Letter: Some pointed questions for the president

Saturday, Dec. 10, 2005 | 7:27 a.m.

I have several questions. But first some background.

In 1939 I watched the movie "The Four Feathers," in which a young Englishman in the 1800s attempts to win back his honor and his lost love after his three best friends and his fiancee each gave him a white feather, a symbol of cowardice.

He had resigned his commission in the army when his regiment was ordered to the Sudan to help put down a native uprising. The young man had been permanently scarred by stories his grandfather told him of the horrors of war.

Shift now to the 1960s, when another young man joined the Texas Air National Guard, a move which pretty much meant he wouldn't have to fly a plane over Hanoi. His father probably told him of his harrowing experiences as a pilot during World War II.

He survived to become president. First question: Did this young man, who later also became president, join the National Guard because he was afraid to face the enemy in Vietnam? If so, he, too, could have rated a white feather.

Democrats galore have excoriated the president for getting us into the war with Iraq, but I have never seen on TV nor read any article where the president was accused of being a coward. Second question: Is it a punishable offense to thusly accuse the president?

If the answer is in the negative, I hope this article doesn't result in the White House being inundated with a host of white feathers.

Fil Cornell

Las Vegas