Run it by the

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Run it by the boss first?

This morning we noted that Bush campaign chairman Marc Racicot tried to float the demonstrably false line that President Bush had volunteered for service in Vietnam, but hadn’t been ‘selected’.

Now, our first thought was that Mr. Racicot might be angling to be the next winner of the ‘Heather Wilson “I think the American people are a bunch of god-forsaken idiots” Award’.

But this isn’t just a blatant mistatement of the facts that Racicot apparently believes the press will be too timid to call him on. He’s even contradicting what the president himself said only two weeks ago.

Let’s go to the tape …

“He (i.e. the president) signed up for dangerous duty. He volunteered to go to Vietnam. He wasn’t selected to go, but nonetheless served his country very well.”

Marc Racicot
NPR Interview
February 23rd, 2004

Now, here’s what the president himself said just two weeks ago …

RUSSERT: Were you favor of the war in Vietnam?

BUSH: I supported my government. I did. And would have gone had my unit been called up, by the way.

RUSSERT: But you didn’t volunteer or enlist to go.

BUSH: No, I didn’t. You’re right.

Meet The Press
February 8th, 2004

And here’s an even more candid version of events from the president from fourteen years ago …

“I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I chose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanes.”

George W. Bush, 1990
as quoted in The Houston Chronicle
May 8th, 1994.

No doubt there are <$Ad$>other examples in which the president has conceded the undeniable truth that he didn’t volunteer for service in Vietnam. And if folks want to send them in to me, I’d be obliged.

But let’s just consider what Racicot is doing here.

This wasn’t a slip of the tongue. This was deliberate. Now that the topic has been moved a bit to the back burner, they’re trying to get back on the offensive by floating a deliberate and undeniable deception in the hopes that no one will notice. If no one does then the new false story will become the accepted version in the coming campaign debate.

You really can’t let your eyes off them for a second.

Is anyone going to ask the campaign or the White House whether their new line is that the president volunteered to go to Vietnam but just never got picked?

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