Wednesday, September 6, 2000 Volume XXV, No. 25
Roswell, New Mexico
In this issue...
Gore in Vietnam
by David W. Davis
The well-documented problem with Al Gore is that he simply cannot talk about himself without embellishing and exaggerating his own life story. Thus far, in the world according to Al, he has: invented the internet, discovered the Love Canal pollution cover-up, and been the real life subject on which the book and movie Love Story was based (i.e. he was played by Ryan O'Neill on the big screen). None of this is close to being true of course.
This pattern of misrepresentation is particularly evident in his
re-telling of his four-month tour in Vietnam. He told reporters
he: 1) was shot at; and 2) went on patrol through elephant grass,
carrying a rifle. Neither of these claims is true.
On national television at the Democrat Convention, the biographical
video is shown that includes a combat scene from Vietnam, implying
Al Gore had seen combat. This is fiction also.
Then both Al and Tipper paint his Vietnam service as even more noble
because he went "to keep someone else from Carthage, Tennessee
from having to go in his place." But wait! He only served there
for four months. What is up with that? How do you get out of a one-year
tour in just four months? How indeed, unless you're the son of a
US Senator that is.
In Gore's case, he apparently scammed his way out by using his father's
influence to apply and get accepted to the Vanderbilt University
(Nashville, TN) School of Religion. With his Divinity School acceptance
in hand, the Army discharged him several months early and sent him
home from Vietnam where he promptly dropped out of Divinity School
soon after.
Al Gore is in good company with this scam by the way. Clinton's
former Deputy Secretary of Defense, John Hamre, apparently got religion
and went to Divinity School until the draft ended, whereupon he
was apparently called to study economics.
This was, however, a bipartisan scam. Don't forget David Stockman,
Reagan's first budget guru. He also found Divinity School to be
nothing short of, well, divine, as long as the Vietnam War was raging.
When he suddenly found himself no longer subject to the draft, he
too, became an economist. Just what the world needs, faith-based
economists!
[Editor's note: Actually, we do. And Adam Smith is perhaps the
pre-eminent example, though I clearly sympathize with the writer's
wry skepticism concerning the whole gamut of Vietnam era draft-avoidance
scams.]
But back to Al Gore. I believe it was Hendrik Hertzberg, current
editor of the New Yorker, who once wrote that "no one with
a low draft number during Vietnam has to ask what Dan Quayle was
doing in the National Guard." Well, as someone who had a low
draft number, I also don't have to ask what Al Gore was doing applying
to Divinity School while serving as a rear echelon information specialist
in Vietnam. He was simply trying to get out of Vietnam as soon as
he could. He succeeded in doing so.
His Harvard education, of course, could have been put to good use
leading men in the boonies, but that was before he wanted to "fight
for us." (That was then, this is now?) Instead, Al Gore gamed
the system to get out of his service obligation early. To do that
he probably lied about his religious calling and his intentions
on his application to Vanderbilt. Then, in order to get an early
discharge, he almost certainly deceived his commanding officer about
his intention to complete graduate studies at Divinity School.
More recently, he lied to the American people at the Convention
when he said he volunteered for the draft because he "believed
it was unfair for someone else to go in his place." Yeah, right.
Tell that to the guy who replaced him in Vietnam. When Al Gore conned
his way out of Vietnam several months early, rest assured some other
unsuspecting soldier suddenly got orders, had to leave his family,
and report to Vietnam to take Al's place.
Here, Al, are the plain unblemished facts: You did go to Vietnam---that
was a good thing, but you were no hero, you were no leader, and
you certainly faced little danger. In short, you did more than some,
but less than many. And you did even less than you signed up for
when you set about to scam your way out of Vietnam early-----leaving
someone else to take your place.
Epilogue
Whenever I visit the Wall, I am reminded that avoidance of service
in Vietnam was not a "victimless" crime. When I survey
the thousands of names etched there, I cannot help but think that
there would have been far fewer names on the wall if folks like
Clinton, Gore, Bush, Cheney, Cohen,* and Lieberman, as well as a
host of other "leaders" had actually led back then. *(Currently
Secretary of Defense.)
The Army would not have had to commission the William Calley's of
the world if the children of privilege had done their duty. I was
originally willing to give Gore a partial pass based on the old
"at-least-he-went-to-Vietnam" theory. That was until he
presented his "docufiction" biography at the convention
and lapsed into his old exaggeration mode. Only this time it was
about military service---in many ways an attempt to steal valor---something
others actually earned. He compounded his boast, remarkably, by
claiming he served "to keep someone from going in his place."
But it didn't happen that way. He continues to make claims about
his life that just aren't so. All the evidence suggests his old
scams of the early 70s represent the beginning of an unbroken chain
of life's reinventions---reinventions he believes will lead him
all the way to the White House.
(David W. Davis is a Vietnam era veteran, with more than of 23 years
of military service.)
Let's Talk Sense... commentary on Gore
Some of Al Gore's pronouncements on public policy positions are
ominous, at least to me, in the Orwellian sense.
In George Orwell's 1984 it was important for the three warring totalitarian
nations to constantly rewrite history. They never wanted the citizenry
to believe the state could make, or would make any kind of mistake.
This, it was believed, was a crucial element of subjugating the
masses and maintaining everyone's loyalty. The state is all-knowing,
all-wise, and all-powerful.
Therefore, as an example, when one nation would switch sides and
become an ally of a former enemy against its former ally, the "Minister
of Truth" would re-publish the official history books. They
would then read that "Eurasia has always been at war with Oceania,"
even if they had been allies only a week before. This is a hallmark
of totalitarian dedication to the deity of the state, and its all-encompassing
infallibility.
Why can't Al Gore be like other human beings and simply change his
mind? Why in his campaign against Bill Bradley did he choose to
say that he has always supported abortion rights? Why does he make
similar statements on his inconsistencies on his Social Security
positions? On tobacco? Why say the things he says about having always
done such and such, when there are print (and sometimes film) records
which show him to be lying?
In the words of the famous Saturday Night Live "lawyer,"
Nathan Thurm, "is it me, or is it him?" It's him, isn't
it?