Maybe you're wondering whether people will recognize the true implications of Kerry's 1971 testimony before congress where he said that after-action reports were inherently reliable, and you're trying to come up with some Nuance to explain away the those implications since your man's tale relies so heavily (and sarcastically) on those very reports now.

Mitch, I'm feeling just fine.

What I wonder is how you feel when you read things like this:

"Let’s talk a minute about John Kerry and George Bush and I know them both. And I’m not name dropping to say I know ‘em both. I got a young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov. of Texas and I’m not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do, when you're in office you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard and I’m very sorry about that and I’m very ashamed and I apologize to you as voters of Texas."

--Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes (D-TX)

Now, not for nothing, but at least John Kerry served. He didn't get his daddy's friends to help him out of Vietnam. And George--well, he did.

I personally don't care what people did in 1970. My own father managed to get into the Guard, and I've defended that decision before. But if we're going to have a debate about who served their country better during Vietnam, John Kerry is going to win.

Incidentally, was George W. Bush lying when he said he tried to get assigned to Vietnam? Or was he lying in 1990, when he said he joined the guard because it beat "blow[ing] his eardrum out"?

My understanding is that 1) Kerry did everything possible -- short of going to Canada -- to avoid serving until the last minute, then chose a mode of service he thought would be safe, only to have the nature of swift boat duty change to become more dangerous, and 2) The type of training Bush chose could easily have gotten him shipped to Vietnam for duty, but the type of aircraft he trained on was later de-emphasized by the brass.

The bigger point is that Bush has never held himself out to the world as a hero of battle. Kerry has based his entire campaign on it.

Many people decided Kerry was the way to beat Bush because 1) he's a decorated hero who 2) is anti-war. It took an anti-war (appeasement) candidate to win the primary. The party faithful thought that the trappings of a war hero would attract (dupe) the swing voters.

The swing voters have been influenced by the swift vet campaign, and rightly so because it's pack of lies. Without the swing vote, no victory. Without victory, FOUR MORE YEARS. Which, for Mitch's hypothetical Ivy Leaguer, is the worst possible outcome. (Heh.)

I believe Kerry is fatally damaged at this point. People who put their faith him have to have a sick feeling in their guts.

Let's see, Kerry was an officer in the Naval Reserves. He volunteered for service in Vietnam (the quote is, "I request service in Vietnam), served one tour on a ship in-theatre and four more months on a Swift boat.

So did Bush want to go to Vietnam? Well, here's what he told the Houston Chronicle in 1990:

"I didn't want to blast my ear out with a shotgun or go to Canada, so I decided to better myself by learning to fly airplanes."

Sure doesn't sound like a guy trying to get to Vietnam, now, does it?

But of course, arguing about who "wanted" to go to Vietnam is silly. John Kerry actually went there. George W. Bush did not. If Bush wanted to go to Vietnam he could've.

One more thing:

"The swing voters have been influenced by the swift vet campaign, and rightly so because it's pack of lies."

It is a pack of lies, and nice of you to note it.

Oh, for what it's worth, in recent polling 24% of Americans think Kerry's medals were received falsely.

50% think Bush is behind the Swiftie lie campaign.

Ultimately, who is this going to hurt more? The slandered, or the slanderer?

Kerry's dent is temporary. And Bush loses come November.

Has any one ever looked into how JFK got into the naval reserve. Democrats assume it was strictly on his own merits-----He has Forbes for a middle name--he had Kennedy connections. It would be very interesting to see his application and to see the time frame laid out. How much time elapsed between the draft board turning down his request for a year in Paris and his acceptance in the Naval Reserve. Those were sought after spots too, did he jump the line also.

If you're interested in reading a conservative editorial from a liberal college newspaper--yes, I said conservative editorial--check out www.wallpaperforwindbreakers.blogspot.com and read the post titled "keeping it local."

I don't know how much longer Kerry is going to be able to keep running from all of the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth by trying to throw everything back on the president. Well, I guess he probably can hide under a rock since the media doesn't seem too intense on asking the tough questions or asking for an explanation. If Bush was in Kerry's shoes you know that the media would already have had him hung by now.

Inherently UNreliable, of course. Drat.

Notice all the folks on the thread trying to change the subject, from the SwiftVets to the National Guard. There's a familiar tactic. Quiz: which candidate once said "Bring. It. On." when predicting questions about his service, and which candidate has not made his service an issue in any way?

Which candidate has had the most skeptical attention paid to his service: the one who won't shut the hell up about it, or the one who never talks about it?

