backhoeboogie
Well-known member
littlejoe said:TexasBred said:Joe....all that really matter about GW is that he received an honorable discharge. End of story. Now if you really want to know about someone that was running like a scalded dawg from the draft he you go.
That Bill Clinton went to great lengths to avoid the Vietnam-era draft, that he used political connections to obtain special favors, and that he made promises and commitments which he later failed to honor, are all beyond dispute. However, the timeline quoted above jumps the tracks when it labels Clinton a "felon," because none of his actions, no matter how unethical or morally questionable they might have been, were illegal. When Clinton agreed in July of 1969 to enter the advanced ROTC program at the University of Arkansas, his draft board rescinded his induction notice and reclassified him with a reservist's deferment. That he later changed his mind in October 1969 and opted to forego the ROTC program and be reclassified 1-A did not constitute a "failure to report" or make him "AWOL." At the time of his 1-A re-classification in October 1969 the previous induction notice was no longer in effect, and he was not subsequently re-drafted.
If Clinton had still been obligated to report for induction, his draft board could have got him any time they wanted: they certainly knew where to find him, yet no one ordered him to report to an induction center, no federal agents arrested him for draft evasion, and no MPs came and hauled him away for being AWOL, because he hadn't broken any laws, civil or military. Likewise, President Carter's executive order of 21 January 1977, which provided pardons and amnesty for those convicted or suspected of violating the Military Selective Service Act between 1964 and 1973 did not apply to Clinton because he committed no such violation.
Although what he did may not have been against the law, Clinton's broken promises and contradictory statements about his efforts to avoid the draft were prime examples of the kind of self-serving doublespeak that later earned him the sobriquet "Slick Willie." As Maraniss concluded in his Clinton biography, First in His Class:
"It was just a fluke," Clinton would say decades later, when first asked how he had made it through this period without serving in the military. But of course it was not a fluke. A fluke is a wholly accidental stroke of good luck. What happened to Clinton during that fateful year did not happen by accident. He fretted and planned every move, he got help from others when needed, he resorted to some deception or manipulation when necessary, and he was ultimately lucky.
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Nope---it ain't no way no how "all that matters"
We're still cleaning up bush's mess. But---I ain't sticking up for Clinton or anybody since. Cheney--Clinton---rumsfield, etal---they're all cowards, war dodgers (for themselves) and arrogant incompetants. (which it don't look like I can even spell---but I volunteered, I went and I served. I can respect a concientous objector, I can respect a protestor. I got no use for a liar or a hypocrite or a coward that will hide then send somebody else's kid.
Hamas wasn't nearly as bold while the "bush mess" was going on.