Your analysis of Bush v. Clinton and Vietnam shows how blindly devoted to Democrats you really are. When you say, “the fact remains” yet don’t provide empirical data to back it up creates major holes in your premise.
Except that Bush's official OER from 1973 reads, "Officer was not observed at this unit". So where was he?
It's a valid question.
If Bush was factually proven to be AWOL then Rather would have had no reason to act so stupidly.
Except the word AWOL was never used. In fact, AWOL is not a designation the National Guard uses. If he didn't show up for his drill, he would have been marked either an excused absence or an unexcused absence. And if it was the former, then there would be a record of it.
Further, you, like many, laud Clinton for getting out of Vietnam on principle yet trash Bush for getting out and flying planes in the Guard.
I Laud Clinton for standing by his principles of not wanting to fight in a war he didn't support. Bush was all for the war, as long as someone else was fighting it. That's what makes him sort of contemptible.
Objectively, both got out of going to Vietnam with strings being pulled.
Except there were no strings pulled in Clinton's case. In Clinton's case, he was in the Draft Lottery and his number didn't come up. In Bush's case, strings were pulled to get him into a ANG unit, and then he didn't even show up for the drills.
Bush was flying planes and Clinton was protesting against Vietnam in London and Moscow becoming fodder propaganda for the North Vietnamese to shove in the faces of American POWs for torture.
Well, there's no evidence that he protested in Moscow... and somehow, I don't think the Vietnamese lacked for pictures of people protesting that insanely stupid war.
The thing about Vietnam was that the people who started it knew it was unwinnable from pretty much the outset. We'd probably still be fighting it if someone hadn't protested the thing.