Biden received 5 deferments before being declared medically ineligible for Vietnam -- Courant.com

Biden received 5 deferments before being declared medically ineligible for Vietnam -- Courant.com: "Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden received five student draft deferments during the Vietnam War, the same number of deferments received by Vice President Dick Cheney, and later was disqualified from service because of asthma as a teenager.

'As a result of a physical exam on April 5, 1968, Joe Biden was classified 1-Y and disqualified from service because of asthma as a teenager,' said David Wade, a campaign spokesman.

In 'Promises to Keep,' a memoir that was published last year and became an instant best-seller after he was tapped as Obama's running mate, Biden never mentions his asthma, recounting an active childhood, work as a lifeguard and football exploits in high school."

Deferments are bad but only if you're a Republican otherwise you're "bravely dissenting" or "consciously objecting" to an "illegal/immoral war" or something.

Comments

Anonymous said…
A very good friend of mine was trying to get into the Army, but was derailed by a childhood diagnosis of asthma. My buddy never had any symptoms after the age of 14 and never even used his inhaler.

However, because of that diagnosis, he was not allowed to join, and my buddy had to try to get the diagnosis recanted and got sever current bills of good health from doctors. They still wouldn't allow him to serve.
10:37 AM
Paul Smith Jr. said…
My father was rejected by the Marines for bad teeth multiple times and he kept getting work done until they finally gave in.

Jack Kemp was rejected by one of the branches due to health concerns but was healthy enough to play QB for the Buffalo Bills.

But, Joe, Duffy's broader point is that wouldn't this get much broader coverage if Biden were a Republican?
11:28 AM
The Last Ephor said…
Thanks guys for adding perspective. On re-reading my post I think I wasn't clear enough that this post was supposed to be sarcastic. Maybe he had asthma maybe not, I don't know. But I heard an awful lot about everyone else's deferments in the past and I seriously doubt I'll hear word one about Bidens.
1:22 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Feds eye Stevens' home remodeling project

Feds eye Stevens' home remodeling project . Thank God they're going after this guy. He's been so brazen with his porkbarreling and the whiff of corruption around him has been ripe enough to smell from here. I'd rather have a 100% democrat run Congress if they were ethical. Term limits. One term for Senate, two for the House, one for the President. Some fear that would increase the power of lobbyists. Simple, ban any former members from being lobbyists and limit lobbyists to terms as well. (I'm not sure how that would work. Just a thought.) The other answer is transparency. No earmarks without a floor vote. No spending of any kind without a floor vote. All spending committees (intelligence aside) open to the public and recorded and available on the web.
Read more

First, fourth, what's the difference?

Black Pope could follow Barack Obama's election, says US archbishop : "The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American US President could pave the way for the election of the first black Pope, according to a leading black American Catholic." Except that we've had three black Popes already. The last one was 1700 years ago. You'd think he know that. I knew we had them in the past. It took me all of .000048 seconds on Google to find that out.
Read more