Hyman & the Hypocrisy

We’re always amused when Mark Hyman seems so woefully unaware of his own hypocrisy.

A wonderful case of this is his most recent attack on John Kerry. Suddenly acknowledging that Kerry deserves credit for joining the Navy and serving his country (a shocking admission, given the ongoing character assassination Hyman has waged over the last week), Hyman says that it’s not Kerry’s service that’s in question, but his statements about it after the fact that raise issues of his character.

The “evidence” of this is an article written at the time of Kerry’s testimony before Congress in 1973 in which he says he joined the Navy because he had been informed by his draft board that he would likely be drafted. What angers Hyman is that he believes Kerry has made himself out to be a hero when in fact all he did was act out of fear of the draft.

Well, we could begin by saying that Kerry has himself said he wasn’t any more heroic than anybody else who served. We could also point out that Kerry didn’t need to volunteer for Swift Boat command, and could have stayed miles and miles away from the conflict if he had wanted to. We could also point out that no matter what Kerry’s motivations for enlisting, his actions while in country speak for themselves.

But we’re just wondering: what does Hyman have to say about his candidate of choice, George W. Bush? We know that he got a coveted spot in the Air National Guard thanks to family connections, but has claimed that no strings were pulled. We know that he refused to take a mandatory flight physical, and has lied about his reasons for doing so. We know he claimed to have fulfilled his guard service in Alabama, but that no one remembers him being there, and Bush himself can’t remember what he did during the time he was supposedly there (although he can apparently remember the exact percent of the vote the candidate he was campaigning for received). We know that Bush allowed the Air Force to squander more than a million dollars in training expense, only to back out of his commitments. (See “The Top 10 Lies Bush Told About His Military Service” here.) And we know that after all this, as Commander in Chief, he pulled the photo-op stunt of all time by dressing up in a flight suit and being shuttled unnecessarily to the deck of an aircraft carrier on a warplane, strutting around the ship in costume before declaring “mission accomplished.”

Remind us again, Mark: who’s distorting their service record to satisfy their lust for elected office? We’re just wondering.

And that’s The Counterpoint.