If Only It Were A Pop Up Chart

Via TMW we have this great visual guide to Bush's National Guard Service. For those doubters out there, note that this is based only on official documents released by the government. On the one hand we have W. describing himself as "a War President" and on the other we have gaping holes in his guard duty where no one seems to be able to show he actually was there. Now I'm not saying that every president has to be a war hero or even serve in the military at all, but two things strike me about this. First, and I know it's not entirely fair to hold someone up to what they were like thirty years ago but still, do we want a guy that can't stick with obligations? More troubling though is that a senario like that strikes me as someone who was only in the service either because his parents made him, it was the only way to avoid actually going to war, or it was because he knew he'd want to run for office later and felt he had to serve. Maybe I'm being totally unfair, but the fact remains that there is a pretty huge gap in Bush's service where it looks an awful lot like he was just shirking his duties. This doesn't matter nearly as much as his policy failure from his time as president, but it does matter.

Also, go read Drew's post on why this is important since it's better than what I wrote.