Haley Barbour, skipping the draft. Anyone know?

[Grins]

I keep a couple of files for my own use. One of them is titled, “Republican Family Values”, and the other, “Who served in the military?” As you can imagine, in the latter, Democrats do, and Republicans don’t. A favorite line in one of the entries is by Peter Beinert of The New Republic of May 10, 2004. It’s from his column titled, “Two countries. I thought you might find it interesting.

“In 1975, James Fallows wrote a famous essay for The Washington Monthly titled, "What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy?" In it, he recounted taking a bus to the Boston Navy Yard with other Harvard students drafted to serve in Vietnam. Soon after, another bus pulled up, this one filled with draftees from the working-class town of Chelsea. The Harvard students brought medical records carefully manipulated to show they were unfit to serve - and roughly 80 percent returned to campus "as free individuals, liberated and victorious." The draftees from Chelsea, by contrast, "walked through the examination lines like so many cattle off to the slaughter." Fallows remembers the moment the military doctor wrote "unqualified" on his folder. "I was overcome by a wave of relief, which for the first time revealed to me how great my terror had been, and by the beginning of the sense of shame which remains with me to this day."

Now, moving on... I was doing some Google research on whether to add Haley Barbour to my other file, “Republican Family Values”, and I came across this sentence:

“In the fall of 1968, (Haley) Barbour skipped the first semester of his senior year at the University of Mississippi and worked for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign.”

Hmmmm. Anyone know how Barbour lucked out (Hey, stop that laughing!) by not being drafted the second he left Ole' Miss.? A whole lotta’ others weren’t so lucky with their draft boards. The U. had to notify his draft board, so WTF? Maybe the Guard was “full” with those lucky minorities as it was in Texas for Tom “Hooters Man” Delay?

<http://www.wmcstations.com/Global/story.asp?S=1511590>

[Lefty48197]

1. Maybe he went to 'bama and joined the national guard?

I hear they were pretty "liberal" with their attendance policies.