You can go down the ticket to some of the more important Senate and even House races to see the same phenomenon. Just a coincidence, I'm sure, that these have been the elections in which people born in the 18 years after WWII have been dominant both as voters and as candidates.

George W. Bush served heroically in the Texas Air National Guard.  Served beer and whiskey, that is.

I wouldn't read too much into this apparent trend.

Kerry was a twit.  When he came out "reporting for duty" he looked like Shirley Temple in "The Good Ship Lollipop."  Not to mention that he had built his career on the reputation of his buddies, repudiating his war service, and accusing many of his fellow sailors and soldiers of atrocities.  Kind of nullifies your war hero status when you do that.

bob Dole never had a chance of winning, as he and everyone knew.  He was running against a young, popular incumbent.  And, charming as Bob Dole is-- smart, witty, and dry-- he was showing his age and seemed less vital than McCain does now.

It is a lie, Michael Crowley, that Bush did not have military service.  In fact, as an Air National Guard pilot flying the quite hazardous F-102, his service was more dangerous than Al Gore's time as a Army journalist in Saigon.  Your ignorance about the military and the ANG is showing.  Please quit perpetuating this libel against Bush and everyone who has served in the ANG.

As to Bush I, he lost through a combination of ambivalence, not taking the Clinton challenge seriously enough, and because Ross Perot created a giant sucking sound that siphoned off votes that would otherwise for the most part gone to the GOP.

McCain's big advantage from his military service is that it underlines that he is an honorable man of long, relevant experience.  In contrast to the various problems in this regrd of both Democratic candidates.

Well, Rhubarbs.  But, let's not forget the spectacular overthrow by James Webb in VA.

Oh god don't Stgla. You'll only get Chan worked again and he's going to sprain something trying to defend the indefensible.

Stoller makes a good point, but I wonder if his military service will be more appealing in 2008 than it was in the 2000? McCain did speak up and criticize Rumsfeld in a very public way, and he also tied himself to the surge heading into this election. If he can convince enough voters that progress is being made in Iraq, then he gets to be on the “good” end of this long war and claim that his deep ties to the military gave him special foresight. Clearly you have to tilt your head and squint to see things this way, but as Kerry defeat among national security voters demonstrates, spin can trump facts.

Being a war hero doesn't get you elected, but I do think that it gets his foot in the door. That said, I think McCain is weak in many other areas, and the country seems to be trending leftwards on foreign policy in general. Either democrat could outmaneuver him here by placing their emphasis on pragmatism, restraint, and vigilance, and Obama will also be able to claim that he possess foresight, although in a different way.

If we can survive the primary, we're in shape in spite of McCain's strengths.

Too late.

And 1972!

channy, channy, channy, you know and I know full well that for Bush strings were pulled so that he could join the guard and thereby avoid service in Vietnam. If you can't see the wrongness in that, that perhaps some other man has died in his place, a place that would have been his if he had been subject to the normal rules of the draft then I give up. You can apply all the misdirection you want, make it about other issues but that is the fact. If Bush had joined the Air force as a full time officer, subject to being shipped whereever everyone else was than his service would and must be viewed as honorable. Who knows, he might have been shipped to Turkey or Germany, regardless no one could say anything, but he didn't do it. I myself admit that if I were given the choice then to fly or to perhaps slog it out in some Vietnam jungle I would have chosen to fly in a heartbeat, especially since I could do it from the comforts of my own home part time. But I wouldn't have been given that choice, it is only because I was born at a much later time I avoided it.

Of course, anyone today who volunteers to serve in any capacity in any service is doing an honorable service to the country, regardless of the danger.

Chan, as someone who clearly admires military service, where you not disgusted that a man's medals were called into question? Shouldn't you trust the military panel who awards these medals? Isnt' it there call and not Fox news?

You defend Bush's service but call Kerry a coward.

Are you even aware how hypocritical this is?

by the way, Gore actually did win. He blew the post election big time, he should have demanded a statewide recount from day one instead of trying to cherry pick counties. that and that stupid butterfly ballot  killed him. Frankly the will of the voters didn't prevail in that case, but that is not to say the Bush won in any sense other than a technicality.

Chan, again that's a bit too dismissive of Kerry, who after all should get the minimum benefit of the doubt as to an honest expression of how he felt at the time.  In fact, Kerry's great error (leaving aside the alternately wooden and perky delivery of key lines and a great and wondrous inability to tell a joke) was failing to integrate both his war service and his post-service activist opposition into a story that Americans could make sense of.

