Kerry Angry at Bush for Making Vietnam an Issue

Sen. John Kerry and his media boosters are hoping bogus allegations that President Bush went AWOL from the National Guard will catapult him into the White House - but during the 1992 presidential campaign, Kerry angrily denounced Bush's father for raising Bill Clinton's Vietnam draft record.

In fact, back then, Kerry called those who wanted to make Vietnam service an issue "cowardly."

"I'm here personally to express my anger, as a veteran," Kerry told National Public Radio two months before the 1992 election, "that a president who would stand before this nation in his inaugural address and promise to put Vietnam behind us is now breaking yet another promise and trying to use Vietnam and service in order to get himself re-elected."

"That is not an act of leadership, that is an act of shame and cowardice," the Massachusetts Democrat railed.

In words that could now apply to his own presidential campaign, Kerry complained to reporters a month later that White House charges suggesting Clinton had gone AWOL from the draft were an ugly smear.

"It is a sad day when the president of the United States is willing to sully another man's reputation and challenge his patriotism merely to get elected," the current Democratic front-runner groused.

Tuesday night, Kerry pulled a 180-degree about-face on the issue of using a candidate's Vietnam-era military record, telling Fox News Channel's "Hannity & Colmes," "There is an issue about what [Bush's] service was - and I don't know the answers."

Saying he would defend Bush's decision to enlist in the Guard, Kerry rattled off a long list of Vietnam-era options that lumped Guard service in with draft-dodging.

"I've never made any judgments about any choice somebody made about avoiding the draft, about going to Canada, going to jail, being a conscientious objector [or] going into the National Guard," he told Sean Hannity. "Those are choices people make."

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2004 Elections