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On the Bush/AWOL stuff, I am with you. His attendance is now as close to a historical fact as these things get. On Kerry however, I do believe the exposure of his activities is germane for some very important reasons. For one, he has never denounced his antiwar activities of the day, quite the reverse. His political career was launched on the basis of his hostility to the war, the government of the day and not incidentally, the social fabric as it was then conceived. I think this also explains the mad obsession of the Dem/Left with the AWOL slander. It is a pre-emptive counter attack on those too familiar with Kerry's true history.

I don't mean to pick on you, you just happen to have left the first comment. But you sort of make my point. One side says, My Guy didn't do anything wrong, but this Other Guy, he was irresponsible in his actions 30 years ago. The other side says, well, exactly the same thing. If you support Bush, the view is clear. If you support Kerry, your view is clear as well. But those of us who are relatively "neutral" between these two candidates look at both camps and come to a third conclusion. I'm suggesting that, no matter who you support, if you think the other side looks foolish when they manipulate 30 year old data trying to make a point relevant to today ... take a look in the mirror.

Of course it was Kerry who brought up the point that he knew about defense, because he had actually been in a war. That was because the Democrats need to get into the defense and foreign policy game, now that most of America believes we're in a war. Really, Kerry is saying, "I know how to cook because I've been in a kitchen, whereas Bush has only been in a restaurant." While it's true that Kerry's antiwar activities could be chalked up to post discharge cynicism, his liberal voting record has remained unchanged since he entered the Senate. The connection between the two should be obvious.

Your civility is wonderfully charming, considering this is the web. Let me take this opportunity to say, I've been reading you for a little while for a few particular reasons. I think originally I came in through a trackback from Insta, was impressed with the "pixel-pile" in concept and excecution. Also, you are local to me, to my left considerably but obviously not a blind partisan. I thought I should keep an ear to such a voice since such sensible people are so rare in these things. Anyhow, the point above was that the questions are not OBVIOUSLY irrelevant. I wouldn't say out of hand, Bush doesn't need to answer such a charge. Rather that it has been answered. To everyone's satisfaction? Um, well no. But what did happen is the Dems set out what they see as their nuke on the questions of "patriotism" (a concept whose validity I question) which was Max Cleland. As a Ga boy, you are familiar with the man as a political figure. Well, Cleland on whatever talk show, brought up the questions of Guard service and said he assumed that if Bush were present at the time in question, he got paid for it and must have the pay stubs to prove it. My reaction was, who the fuck has thirty year old pay stubs? But the White House almost immediately released the pay stubbs. Did this shut everyone up? Anyone? No. For those who say, that's politics... yes that is true. But to equate the perpetual (apparently) squawk over a charge Bush has refuted EXACTLY THE WAY THE LEADING DEMS DEMANDED HE DO, with examination of Kerry's activities in the 70's that were on the public record, including Congressional testimony is, I think, falacious. The man began his career as a counter-culture figure and though he has certainly mainstreamed in his image, he has never reported any change of heart or even softening of those positions. The man has quite controversial quotes on the public record. Are these off limits because of a ticking clock? No way. I hold Bush to the same standard. Regards and thanks. Ken Watson aka megapotamus

I visit this place for the aesthetics - the snappy photos combined with a non-hysterical view of things. Thanks for providing it. As to the "let's get current" argument, I can't help the contradiction of agreeing with your original statement while simultaneously agreeing with the post by Mr. Watson, above. This will remain an issue until the election's over, and there's not an apparent way to stop that, not even with the excellent 70's analogies in the main article. Sadly, one of the parties (Mr. Bush) is responding with all information requested while Mr. Kerry's been utterly non-responsive to the claims made against him. This seems par for the course, to me. As one only slightly left of center on political issues, I find myself amazed at the reactions to criticism from those on the left and the right - those on the left generally obfuscate, and those on the right generally provide the information in the hope that the truth will end the hubbub. It never, ever does, and I would have been quite happy to have heard BOTH Kerry and Bush ask people to jam the 30 year old stories in their ears. I feel the same about Kerry's alleged intern incident - it just doesn't have anything to do with my judgment of him. The problem, then, is not the fact that old stories are being dredged up, it's that they're being dealt with in an imbalanced way by the two sides, guaranteeing that acrimony and more exposure to this B.S. continues until November.

Reid: I spent 13 years as a Personnel Specialist in the AF Reserve, 8 years directly dealing with attendence paperwork and the management of points and such. I've handled attendence recording till I was so sick of it I had wet dreams of feeding it all into shredders. But it gave me a lot of experience on this, and it's pretty clear when I look at what Bush did that he did his duty as assigned. Bottom line, there's no 'there' there as far as Bush goes. I've tried explaining things on Calpundit, but the folks there resolutely stick their fingers in their ears and continue to ask each other what this or that or something else means. They don't want to hear that there's a right way, a wrong way, and a military way to look at this issue - and that the military way is the ONLY way that's acceptable when it comes to deciding if the military thought his service was honorable or not. As far as Kerry goes - I will admit I look on his website and don't like what I see as his platform - but I won't try to rip & shred him over stuff he did in the 60's and 70s. (And I, for one, pray that if I ever run for office that my EPRs from the '80's never make it on line. I'd be SO damn screwed if they did.) J.