said documents and agree, exempting him from service, qualifies as "avoiding the draft"????

:wtf:

please explain to me how showing up at the Army office for induction, as specified on his draft notice, presenting evidence of a back condition that would preclude him from serving, having the Army review said documents and agree, exempting him from service, qualifies as "avoiding the draft"????

:wtf:

The guy had a medical condition that precluded him from serving. The fact that he was rich enough to have had the proper care to determine and prove it is a fact of upbringing, but it's hardly cowardly to bring x-rays and such along with him. If you're physically unable to serve, you owe it to yourself and others to not serve. Do we want someone who's not up to it in the foxhole next to us? No, we want someone on whom we can depend, not someone who's barely able to take care of himself.

Yes, skiing is strenuous, but hardly as strenuous as being a combat infantryman.

Maybe he should have been the proverbial "Man Mountain Dean" and hidden his infirmities like John Kennedy did, but then again, maybe he wasn't chasing vainglory in the same way or imbued with the same fervor in the face of an unclear justification for war. Maybe, like much in life, it was a combination of things.

Does he owe it to the country to hide a debilitating condition and "suck it up" to go serve in a way that may make him undependable?

This is politically motivated, and it's silly.

Bear in mind that I don't much like Howard Dean, considering him to be autocratic, too conservative, arrogant and hypocritical with his brutal and often deliberately false accusations against his opponents, but this does not preclude me seeing his virtues. He earned lots of points with me for the way he apologized on CNN for the Confederate Battle Flag flap: he didn't just beg pardon for that, he pointed out that it was endemic of his own feistiness and attributable to personality flaws of his. He didn't need to go so far, and it showed some integrity.

Don't forget, Deanies, that there's a karmic component in all of this, too: he's been brutal in pointing out the deficiencies of his opponents and has played fast and loose with the details as he's smeared and lambasted. I'll grant you, in return, that this is also indicative of passionate outrage, and this is essentially admirable. What he needs to do more than anything else is learn to choose his words more carefully and accept that he's not the only smart and good guy on the block. We shall see.

Until then, it's silly for the Dems to slag him with this, and we needn't worry about the Rebubs opening this pandora's box; Junior can't bear scrutiny on this topic and his people know it.

We complain that Bush is privileged son of a rich family whose never had to work for anything in his life. And I am not convinced that Dean is not the privileged son of a rich family whose never had to work for anything in his life.

I know. I know. He's a doctor. Well, Bush is an MBA. I went to the Ivies. It's hard not to become an MBA or a doctor once you get annointed, especially if your family owns half of Manhatten.

Did Dean do anything wrong by not going to Vietnam? Of course not. Did he do anything wrong by being a party boy for a large part of his life? Not at all. But it still makes me wonder why he was able to ski while my dad had no options and got drafted. And I am allowed to wonder if he can identify with people with few options.

Please share how you came to this conclusion... seriously, I REALLY was under the impression that Dr. Dean has either been in school or employed his entire life... please, please share ALL the details.

From Llyod Grove's column:

Dean also reminisces about his fraught relationship with alcohol - a narrative that parallels the experience of fellow Eastern Establishment scion George W. Bush, a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy.

"Once we were 18, we could indulge in lazy days of 'Baseball and Ballantine,'" Dean writes. "We'd buy some beer and put it in a garbage can of ice and play softball all day long. If you hit somebody's beer with a batted ball, it was an automatic out."

After he got married, "I quit drinking," he writes. "When I drank, I would drink a lot and do outrageous things, and then I wouldn't drink again for a while. I realized that what was very funny when you're 18 is not very funny when you're 30. I had a terrible hangover after my bachelor party, which didn't help. So I quit. Drinking served no useful purpose in my life, and I just got tired of it. I haven't had a drink in over 22 years."

Dean spokesman Jay Carson said that while his candidate violently disagrees with Bush on most things, "He agrees with him that his younger days were his younger days - and he's going to leave it at that."

I guess those prep-school guys stick together.

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/133177p-118729c.html



From US News interview:

You were at Yale from 1967 to '71. What were you like?
I had long hair. My drug of choice was beer. I didn't generally engage in an excessive lifestyle. I mean, you know, I dabbled in a little of this and a little of that. We did some heavy-duty partying, but I didn't do anything outrageous.

Did you ever break the law?
I'm not going to answer that.