Another perspective that shows brilliantly why Jeff is on the wrong side of history.

http://www.democracy-project.com/archives/000464.html

I assume all the pro-Kerry posters voted against the draft dodger and for GHW Bush in '92 and Dole in '96? No?
Kerry's defenders seem to have gone, in a few months, from pointing out his battle experience and decorations to a fall back position that he at least volunteered to go Vietnam. Fine. Given. Bush's battle experience is zip compared to Kerry's. How does this qualify him for the presidency? You can go down to any VFW hall or veteran's hospital and find people that can match or exceed Kerry's battle experience, but that doesn't mean that they should be president.
Maybe there's a case to be made that Kerry should be elected because of he is a tireless fighter for civil rights, for a fair shake for America's workers, or for national energy independence, but he hasn't been making that the major part of his campaign. If he doesn't do something to change the direction of his campaign quickly he's lost.

If I were the Democrats I wouldn't be in a hurry to use quotes from former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes. At one point in his career he was the "Golden Boy" of the Democratic Party in Texas and was being promoted for higher office. Unfortunately, he and some of his fellow polticians in Texas got caught in a kick back scandal. Some were prosecuted and some like Ben were able to slip buy under the legal radar. Later after his political career had ended due to the above mentioned scandal, he got caught in some shady mall promotion schemes with his longtime business partner Herman Bennett. I am going from memory on all of this and have not taken the time to look up the details but to the best of my recollection these scandals involved the Sharpstown Bank in Texas along with something to do with milk subsidies. I also have first hand knowledge that Mister Barnes was a bigger skirt chaser than Jack Kennedy or Bill Clinton.
I was really suprised to see his name pop up anywhere much less in a quote about President Bush. I thought he had long ago faded into a well deserved obscurity. Maybe he is trying to make a comeback. If so he can bring a wealth of experience in dirty dealings to politics.

Ray, here's hoping our guys can avoid smearing Barnes. Leave that kind of clep to Kerry's people.

"What are you thinking now?"

My guess is that the foundations are withstanding the shockwaves just fine.
Why?

Because of Kerry's incredible charisma and personable charm. He is so erudite and both he and John Edwards have great hair.
Nah! The Kerry Kamp is fine....just fine.
I SAID THEY'RE FINE, MAN!

Pink: Who spiked the John Kerry Kool-Aid?

I think its fine that President Bush was in the national guard and didn't want to go to Vietnam. It doesn't bother me one bit if all the things they say about him are true, either. If he was a party animal, if he was afraid to go to vietnam, if his dad pulled strings for him to avoid going, if he missed some service time in Alabama to work on a campaign. None of that bothers me because it was over 30 years ago and President Bush isn't focusing on it as a qualification for him to be re-elected as President.

Kerry is focusing on 3 decades ago. Kerry is reporting for duty. Kerry is showing home videos of his time in vietnam. Kerry is showing up at every campaign stop with a band of brothers. His current credentials are that the fought bravely in vietnam three decades ago and had the courage to oppose the war once he got home. Fine. If those are the credentials he wants to run on, let's look at them.

President Bush will be running on his last four years in office. Jeff and his friends have lot's to talk about concerning the Presidents last four years in office. Imagine if the President decided to focus on three decades ago? People would say, "He's trying to take the attention off of his failures of the last four years!"

John Kerry served in vietnam for four months. He served in the military, honorably, for a lot longer. That's his focus and we will criticize what he wishes to focus on.

President Bush has been the commander in chief for the past four years. That's his focus and he will be criticized on what he's done.

If you ask me, there's no question who is the better candidate here. The one who is focusing on the present, not the one who is focusing on his past.

    Actually, all three citations are on Kerry's website.

    Two are in the military documents subsection about the silver star.  The third citation (first, chronologically) is in the section labeled "awards."  I have no idea why it's separate from the other two, but it IS there.

Any alert, intelligent reader would have to conclude from the shrieking calumny now emanating from the Democratic Party and its media lapdogs, that the Kerry campaign has made McGovern, Mondale, and Dukakis look presidential. When its supporters have to reach back to LBJ's little pet yorkie, long since buried in the political graveyard, for a quote about something not part of the record and long since dismissed, only more portrays the extent to which John Kerry's swift boat has sunk. All that is left is the debate about the depth of the river and the flowrate of bilge through the barge.

The people now know what we have here is a man without virtue living a life without principle. Parading his military "machismo" was a disaster, for the record itself belies it, and he will pay with defeat at the polls, massively. And deservedly so. No wild-eyed liberal pansy can get elected in this country, especially not with boots on the ground in Iraq. It's all about party fundraising now, and whether John Kerry can save some semblance of his political career, not to mention his dignity, which is now solely dependent on how many fools he can persuade to run into his burning house.

It is incomprehensible, even to those long drunk at the bar, that John Kerry would finagle his way both in and out of military service in record time, turn on his fellow soldiers by joining the communist left, negotiate illegally as a naval reserve officer with the enemy in Paris, and still have the gall to insist that his service--both during and after his 4 months in Vietnam-- was "honorable."