I't seems to me he was afraid of giving the Bushies a target to shoot at, when in fact trying to play up Vietnam while playing down his anti-war position gave them that target.  It seems to me that if he had made that connection between both segments of his biography -- showing that the two were not diametrically opposed -- the Swift Boat Venom Patrol would have had a much harder job to smear him.

I think we would have done well with Kerry over the last four years:  Iraq, Katrina, WoT, immigration reform all come to mind.

McCain's problem isn't a lack of relevant experience, it's the fact he's running without a platform. Other than "victory" in Iraq, which he can't bother to define, what is he running on? Not rolling back the Bush tax cuts? Not getting involved in the financial crisis? He's on the wrong side of every issue, no amount of foreign cred can change that fact. Unless he puts together some kind of real strategy for solving the country's problems, he's going to lose, I see no other scenario.

Kerry had every right to denounce the war.  It was his denouncing fellow servicemen for atrocities that he never documented that was over the line.

Blackton, show me the documentation that strings were pulled to put Bush in the ANG.  

In any event, he did not have a patriotic obligation to opt for the six-year full time service obligation that an Air Force or Navy pilot had to make in that era.  

He served a year getting his flight training from the regular AF.  Then he had a six year obligation as a National Guardsman.  That means he was subject to being called to active duty on a moments notice at any time for six years.  A big thing to have over your head, and highly honorable as an obligation.

You lie, and lie again, and lie over and over in denying this fact.  And you are libeling every other ANG member of the entire Vietnam era as a shirker.

It's simply not true.  If you can show that Bush got into flight duty in the Guard ahead of someone else, then show it.  That's a bad mark against Bush.  But, even if he did, he was still subject to all the obligations I just cited.

Not to mention, that Bush was a very good pilot.  Otherwise they would not have had him flying the tricky and dangerous F-102.  Something else I documented for you and which you choose to ignore.

If, as alleged, but which has never been proved, Bush skipped duty during his ANG time, that obviously goes against him as well.  But, he still could have been called to active duty.

Whatever he did, even if his service was flawed-- and you haven't proved it-- he didn't dodge the draft as Clinton did.  He didn't write, as Clinton did, that he "loathed the military".  And he subjected himself to danger and obligations that the majority of his generation did not.  

There have been guys in the military serving in wartime who screwed up, went to the brig, even got busted for AWOL.  Then went on to be injured or killed in battle.  They still got the medals and honors they deserved, whether sometimes delinquent or not.

As an officer, G. Bush had an obligation to set a good example and nort screw up.  I don't know if he lived up to that or not, given all the crossfire of accusations.

But, I do know, that as a fighter qualified Air Force trained pilot serving and signed up for the ANG he proved himself to be highly skilled and  was subject to call-up to active duty at any time.

Such service is considered by all who know anything about the military, and by the military itself, as equally honorable to a full term of service of six years.  As a member of the Reserve or the ANG, you are backstopping the military for emergencies.  

The National Guard is a tradition of honor that goes back to our very origins.  And is enshrined, among other places, within the Second Amendment, that cites the need to maintain a militia.  

The National Guard IS the militia.  As anyone who does not willfully maintain their ignorance would know.

Iggy Pop  writes, "...were you not disgusted that a man's medals were called into question? Shouldn't you trust the military panel who awards these medals?  You defend Bush's service but call Kerry a coward."

I didn't call Kerry a coward.  I said he betrayed his fellows, not by denouncing the war, but by accusing former comrades of atrocities before a Senate panel.  And never providing proof.

As to his medals, I himself disowned them when he threw them over the White House fence.

blackie, it is ridiculous to keep bringing up the Florida vote.  It was a statistical tie.  Nobody won, and they didn't have sufficiently precise means of vote counting to ever fully prove which candidate won.

Although, and this is repeatedly ignored, the New York Times itself in its long follow up investigation never found evidence that Gore had won.  And no recount of any kind that was done ever put Gore ahead.

TYPO CORRECTO:  "As to his medals, he himself disowned them when he threw them over the White House fence."

I/he!!  Wow, that was a startling slip, Chan.

Anyhow, I've read and taken note of your defense of Bush and your hostility to arguments that ultimately imply that all ANG personnel were trying to get out of deployment.

I've read and taken note of your position on Kerry.

