Still Fighting Over Vietnam

By David Paul Kuhn
CBSNews.com Chief Political Writer

In 1992, Republicans charged Bill Clinton with being a draft dodger and the media doggedly questioned the young Arkansas governor. A decorated senator from Massachusetts came to his defense. "We do not need to divide America over who served and how," Sen. John Kerry said.

Now the Democrats are picking the fight, taking President George W. Bush to task for his service during America's longest war.

Hypocrisy? What goes around comes around?

On the defensive in recent weeks, President Bush ordered the release late Friday of all his National Guard records during the Vietnam War, in an attempt to rebuff questions about his military service, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

More than a decade after Mr. Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, the first fight in the 2004 war for the White House is over the one we seem unable to forget. And while the de facto Democratic nominee has taken the high road, Kerry's party is in the trenches.

The issue reached a fever pitch when Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe appeared on the Sunday news shows in early February and accused Mr. Bush of being AWOL (absent without leave) from his duties as a National Guard pilot in 1972-73.

"The reason it has become a hot issue is it is inextricably linked up to how the Republican Party has conducted the war on terrorism," said John Mearsheimer, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, and a military veteran. "The Republican Party has played the patriotism card at every turn, calling those who disagree unpatriotic, and this has been deadly effective at helping the Republicans score points against the Democrats."

Clearly, the Vietnam Card is in play.

And if there was any doubt about the vitriol in Washington over Vietnam becoming a campaign issue, you just had to listen to the exchange between an Ohio congressman and Secretary of State Colin Powell during Wednesday's normally bland House International Relations committee meeting.

Rep. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio: "The president may have been AWOL, the vice president said he had other priorities during Vietnam. Other high administration officials never served. You understand war…"

Secretary Powell: "First of all, Mr. Brown, I won't dignify your comments about the president, because you don't know what you're talking about."

Soon after, Powell told Brown, "Let's not go there."

Mr. Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard in 1968. Although honorably discharged in 1973, he ceased flying in April 1972.

The White House has denied all AWOL allegations, citing Mr. Bush's authorized transfer to Alabama in May 1972 to work on a Senate political campaign. To what degree he continued his required duties in Alabama remains unclear. Both sides have their points.

Either way, in the first post-Cold War presidential election where national security is a major issue, service during Vietnam will linger, whether or not Mr. Bush fulfilled his duty. Kerry's decorated service in Vietnam, which earned him three Purple Hearts, will be contrasted with Mr. Bush's service back home in the National Guard.

"I don't like to use military experience as a benchmark in making my decision," said Steve Robertson, the top Washington lobbyist for the American Legion. "It is how they stood on the issue. Military service is honorable; it doesn't matter what branch you served."

This is not the first time Mr. Bush's military service has arisen as an issue. During an examination of his records during the 2000 campaign, The Boston Globe uncovered a May 1973 evaluation by Mr. Bush's commander reporting that Mr. Bush had not been seen for a year.

This time around, the White House is taking the charges seriously and fighting back. Wednesday night, it released dental records showing that Mr. Bush received an exam at the Dannelly Air National Guard Base in Alabama on January 6, 1973. That was followed Friday by the order to release all of the president's military records – hundreds of pages detailing his service in the National Guard in Texas and Alabama.

Both sides will continue to dig. Republicans will try to shine a light on Kerry's antiwar activities upon his return from combat. A photo has already surfaced showing the senator beside Jane Fonda, detested by veterans for her antiwar activism, including a visit to North Vietnam that earned her the nickname "Hanoi Jane."

Democrats will attempt to unearth further records – if they exist – to discredit the president as commander in chief by showing that he did not fulfill his duty to his country as a young man.

"We have a national need to relive the Vietnam experience," Republican strategist Mike Murphy said. "But eventually the race will boil down to more current and relevant things – the economy and security and the amorphous thing of who seems most comfortable in the role as president.

"The Kerry campaign has been only one note about his biography in Vietnam and it's an impressive biography," Murphy continued. "But it's going to expand now to what he believes and how he voted in the Senate."