From: sichermn@beach.csulb.edu (Jeff Sicherman)
Subject: Re: Clinton's Connections
Organization: Cal State Long Beach
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 09:03:10 GMT

In article <1992Sep3.015047.26876@afit.af.mil> jswitzer@afit.af.mil (Chip Switzer) writes:
>yount@crchh473.BNR.CA (Jeff Yount) writes:
>
>>>Bwaahahahahahahaha!  Boy this is true justice!  I always thought that this
>>>endless badgering of Quayle might come back to haunt the Demogogues.
>>>Now as it just so happens, as reported in the LA Times today, what
>>>Slick Willie did was have his uncle pull some strings to save his
>>>quaking, quivering, wet pants from going to Viet Nam.
>
>>>Now, the honorable Demogogues will be sure to stick to their moral
>>>posturing on Quayle and throw Clinton off the ticket, won't they? Uh-huh.
>>>After all, what has been said of Quayle and used as evidence that
>>>Quayle shouldn't be on the ticket (pulling strings) is even truer of
>>>Corporal Clinton.  I think consistency and fairness here demands
>>>that Clinton be publically ridculed as Quayle has been for 4 years on
>>>this issue.  Right!  It will be cute to see the Demogogues slip and
>>>slide their way out of this one.
>
>>Why are you guys leaving out the fact that Bill Clinton turned down the
>>arrangement that someone claims his dead uncle set up for him? 
>
>Nobody left out anything.  Nothing was really said about the facts.  I
>assume you read it yourself, so you know that while Clinton turned down
>the cushy Naval Reserve position "created especially for the young Clinton", 
>his uncle went on to pressure the draft board into letting him go to
>England.  They successfully delayed his physical for 10.5 months--enough
>to get him through a year at Oxford.  
>
>>You don't
>>seem to care what the facts are as long as you can try to blame Clinton
>>for some wrong doing. Typical Republican strategy. If you hadn't had the 
>>Long-term-memory-removal operation that seems to be required of all good
>>republicans, you might remember that when we were approaching draft age we
>>were almost expected to find a way to avoid the draft. Now people try to 
>>turn it into a character flaw. The reason it is held against Little Danny,
>>is that he seems to have loved the Vietnam war and any other war for that
>>matter. 
>
>Goodness!  Getting a little defensive are we?  Speaking of (exremely)
>short memories...  you may recall that it was the Quayle bashers who
>were criticizing him for not doing anything illegal, BUT, he had to have
>help to get out of the draft.  Just yesterday I asked, not whether
>either of them were wrong to do what they did, but whether it was fair
>to critcize one and not the other when they did essentially the same
>thing.  The response was, "well, at least Clinton didn't have to get
>help."  
>
>You see, logic doesn't appear to mean much to some people (on both sides
>unfortunately).  You shout about a pretty stupid thing like Quayle
>doing whatever it took to not go to Vietnam, but when Clinton comes 
>around with, arguably, a worse record on the issue, you stick your heads
>in the sand and try to rationalize it.  Face it, it was wrong to 
>lambast Quayle for something *everybody* was doing (amazingly this 
>argument now holds water only when applied to Clinton).  
>
>And now you're trying to blast us for attacking Clinton?  Get a life.

   Speaking as a mostly liberal Democrat, Dan Quayl did nothing wrong,
illegal, or reprehensible. He did what many young men of draft age did
in those days when faced with the possibility of becoming an unwilling
participant in a seemingly endless, futile war. He opted out in the
way which was least in conflict with his principles. I have many friends,
some serious conservatives, even at that time, who did essentially the
same thing.

   What Dan Quayl is guilty of is unacknowledged hypocrisy. A staunch
conservative is his political life with a fierce anti-communist record
and a willingness to confront them, he missed the one great opportunity
he had to but his ass where his mouth now is. Moral choices and obligations
are easy to make if you're not the one who has to take the consequences.
Similar to his waffling on the abortion issue when it was posed in more
personal terms than with respect to some arbitrary faceless (non)person.
I will never fault him or Clinton for avoiding becoming another sorry
statistic of a sorry war. But until he owns up to the basic inconsistency
of his younger self with his later politics and stops preaching so self-
righteously to others about making hard, ambiguous choices, he remains an
intellectual coward in my eyes and ears.

  By the way, for the record, I evaded being drafted into the army by
enlisting in the Air Force; the day before my induction notice came,
as it turned out (I knew it was inevitable - I was 1A from a pre-induction
physical and had a draft lottery number of 26 in the first pool). I
figured my liklihood of getting shot at in the Air Force where much less
than getting sent to Vietnam in the Army. I was right: I spent 4 years
in Virginia. So a lot of us had a lot of ways of avoiding being an active
participant or victim of that war and the choices forced on us often had
a lot to do with chance.


-- 
Jeff Sicherman
up the net without a .sig