Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Months before George W. Bush was to graduate from Yale and enlist for the National Guard, there was one impediment in his way — there was something wrong with his teeth. So he had one pulled out and another filled. A month later, he was ‘‘medically qualified’’.
This is part of military records released by the White House which Bush believes will help him counter accusations by Democrat candidates of shirking duties during the Vietnam War. But much like his other ‘‘misunderstimations’’ this could backfire, as Cuban President Fidel Castro took potshots at the President for allegations that he was destablising Latin America.
The documents detail Bush’s life during the six years after he finished college and offer ‘‘glowing evaluations’’ of him as an officer and a pilot. Castro’s description: ‘‘Bush could not debate a Cuban ninth grader, who knows more than he does’’ — at the closing of a conference of economists hosted by the Communist government.
Castro quoted Bush: ‘‘I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy’’; ‘‘I know how hard it is to put food on your family’’; ‘‘More and more of our imports come from overseas’’ and ‘‘The most important job is not to be governor, or first lady in my case’’.
