Vietnam isn't working for KerryHOW CAN IT be that the Kerry campaign does not understand that the theme of Bush's "draft avoidance" is a nonissue? Large numbers of men who were of draft age during the Vietnam War (today's fiftysomethings) were anti-war, attended college, were left of center in their politics, and avoided going into the draft one way or another. Most applied for and received college deferments (Dick Cheney got several). Another favored method of avoiding the draft was by joining the National Guard. Still others fled to Canada or went to Europe for a wanderjahr or two.
Those people don't care about who was or wasn't a war hero. And you didn't need to be a child of privilege to apply for and receive a deferment. You could register at your local junior college (not expensive), fill out the simple form, submit proof that you were registered in the requisite number of classes, and receive your deferment, which was a routine matter. It didn't require a phalanx of expensive lawyers to do it, which accounts for the vast numbers who never saw a day in uniform. Are those who run the Kerry campaign simply too young to remember or too out of touch with the reality of a large part of their base; those anti-Vietnam War, upwardly mobile, well fed and comfortable voters who dodged the draft in those troubled times? How could reopening the wounds of Vietnam ever be a winning strategy?
LEOPOLD ROSENFELD © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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