There's nothing in John Kerry's life since he volunteered for combat in Vietnam and won five medals while I collected five deferrments that would suggest he is anywhere as tough against America's adversaries as I am.
Actually, the offical transcript hardly needs improvement: “there isn't anything in John Kerry's background — oh, for the last 30 years — that gives you any reason to believe that he would, in fact, be tough in terms of prosecuting the war on terror.”
I found this at thirdworldtraveler.com:
Between 1963 and ’65, Cheney used his student status at Casper College and the University of Wyoming to apply for and receive four 2-S draft deferments. As the war in Vietnam heated up, Cheney fought to defend and expand his deferments. Twenty-two days after Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in August 1964, raising the prospect of a rapid expansion of the draft, he “coincidentally”-in the words of a Washington Post profile-married Lynne. The advantage was that even if his student deferment was lifted, his married status might carry some weight with his draft board.
But the Vietnamese were not cooperating with Cheney’s schemes. The war kept demanding more and more young American men, and the range of those who were eligible for the draft expanded rapidly. On May 19, 1965, Cheney was reclassified with the most dangerous draft status: 1-A, “available for military service.” Soon afterward, Lyndon Johnson announced that draft call-ups would double, and on October 26, Selective Service constraints on the drafting of childless married men were lifted. Danang was calling. And it didn’t look like Dick had any excuses left.
But there was one way for ambitious young men to avoid serving their country while maintaining their political viability. If Cheney had a child, he’d be reclassified 3-A, removing him from the pool of those likely to be drafted. Cheney needed a kid-quick. And he got one. Precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service eliminated special protections for childless married men, Cheney was no longer childless. His daughter Elizabeth was born on July 28, 1966. Convenient? Coincidence? That’s not Cheney’s style. Writer Timothy Noah did the math and suggested that the timing of Elizabeth’s arrival “would seem to indicate that the Cheneys, though doubtless planning to have children sometime, were seized with an untamable passion the moment Dick Cheney became vulnerable to the Vietnam draft. And acted on it. Carpe diem! Who says government policy can’t affect human behavior?” Cheney applied for 3-A status immediately, receiving it on January l9, 1966, when Lynne was still in the first trimester of her pregnancy.
Here’s the link: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Politicians/DickCheney_VN_Hypocrisy.html
Now I’m not going to necessarily say that Cheney would get himself a wife and kid to avoid service in Viet Nam…but would this “lets just discuss life in a vacuum on the dates we decide” crap be working if we didn’t let it?