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/11dean.b.htm

From Slate's synopsis of his biography:

Chapter 4: Howard Dean, Ski Bum. Dean's post-college years before medical school. He skis in Colorado (living in a cabin "in a little place called Ashcroft"), where he pours concrete and washes dishes to pay the bills. He becomes a teacher by virtue of a strange snap judgment after missing a plane to Bogotá, Colombia: "I've taken many hundreds of flights in my life, and this is the only time that's ever happened. I realized that there was a reason I missed the plane. I cut short my intended trip, went home, and decided to get to work." After teaching for a year, he takes a job on Wall Street. He decides he's too careful with other people's money to be a good broker, and that he doesn't really like New York City.

Chapter 5: Med School and Judy. Contains one of the more intriguing sentences in the book: "I didn't really get to be a happy person until I went to medical school." Dean's explanation for this is that he didn't work hard enough at Yale, and "If I'm directionless and coasting, I'm not happy." He meets his future wife, Judy Steinberg. He doesn't get into any of his top three choices for his medical residency. The University of Vermont was choice No. 4, and he moves to Burlington in May 1978.

http://fray.slate.msn.com/id/2091322/

He sounds like a lot of people I went to college with who spent a lot of their summers "working" in the Hamptons or Aspen or the Gold Coast.

In your opinion, anyone that drinks beer and/or engages in 'partying' during their college years, has been a party boy/girl for a large part of their life.

Man, our numbers are HUGE. ;)

To me, an Ivy League partyboy is someone who can engage in any type of behavior they want for as long as they want because in the end, it doesn't really matter. George Bush could be a drunk until he was 40; he was still going to own a baseball team, be governor, and be president. And if he wasn't one of those things, he was just going to run a bunch of oil companies. Or be an ambassador.

Same thing with Dean to perhaps a lesser degree. Think of this statement for a second: I didn't work very hard until I got to medical school. How many people do you know who could not work very hard and get into medical school? Or even graduate college? That to me says a lot about class and privilege. I have witnessed it firsthand as one of the "poor" kids at an Ivy.

Dean knew that he could have keggers in his room, hang out in Colorado for a few years, and still be a representative before he was 40. Or be an investment banker. Or a doctor. Or run a small state. Or convince a lot of college kids that he was the second coming of RFK.

Fitzgerald allegedly said to Hemingway, "The very rich
are different from you and me." Fitzgerald was a relatively middle class kid at Princeton and worried about money his entire adult life. He understood that a lot of his classmates went through life with a type of force field around them. Honestly, that's what I see in Dean to a large degree. And it astounds me that the "party of the working man" would embrace him so uncritically.

most particulary with "How many people do you know who could not work very hard and get into medical school?". My step-son just graduated from Emory, working his ass off all the while to keep the grades that got him there in the first place, while also holding down a 25 hr a week job, and enjoying a well rounded social/love life - and he was just accepted into med school. So it can be done, our Daniel is one such example.


Do you honestly see little distinction between Bush* and Dr. Dean?

Dean seems to actually be from the generation to which he was born. Bush seems about 30 years older. Dean is clearly more liberal than Bush on most of the social issues I care about.

And, yes, I do think it is harder to get through med school than to get through an MBA program. (Though I believe the real challenge with both is getting accepted).

The biggest difference is that Bush was "born on third base and thinks he hit a triple." Dean seems to grasp that he was born there. But his supporters don't. And it doesn't make me any more comfortable with him.

And before someone starts with the JFK comparisons . . . JFK was a)noveau riche and b) Catholic. Money opened a lot of doors to him, but he did not come from an ingrained culture of privilege. Joe Kennedy was fanatical about getting his family "accepted." And being Catholic, they were still excluded from the highest reaches of society.

In re Dean's circumstances of birth and upbringing/background, it's an awful big leap to say "But his supporters don't" get it. Unless you have data to back up your assertion, I don't think that even a barely reasonable conclusion, thus I can't understand your discomfort on this particular point.

Forget Dean supporters and go with your own judgement as to Dean's candidacy and suitability for office of POTUS- in the end, that's all that should matter anyway.

You have plenty of time to get there - we are yet a long way from the end. :)

Your comments capture exactly what I have been thinking but haven't been able to express as well.

Dean does seem to grasp that he was born there - as you say. His medical training must also factor into his ability to see that his world is not the world of others. When you hear Dean speak of medical care and kids and education - you get that he is passionate about these issues. This passion has made him look past his heritage and have say empathy for others.

Perhaps his force field is what gives him the moxy to stand up to Bush and the republicans. Dean does have moxy, which is good. He has to control it better (if not controlled he can look too much like bush in terms of short temperedness).

Big deal!!!!

My god, am I on planet Freeper today?

This is one area I do not find fault with him. The highlight of his interview on Hardball last night was when he made the "Alice's Resturant" movie reference about the draft board scene. He answered the question (for once) pointedly.

Like Clinton, too much is being made about this issue, and there is no issue there.

