The Reliable Source (washingtonpost.com): "An Unguarded Opinion on Fortunate Sons
'Let's not go there,' Secretary of State Colin Powell said three times after Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) raised the flapola over President Bush's military service at a House hearing last week. Responding to Brown's assertion that Bush 'may have been AWOL' from National Guard duty, Powell snapped: 'I won't dignify your comments about the president because you don't know what you are talking about.'
As a Vietnam War vet, perhaps Powell does know what he's talking about. So let's go there -- specifically to page 148 of the hardcover edition of Powell's 1995 autobiography 'My American Journey':
'I particularly condemn the way our political leaders supplied the manpower for that war,' he wrote. 'The policies -- determining who would be drafted and who would be deferred, who would serve and who would escape, who would die and who would live -- were an anti-democratic disgrace. I am angry that so many sons of the powerful and well placed and so many professional athletes (who were probably healthier than any of us) managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units. Of the many tragedies of Vietnam, this raw class discrimination strikes me as the most damaging to the ideal that all Americans are created equal and owe equal allegiance to our country.' "