That this "hero" must lower the standard for honor, military or otherwise, to provide a platform for his candidacy only defines the intersection of his conceit and deceit, nothing more. We are not persuaded. We are appalled.

We will not abide it.

From that Sun-Times report:

Reporting by the Washington Post's Michael Dobbs points out that although the Kerry campaign insists that it has released Kerry's full military records, the Post was only able to get six pages of records under its Freedom of Information Act request out of the "at least a hundred pages" a Naval Personnel Office spokesman called the "full file."

What could that more than 100 pages contain? Questions have been raised about President Bush's drill attendance in the reserves, but Bush received his honorable discharge on schedule. Kerry, who should have been discharged from the Navy about the same time -- July 1, 1972 -- wasn't given the discharge he has on his campaign Web site until July 13, 1978. What delayed the discharge for six years? This raises serious questions about Kerry's performance while in the reserves that are far more potentially damaging than those raised against Bush.

----

Got an email today from a reader in a town where the military stores much of their records. Buzz is that they have plenty of Kerry records they're ready to release that have been kept locked up tight.

Mitch, I hope it bothers you to know that I'm looking forward to their release even more than you are. I've worked with military records for over fifteen years, helping vets make the transition to civilian employment, and I've got a pretty good idea of what they've been sitting on.

You see, I also work with a few former Cambodian refugees, and most of our documentation on that war has been kept under lock and key for over thirty years.

You're not going to be one bit happy when those records come out. Not a bit.

Oh, and I'm looking forward to your response to my initial salvo in our debate over John Kerry's war service. Let me know if you didn't get it — I'd be glad to send it again (and again).

A reader "in a town" where military records are stored?

Wow. I grew up "in a town" through which nuclear weapons routinely transited. I'll have to try my hand at building a Mark 12 warhead! Is this the same reader who told you Karl Rove was behind Dean's implosion in Iowa?

I'm sure the rumor mill is chock full of storehouses full of documentation of Kerry's veracity. I'll wait to see it.

Yes, Mark, I got your email. I'll be responding shortly, but I've been busy this weekend, with the NARN broadcast at the fair. I'm fried, and what little energy I have is going toward blogging for tomorrow.

I said it would be a low priority for me, and I meant it. But I'll answer.

Jeff:

So many strawmen, so little time.

"Let's see, Kerry was an officer in the Naval Reserves. He volunteered for service in Vietnam (the quote is, "I request service in Vietnam), served one tour on a ship in-theatre and four more months on a Swift boat."

Right. The first tour "in theatre" was on a destroyer that steamed roundy-rounds a hundred miles off the coast, except for a brief port-of-call in Da Nang. The crew of the Gridley fairly well roasted Kerry's account of his liberty call in Da Nang - I wrote about this a while ago. My uncle, by the way, got a Vietnam Service Ribbon for serving "in theatre". On a nuclear attack submarine. The crew may have seen Vietnam through the periscope, but as I recall, my uncle regarded that "tour of duty" as a bit of a joke. Kerry is being intensely disingenuous to claim it as a "Vietnam Tour of Duty" (as Brinkley calls it); I'd like to dare him to call it such to an infantryman.

And when Kerry volunteered for "Swift Boats", it was VERY cushy duty; the closest one could get to emulating John F. Kennedy without actually getting shot at. The job changed while Kerry was in PCF training, of course - and the Swifties have some interesting allegations about how Kerry reacted when word filtered back that PCF crews were actually getting shot at.

"So did Bush want to go to Vietnam? Well, here's what he told the Houston Chronicle in 1990:

"I didn't want to blast my ear out with a shotgun or go to Canada, so I decided to better myself by learning to fly airplanes.""

Right. Now, the same remark, IN context. He was joking. Don't like the joke? Fine, but trying to make it into an indictment of Bush's character is disingenuous enough for...well, for Josh Marshall to run it!

"Sure doesn't sound like a guy trying to get to Vietnam, now, does it?"

No, but then, the fact that he volunteered for a squadron that:
a) had many pilots sent to Vietnam when the
F102 WAS being pressed into service as
a ground-attack plane, before and during
Bush's tour, and
b) volunteered specifically for a Vietnam tour
but was turned down due to the F102's
obsolescence, Bush's low hours in plane
and the run-down in the war

...pretty much quibosh that little slur.

"Kerry's dent is temporary. And Bush loses come November."

More Koolaid at table six!

Oh, yeah...

"Oh, for what it's worth, in recent polling 24% of Americans think Kerry's medals were received falsely.

50% think Bush is behind the Swiftie lie campaign."

I imagine if you poll among people who get all their news from newspapers and the networks, the numbers are even better for Kerry. People with no frame of reference in anything but the slanted, misleading information the media puts out probably WILL believe Kerry's tripe.

Problem is, that number is shrinking. In my heart of hearts, I have to hope the American people aren't stupid enough to vote for John Kerry.

I have faith.