European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 3, 1992, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Tuesday november 3, 1992 commentary the stars and stripes b Page 13bush Baker Campaign leaves Trail of lies Anthony Lewis at the end of what has seemed an interminable Campaign we Are left with a question of character How does George Bush live with the knowledge of his disregard for truth in politics even to ask the question May seem naive so cynical have we become about politicians. They All lie Many would say so Why should we expect president Bush s conscience to be troubled ves but. It is right to be sceptical about politicians but surely there is a level of Brazen falsehood that they should be ashamed to breach. That Point was passed by Bush when As vice president he was interviewed by David Broder of the Washington Post on aug. 5, 1987. Broder asked about his role in the Iran Contra affair. Bush answered at length that he was not informed about it until after it ended. A we were not in the Loop Quot he said. There is now a Mountain of evidence that Bush was fully informed about the shipment of arms to Iran in return for the release of hostages. Yet he goes on denying All. How does he meet the eyes of Broder a Man of Honor How does he live with himself then there is Iraq. For years Bush boosted iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Despite repeated warnings that Iraq was acquiring weapons of terror he approved huge loan guarantees. Even when iraqi troops massed on Kuwait a Border he said nothing. Then when Saddam attacked Bush suddenly discovered that the iraqi Leader was a worse than  on talk shows now when he is asked about the cover up of the financing of Iraq Bush says he was just trying to bring Iraq a into the family of nations a and alas the policy did no to work. The hosts do not know enough to press him on Why he said nothing when Saddam massed his troops Why he did not act when warned of the arms buildup or Why he continues to shield the financial mane Vered today. Cynicism has characterized Bush a career in politics for a Long time. He opposed civil rights Laws when he thought that position would Advance him in Texas then switched. He was for abortion then against. He ridiculed what he called Ronald Reagan so voodoo economics a then became a fervent advocate of the same. Truth has been a frequent casualty in his campaigns. In 1988, be used a picture of a waste dump elsewhere to illustrate a television and about Boston Harbor. This time the false advertising has been wholesale. A Bush radio and said that Arkansas gov. Bill Clinton favors a Radical environmental taxes on fuel. Clinton has not advocated any such tax. The main thrust of the entire Bush Campaign this year has been negative a series of efforts to smear Clinton. Bush insinuated that there was something sinister in a trip Clinton made to Moscow As a Young Man. Political types from the state department rummaged through Clinton a passport files a and his mothers. Bush said Clinton had written a letter condemning All the . Military a was  there was no such letter. Some people have asked me Why Bush did not run As the president this year with dignity As Gerald Ford did in 1976, almost winning against the Odds. The answer is that that has never been his style. He is by instinct a negative campaigner. George Bush is and so is his handler James a. Baker Iii. Baker is the invisible Man avoiding responsibility for this Slimy Campaign. But he was the manager when Willie Horton and the fake Boston Harbor flourished in 1988, and he is in charge now. The hands May be the hands of Esau but the voice is the voice of Jacob. C the new York times "hm6t0u6h Oniya Little while More to 60"facts oppose myth that Rich escaped Vietnam scene . Embassy Saigon january 1967. Present ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge and visiting journalist. Hal do you know Mary Mccarthy Vij Well sort of. Hal she was Here with me for three hours this morning. Have you Ever read the group Vij no actually. Hal Well in anticipation of her visit i bought a copy. Now i know alot about sex. But i mean after i read it i had to hide it to keep anybody else from seeing it. But anyway she comes in Here and tells me that of course Only poor boys get to Vietnam and get killed Here. I said to her a How come so Many sons and relatives of my own friends come Here a i can to count the letters in be written to parents and widows. It is a deeply rooted part of the conventional Wisdom that during the Vietnam years All you needed to do to escape service in the military was to be Well born and or affluent. Indeed this was my own impression of reality notwithstanding lodges rebuke and in. An appearance in 1990 on the Macneil Lehrer news program i admitted As much two scholars heard me on the program and have now written that in part because of my subscription to the legend they were prompted to make a scholarly investigation. This they have done and the extensive article reporting their findings appears in the current Issue of the journal operations research. I a. A _ c am it a nos no Macao the authors devised a a disparity score under which �?o0�?� meant that there was no net link Between economic status and casualty rates and �?o1�?� meant that there was a heavy concentration of War deaths among the poor. Their finding the National disparity score for Vietnam was approximately 0.06. This figure suggests the weakest association Between income and per capita casualty rates. Roughly put it suggests that Only six one hundredths of the affluent Young had a safer life Span in Vietnam than their poor counterparts. The importance of these findings is self evident. A if untrue the belief that affluent citizens were conspicuously missing from the Vietnam War dead is harmful to All americans a report says a it demeans the sacrifices of the wealthy by implying that such sacrifices were non existent. It demeans the sacrifices of the non wealthy by suggesting that manipulated and misled they shed their blood in a conflict in which the privileged and influential were in the Bridge and capt. Timothy Stanley with the dept ment of social sciences at the . Military Academy in West Point. N.y., write to Tell me that the main finding of their research was that a variations by income in Vietnam death rates were marginal rather than Gigantic a and thus that they a cannot possibly sustain the rhetoric about a class War indulged in by James Fallows and Many others.�?�. F a the scholarly investigation checked the family incomes of the 58,000 american War dead in Vietnam. William f Buckley or. Eged and influential willing to shed  and this of course has been a postulate of the critics of the Vietnam War for a generation. President Carter candidates Walter Mondale Michael Dukakis and however obliquely Bill Clinton have struck that theme. A full time merchandiser of it has been the scholar journalist Fallows. Fallows has written that with Gold stars going to families in Rural and working class areas a the mothers of Beverly Hills and Chevy Chase and great neck and Belmont were not on the telephones to their congressmen screaming a you killed my  a the scholars report a we found that per capita death rates exceeded the National average in three of the four a upscale communities As did the Overall rate for the  the legend holds that the growing antipathy to the War Felt by americans wealthy class was an aspect of the wars progressive inconvenience in the careers of their sons. The scholars comment a a concentration of casualties among wealthy citizens towards the Start of the War therefore might imply that such citizens rapidly withdrew from participating in the conflict once they ceased supporting it. Date of casualty data indicate however that deaths of servicemen from the richest 10 percent of the nations communities had essentially the same distribution Over time As the deaths of other  it would trivialize the findings of the two researchers to pretend that such devices As Clinton engaged in a in effect the manipulation of academic immunities a were rare. It is unquestionably True that thousands of students perhaps tens of thousands stayed on in College for the primary purpose of avoiding the draft. And among those who fled to Canada there was probably a higher incidence of the relatively wealthy than of the relatively impoverished. But these facts dramatize the findings of Barnett and Stanley. They Tell us that notwithstanding the special protections available to the wealthy on the whole they shed As much blood As the non wealthy. Which Means that Vietnam was indeed an All american Effort and one that some of us contend will one Day take its place in the annals of National nobility a witness to americans disposition to endure special sacrifices in discharge of its heavy International responsibility to contain the movement that brought death oppression and poverty to so Many millions for so Many years. C Universal press Syndicate