Draft questions cloud Giuliani’s chances

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(AP)
Rudolph Giuliani in his consulting offices in New York in 2005.

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - If this presidential campaign is anything like the last, John McCain’s Vietnam service will inevitably be contrasted with GOP rival Rudy Giuliani’s avoidance of a war that he opposed.

“Any suggestion that he was dodging the draft is totally, factually inaccurate,” said a senior Giuliani campaign adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. “He opposed the war on tactical and strategic grounds.”

But as far back as 1993, when he successfully ran for mayor of New York, Giuliani has been dogged by accusations that he pulled strings to avoid the draft. By contrast, McCain has long been feted as a bona fide war hero for his harrowing stint in a Vietnamese prison.

Anyone who dismisses the significance of Vietnam as a potential issue in the 2008 campaign is forgetting how surprisingly potent it proved in 2004, when there was enormous interest in the military records of both President Bush and Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts. Four years later, with the nation still at war, Americans likely are to again scrutinize the military records of those who seek the job of commander in chief.

Giuliani, who once said of the Vietnam war, “I disagreed with it,” obtained an occupational deferment in 1969, when he was a law clerk. Although critics say such deferments were rare, the Giuliani campaign disagrees.

“He wanted an occupational deferment, which was very common at the time, because he wanted to be a lawyer,” the Giuliani adviser said.

When Giuliani’s deferment expired in 1970, he drew draft number 308, which was never called. His campaign suggests this proves he was not a draft dodger.

“This is an important point: After his deferment, his name was entered into the lottery — at least once — and he had a high number,” the adviser said.

Related story: Giuliani Says He Would Have Gone to Vietnam

Still, Giuliani has always been politically sensitive to the issue. During his 1993 mayoral campaign, he commissioned a “vulnerability study” that listed “draft dodger” as one of the epithets that might be hurled against him.

In blunt language, the consultants who prepared the study articulated how adversaries might frame the issue.

“Giuliani received special treatment from a friendly federal judge to avoid military service during the Vietnam war, when thousands of less fortunate people were dying,” they wrote. “Then, as a member of the Justice Department, he hypocritically prosecuted draft dodgers.”

Mark Salter, McCain’s chief of staff, said he had “no idea” whether Giuliani’s deferment would become a presidential campaign issue.

“Who knows?” he told The Examiner. “One assumes just about everything these days gets examined.”

He added: “I don’t think McCain would want it to be an issue. I know that sort of suggests a false modesty, but I really don’t.”

The “false modesty” remark was an allusion to the Arizona senator’s extensive military background. The son and grandson of admirals, McCain graduated from the Naval Academy and served 22 years in the Navy, including five and a half as a prisoner of war in Hanoi.

Thus, if Vietnam becomes an issue in the 2008 campaign, McCain might find himself in the role that Kerry had hoped to play in 2004 — unassailable war hero. That status eluded Kerry when his combat record was challenged by Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, who also denounced the Democrat for accusing fellow Vietnam veterans of war crimes.

Giuliani, on the other hand — who had a 2-to-1 advantage over McCain in an ABC poll of Republicans this week — could find his record subjected to the sort of intense scrutiny that Bush experienced in 2004. Some of that scrutiny came from Kerry himself, who questioned whether Bush had fulfilled his stateside duties in the National Guard.

CBS News raised similar questions in a “60 Minutes” broadcast that backfired because the network used documents that could not be authenticated. The ensuing scandal, known as “Memogate,” ended up inoculating Bush against further attacks on his military record.

Swift Boats co-founder John O’Neill said the only reason Vietnam became a major issue in 2004 was that Kerry kept bringing it up.

“I do think Kerry was a special case,” O’Neill said. “Whatever Rudy Giuliani or the rest of these people did or didn’t do in terms of the Vietnam War, I don’t think that’s a legitimate issue in the presidential campaign of 2008.”

During an interview with The Examiner last fall, when he was mounting a second bid for the White House, Kerry said of the Swift Boat Veterans: “I’m prepared to kick their ass from one end of America to the other.” But the senator from Massachusetts later dropped out of the race.

Kerry spokeswoman Amy Brundage said this week that “2008 should be a choice between candidates’ visions on ending the war in Iraq.” She added: “That conversation must not be stolen by partisan front groups [that use] lying, despicable attack ads to smear the records of those who have served in uniform.”

During the Vietnam War, Romney divided his time between college and overseas work for the Mormon church.

“A younger Mitt Romney became eligible for the draft in 1970, but his number was not called in the military draft,” Romney spokesman Kevin Madden said. “During that time, he did spend several years as a missionary for his church in France.”

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was only 14 when the Vietnam War ended. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, as a woman, was not subject to the draft that would complicate her future husband’s White House bid.

John Edwards, who is also running for president, didn’t get many questions about his military record when he was Kerry’s running mate in 2004, thanks to all the focus being on Kerry and Bush.

“I did not serve in the military,” Edwards said in an April 2004 interview with Katie Couric, who then asked if he had a high lottery number.

“I did, and I came after the time that they were actually drafting from the lottery,” he said. “And because [of] the time I came along and graduated from high school and then went to college, I was not drafted.”

bsammon@dcexaminer.com

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432 days ago: Giuliani backs health tax breaks, says Dems support "socialized medicine"

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