President Bush is a great American, a great American hypocrite, that is.

My stomach turned last Thursday night as Bush’s jet landed on the USS Abraham Lincoln and America saw him in a flight suit for the first time since he went AWOL from the Texas National Guard more than 30 years ago.

Don’t those cheering sailors – who truly are brave and did serve their country – know that Dubya conveniently sat out the Vietnam War, not as a protester or Rhodes Scholar, but with a rich boy’s “in” to the National Guard? And he couldn’t even hack that for the length of his sign-up, so he went AWOL his last year to run a Republican campaign in Alabama.

He was never punished, as a regular soldier would have been, and even got an “honorable” discharge.

Karl Rove knows that you can’t lose by underestimating the intelligence of the American voter, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing these pictures soon in campaign ads.

Bush was “unelected” in 2000. Shame on him.

If he’s “unelected” again in 2004, shame on us for having an economic, political and class double standard.

All is forgiven if you went to Yale and then pretended that you were in the military – if your father is a rich Republican and former president of the United States.

Beware being a smart boy from Tennessee who went to Vietnam or a Rhodes Scholar (a true intellectual achievement) from Arkansas. Oh, and also a Democrat.

Paul F. Macri, Auburn