Public
drowning in shallow waters of smear tactics
Gerry
Wachovsky
You
know, I am getting very sick and tired of
the current political smear campaign going
on by liberals, the only aim of which is
to defame President Bush and indoctrinate
the uninformed in order to “vote him
out” this November. These attacks
have covered issues across the spectrum,
from Bush’s service record to a video
surfacing that shows him using a woman’s
blouse to clean his glasses during the commercial
break of a late-night talk-show. I have
tried to figure out what the points of these
attacks are, but I can only come to one
conclusion: it seems as if they are a concerted
effort to simply persuade others to vote
against Bush this election, while not even
taking the real issues into account.
Let
us first consider Bush’s service record.
Did he or did he not serve in the Texas
Air National Guard during Vietnam? According
to a CNN article on its Web site, published
during 1999 when the race for the 2000 election
was heating up, Bush contended that he did
serve in the Texas Guard: “I applied,
and I wanted to fly jets, and I did,”
then Governor Bush said. “I was proud
of my service. Had my unit been called up,
I would have gone overseas.” Several
have backed up his assertion that he did
serve, including Bush’s commander,
Col. Walter B. “Buck” Staudt,
when he told the Los Angeles Times in 1999
that, “Nobody did anything for [Bush].
There was no ... influence on his behalf.”
Now
this whole stupid debate is coming up again,
only because a war is being fought and an
election will soon happen. Many liberals
are now pointing the finger yet again and
some obsessed ones even set up Web sites
such as www.awolbush.com, which claims that
Bush “never showed up for National
Guard duty for a period of approximately
one year, possibly more, in 1972-1973.”
What does it matter to you, me, or anyone
if Bush ever actually served or not? It
is hardly relevant. He is sending soldiers
over to Iraq now because he has the ability
to do so, after all, he is still the commander-in-chief.
And here is a newsflash to all of you who
love to use the argument that if Bush never
served he shouldn’t be sending kids
to war: few presidents ever served in combat.
If we’re questioning Bush’s
record, why don’t we question theirs
as well?
Another
common smear campaign that has arose as
of late is a video which shows Bush cleaning
his glasses on a woman’s shirt during
a commercial break on “The Late Show
with David Letterman. Bushflash.com, a Web
site that features the video, asks the question,
“How would you feel about a person
who thinks it is OK to grab your shirt and
use it clean their eyeglasses?” Then,
in true smear campaign fashion, the following
phrase is superimposed on the screen after
the video is over: “This guy is unbelievable!
Vote him out.” Does anybody actually
find this to be a reason to vote the guy
out?
It
is unfathomable to me that anybody would
get as irate as to want to vote him out
because he cleaned his glasses with this
woman’s shirt. Maybe she was OK with
it, maybe she didn’t even care! No
matter her feelings on it, the video zooms
in on him moving his hand away from her
shirt in slow-motion after committing the
dastardly act of cleaning his glasses on
it, as if it is some kind of mind-blowing
smoking gun. Some seem to be so appalled
by this act of brazen defiance that he might
as well have killed a puppy on national
television. If you think this is a reason
to vote Bush out, I genuinely feel sorry
for you and I suggest you look at some real
issues. As a side note, I hear that double-layer
knit blouses leave that fresh no-smudge,
no-mark look on glass.
In
closing, let me ask you a few questions:
what does it really matter whether Bush
served in the Texas Guard? What difference
does it make that he cleaned his glasses
on a woman’s blouse while the cameras
were still rolling? The answer to both these
questions, my friends, is “none whatsoever.”
Instead of supporting ludicrous smear campaigns
that only defame a person, let us actually
enter into a meaningful debate on what really
matters. Unfortunately, this concept, it
seems, is too complicated for many liberals
to understand.
Gerry
Wachovsky is a journalism major at Cal State
Long Beach.
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