The Workday Liberal

Andrew Sullivan links to a commercial from Rudy Giuliani attacking Hillary Clinton for her stance on the war in Iraq. My take on Giuliani's unfair attacks on Clinton can be found at this post, appropriately titled "Giuliani: Against Character Assassination, Still A Stupid Putz"

So now that Giuliani is attempting to stake out a position as daddy Republican who supports the troops and slams around the dirty f'ing hippie liberals... lets take a look at his record when it comes to the military shall we?

That record is of a Vietnam draft dodging/modern day Iraq quagmire cheerleading Republican. In fact, believe it or not, Rudy's record of military service is even less impressive than George Bush's!

Giuliani was born in 1944, making him prime cannon fodder for the Vietnam quagmire. Did he patriotically volunteer to fight those commies over there so we wouldn't have to fight them over here? Nope. He actually received two draft deferments while attending college. Which means some other poor kid who didn't have the chance to go to college had to take Rudy's place in the draft.

Giuliani graduated in 1968. The TET offensive was raging through the first half of 1968, so Giuliani, being all pro military and gung ho to fight in quagmires, must have immediately put his law career on hold and volunteered to pick up a rifle and put his life on the line for freedom and democracy... right? Wrong... and if you for one second really thought that Giuliani would actually volunteer to help beat back those Godless commies in the TET offensive Rudy needs you to get back on the phone bank for him right away, and stop reading blogs like Club Lefty in between the calls!

Since Rudy would not volunteer, and he was not in college anymore, he was rated 1-A, available for military service and subject for the draft. Rather than taking his chances in the draft however Giuliani wrote to the draft board requesting a deferment, which was promptly denied. So Giuliani was drafted, rose in rank to major, led a squad of delta force in a counter attack on an entire division of NVA man eating tiger mounted Ninja's, was severely wounded and captured, busted out of the Hanoi Hilton by making a rope out of his own tendons while rescuing John McCain in the process... (in an alternate universe populated mainly by Republican koolaid drinkers. If you follow the science of string theory I'm sure you're with me to this point.)

Actually, in the real world, Giuliani was not drafted. He was a clerk for the U.S. District Court for Southern New York, and he had his boss write the draft board to have Giuliani declared exempt as a 2-A, essential employee. In other words, Giuliani was forced to not join the military because the entire system of American jurisprudence would have crumbled to dust if not for the mighty efforts of Giuliani as a clerk in the District Court for Soutern New York. Or something like that.

We Giuliani's record of deferments and draft dodging is typical of the big wig Republican politicians who now support the Iraq debacle. What is not typical is his decision to attack Hillary Clinton for doing her job as a U.S. Senator, and unfairly linking her to the Moveon ad. By demanding she apologize to the military and purporting to be the mouthpiece for our forces on the ground I think Rudy's record in this regard deserves special scrutiny. Frankly Giuliani's record of military service is hardly inspirational. I think the nation has about had it's fill of old Republican warmongers who gamed the system to the best of their ability in order to avoid service during the great quagmire of their generation.