There is so much in the PRESENT to criticize Dean about, dredging up his back problem and his not being asked to serve are just irrelevant and counter-productive to the much more valid task of fighting his nomination on the ISSUES. Like his corporate whoring, guns, double-sweet-talking the unions, and so much else.

So much for all of us non-assimilated anti-Dean folks being some kind of monolithic entity of mobthink. Some of us are fair, and right.

is right twice a day.

Reminds me of my induction physical...
I was blind as a bat, and took Dr.'s notes and scripts to document it. Somehow, I passed anyway.
One day in basic training, I stepped on my glasses to avoid kp duty. At the clinic they offered me a discharge on the spot! Not being as intelligent then, I finished basic (and tech school) and was assigned to a base outside Columbus, Ohio. I spent every weekend on campus demonstrating or leafletting, and even got involved with an underground newspaper. When my orders for Da Nang came through, I stepped on my glasses again. End of my service, "honorably"...

The moral of the story is:
What Dean did was NOT cowardly, but intelligent. I know many, many people that would've done the exact same thing. It was "easy" for me to serve with honor knowing my biggest risk was being belted by an Ohio State football fan! I respect ANYONE who used any means possible to avoid THAT unjust, illegal war. I have no issues with those that did serve, or even those that enjoyed their experience (and yes, there were those types too).

And yes, I find it amazing that so many DUers object to Dean's "cowardice"...

of how Dean's actions wrt the draft might affect his candidacy, and all they could do was claim "It's not a problem"

wow that's some issue to beat him over the head with. Howard, how are you ever gonna recover?

Nothing changes one's perspective faster; ask Suarez del Solar - or -ask me.

I've grieved for my young man since I learned he died all alone on a bloody killing field in Southeast Asia at the tender age of 19... and I'll grieve for him and what could have been until the very day I draw my last breath.

Neither Vietnam or any conflict since has had anything to do with self-defense, and to hell with those who attack another for not wanting to kill or be killed in ANY war.

Day in, day out, day in, day out.

Why criticize Dubya as 'AWOL'? Not because he dodged -- but because he's a chickenhawk: sending others to do what he wouldn't in a 'cause' that is just as worthless.

Dean had a physical condition that brought him a deferment -- end of story.

Clinton dodged by going to school (as did I) -- good for him.

went...it was called the Marines. Anyone else who didn't go, used the system to avoid going. Whether the system was fair or not, or gave middle class white boys the advantage, is another story.

I was 2S, then sweated out the draft with #161....they only took up to about 70 that year.

Anyone who was draft age and didn't go to Vietnam, and criticizes anyone else who didnt' go, is full of shit. That is especially true of people in the National Guard, which was virtually impossible to get into in those days, unless you were rich and/or pulled some serious strings.

I concur wholeheartedly.

n/t

I would applaud anyone who could do anything to get
out of the Iraq oil grab, and Vietnam wan't much
different. My only problem is the fact that the rich
get out of the draft, so it's only poor people that
draft and die.

And I don't think that applies to Dean, but it certainly
applies to Bush, Cheney, and so many Pug chickenhawks.

I will admit though to having respect for someone like
Kerry or Clark, who did go to Vietnam and risk their
lives. And I don't quite understand why I feel that
way since I think the Vietnam war was corrupt.

I have a relative who enlisted at the hight of the conflict. And no, he was not in his right mind. Still isn't.

There is an outcry against Dean because such things happen in every primary, regardless of party, against the frontrunner by other party members who think, for the reason that their own candidate of choice is not at the top of the polls, said frontrunner is the Anti-Christ. It's infantile, and if the young man on Hardball last night who brought up Dean skiing after he attained his deferment was not the operative, official or not, of another candidate or even the GOP I'd be completely amazed.

the number of so-called Dems that are willing to do the Right's dirty work for them.

I am old enough to remember the war and the draft, and all entire range of opinions that people had about each of these. Yup, I know guys my age who were against the war, who sought ways to get out of it, not all of them entirely honest -- but knowing what I did then, and now -- I do not condemn this. I do not know if Howard Dean fits into this category, which some here are inferring, but I for one do not see this as a disqualification or dishonorable, although it does make me slightly uncomfortable.

I think its kind of hard to say what the most honorable opinions or actions were then. But I do know that the history of Viet Nam has been rewritten in recent years, and people are looking at the actions of others then in a different way now.

For my part, the only behavior I find worthy of contempt now, as then, are those creeps who thought the war in VN was the right thing for America to be mired in, who did not serve, and sought whatever means necessary to avoid their Sacred Obligation to Their Ideals -- i.e. The Chickhawks. To let others fight for YOUR principles while you are safe at home is the worst of all.