Reporter Stephen Holden reviewed new movie “This Ain’t No Heartland” in yesterday’s New York Times.  This review made me wonder if the movie has fairly portrayed the millions of Americans who live in our smaller towns or is the movie the equivalent of Fox TV reality show. 

Holden writes…”Asked to express their opinions about the war in Iraq, the mostly unidentified subjects of this documentary polemic, "This Ain't No Heartland," are only too happy to make fools of themselves. Their fundamental ignorance of the facts, compounded by their disinterest in knowing more, doesn't prevent them from ...   more »

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This article was adapted by Ian Williams from the book, Deserter: Bush's War on Military Families, Veterans, and His Past. It appeared in The Nation's August 5th issue.

(Note: We will be interviewing Ian Williams on Monday, August 23rd, 2004 at 5:00PM EST about his new book. GS)

Even allowing for the usual military-bureaucratic incompetence, records relating to George W. Bush's National Guard Service have a suspiciously low survival rate, so there has been understandable incredulity about the recent revelation that a crucial quarter's pay records from 1972 did not survive the Pentagon's alleged attempt to transfer the microfilm to a more durable medium. That incredulity was enhanced rather than allayed when they eventually were discovered behind whichever filing cabinet they had been dropped.

At issue is whether Bush was, technically at least, a deserter in his fourth year of National Guard service, when he requested a transfer to Guard duties in Alabama so he could assist a Republican senatorial campaign there.