Cheney: Obama Lied!

[festive1]

Well, here's what I found, all bolded emphasis is mine:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/pol...072899.htm

It was May 27, 1968, at the height of the Vietnam War. Bush was 12 days away from losing his student deferment from the draft at a time when Americans were dying in combat at the rate of 350 a week. The unit Bush wanted to join offered him the chance to fulfill his military commitment at a base in Texas. It was seen as an escape route from Vietnam by many men his age, and usually had a long waiting list.
Bush had scored only 25 percent on a "pilot aptitude" test, the lowest acceptable grade. But his father was then a congressman from Houston, and the commanders of the Texas Guard clearly had an appreciation of politics
...
Retired Col. Rufus G. Martin, then personnel officer in charge of the 147th Fighter Group, said the unit was short of its authorized strength, but still had a long waiting list, because of the difficulty getting slots in basic training for recruits at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio. Martin said four openings for pilots were available in the 147th in 1968, and that Bush got the last one.
... But others say that it was not uncommon for well-connected Texans to obtain special consideration for Air Guard slots. In addition to Bush and Bentsen, many socially or politically prominent young men were admitted to the Air Guard, according to former officials; they included the son of then-Sen. John Tower and at least seven members of the Dallas Cowboys.
...
In an interview, Barnes also acknowledged that he sometimes received requests for help in obtaining Guard slots. He said he never received such a call from then-Rep. Bush or anyone in the Bush family.
However, when asked if an intermediary or friend of the Bush family had ever asked him to intercede on George W.'s behalf, Barnes declined to comment. Kralj, in his deposition, said he could not recall any of the names he gave to Gen. Rose.

Aside from this online article, I consulted some texts I own...
From Present Tense: The United States Since 1945 3rd edition. By: Schaller, Schulzinger, and Anderson. Published in 2004

The wealthy and educated, those most aware of the intricacies of the system, knew best how to avoid the most dangerous duty. The military force that the United States sent to Vietnam consisted disproportionately of men from working-class and poor backgrounds. The best estimate indicates that 25 percent of the force was poor, 55 percent were working class, and 20 percent were middle class.
...
Three-quarters of the 16 million men who did not serve in Vietnam admitted that they had changed their life plans to stay away from Vietnam, and a majority (55 percent) said that they actively took steps to avoid the draft.

And from Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War, 3rd edition. Edited by: Robert J. McMahon. Published in 2003
Excerpt from "What did You do in the Class War Daddy?" by James Fallows from The Washington Monthly, October, 1975.

...buses from the next board began to arrive. These bore the boys from Chelsea, thick, dark-haired young men, the white proles of Boston. Most of them were younger than us, since they had just left high school, and it had clearly never occurred to them that there might be a way around the draft. They walked through the examination lines like so many cattle off to slaughter. I tried to avoid noticing, but the results were inescapable. While perhaps four out of five of my friends from Harvard were being deferred, just the opposite was happening to the Chelsea boys.

The lower classes of society were the ones being drafted to Vietnam. Middle, upper-middle, and the upper classes knew how to work the system to get deferments. Bush is staunchly upper class, his father was a US Representative at the time, he got into a National Guard unit with a waiting list (without waiting, and despite having the lowest acceptable score). Any more dots needed?

ETA: Beaten by Diest, damnit... More succinct and perhaps clearer than my post.