Pataki Chickenhawk Legacy Continues

I'm not sure whether this should be filed under (the usual) "Hypocrites R' Us, The Republican Superstore" or "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

It seems that New York Governor George Pataki's son, Teddy, was recently commissioned as an officer in the Marines but – and you could count with an egg timer how long this would take – the Fortunate Son has requested a three-year deferment so he can serve in the trenches of Yale Law School.

This is just another example of the Republican party's special brand of hypocricy and their historical tendency to fight wars with everyone's kids but their own. It's especially galling when you consider how Pataki spent the 2004 presidential campaign – bashing a legitimate war hero like John Kerry at every turn and praising George W. Bush's courage in invading Iraq.

Just so your own boy doesn't have to go right, George? Does anyone think the governor hasn't already made a lot of calls to grease the skids on this one?

But then, the Governor is also a proud member of the Republican Chickenhawk Brigade, having avoided service in Vietnam by claiming poor eyesight. It should also be embarrassing to the president, given his stirring call to service in his speech last week. It should embarrass him, but it probably won't.

Columnists are already weighing in. The wonderful Sheryl McCarthy of Newsday says "... I would be really mad if 22-year-old Pataki, whose father is Gov. George Pataki, got to skate through the next three years of the Iraq conflict in law school." It is, she says, ".. another example of how politicians wage war but expect other people's children to fight them."

So true, so true. But, as the saying goes, like father, like son.