And it seems to me that you want it both ways.  My impression is -- but I could be wrong -- that you consider the attacks on Bush's record completely illegitimate while arguing that anything goes with Kerry.  There's something about this I'm not keen on, that smacks of double standards.

In fact, it goes further.

The attacks on Kerry by the Swift Boaters and their ilk were not *just* attacks on his anti-war advocacy when he came out of the Navy -- which would be fair game, I think, and it would be Kerry's job to convince the voters that he had done the right thing.  No.  They were aimed at denigrating his entire military record, including completley wild and undfounded suggestions that his decorations were fraudulent or unearned.  Including accusations that he had shot an unarmed VC in cold blood.  Including accusations that he lied about the nature of the exchange for which he was awarded the Silver Star.  Etc etc.

Possibly one of the reasons for the attacks by the Swift Boaters was the perceived potential disadvantage of a president who had remained in the U.S. during the conflict and a militaristic VP who had not served at all when he'd had the opportunity himself.  I don't know.  Despite the fact that the bulk of the those who had served directly with or under Kerry described the SB's stories as complete garbage, they were slurped up by the conservative hate machine.  

My own general position is that that there is no reason to try and dig up dirt about Bush's ANG service, and his record stands as that of a man who didn't push to get to Vietnam but who was doing a relatively risky job flying military jets and was, also, subject to potential deployment.  Likewise, Kerry's war record is genuine whether you like the guy or not, and to attack his anti-war advocacy by way of dragging his war service in the mud with fraudulent cooked-up stories and wild accusations (which is exactly what the SBs did) is worth some despising.

OK Chan, I can understand that, I don't agree with it but it has a certain ideological purity to it. I thought you were one of those Swiftboat fans.

I assume you condemn that particular inglorious Republican episode?

irony, I think your defense of Kerry is fair minded and reasonable.  And, I respect that you seem to agree with my position on Bush.  Or, put it this way, I agree with your position on Bush's service as you succinctly described it here.

I confess, I have not watched any of the Swift Boat spots in their entirety.  I'm not familiar with all their charges.  I'm sure, given that it was agit-prop to a certain degree, not wholly even-handed and fair to the senator.

I will once more defend Kerry's right to oppose the war in Vietnam.  He was there.  He saw it.  He certainly had standing to denounce it.

Where he went over the line, and where he angered many people, and what I believe at least partly motivated the Swift Boaters who were themselves veterans of the same war and theater is:  John Kerry, before congressional committees, grandstanded on the backs of his fellow servicemen.  He accused many of having committed atrocities.  But, he never produced the evidence.

He just threw the bucket of tar over the bleachers filled with a lot of guys serving over there.

You could certainly characterize that as akin to McCarthyism, as when McCarthy charged wildly and in general that the Army was filled with communists.

Kerry came back with a chest full of medals.  I am sure he earned them.  He threw those medals over the White House fence, essentially disavowing them.  His democratic right, well within the bounds, and he earned the right.

Where he went out of bounds and away from permissible civil discourse was in demonizing his fellows under oath in front of Congress.

Many believe he did it for his political advancement.  It is at least a fair suspicion.  

Chan -- my point, I think, is that it's one thing to condemn, in the strongest terms, somebody's actions and words after they left the military.  It's quite another, however, to attack those actions and words by insinuating and/or declaring on the flimsiest of evidence (or indeed none) that that individual's military career itself was marked by fraud, cowardice, and corruption.  You may not see a difference there.  I do.

I would note that -- to the best of my knowledge -- Kerry did not reply in kind and never attempted to denigrate his opponents in that way.

As it's not unconnected to the broader issue, it was also pretty cringe-making the way Republicans deliberately misinterpreted Kerry's phrase "a smarter, more sensitive war on terror" as meaning "sensitive" in the sense of emotional acuity and feminine empathy.  It was quite clear that he meant "sensitive" in the sense of attuned to finer detail, digging into the micro-level with targeted methods rather than large-scale and unproductive action, etc.

I found these both classic touches:  you attack somebody's position by attacking their reputation so you don't have to deal with their position, and you misunderstand a clear English word in order to avoid the debate over the major issue to which that word referred.

"Sensitive" may be a clear English word.  But it is a peculiar usage in the context of a war, irony.  Churchill would never have made that mistake.

bush is constantly berated as being "dumb".  But, Kerry was clear and consistently dumber.

I think "sensitive" is indeed an odd phrasing in that context; 'targeted" would have been much better. I don't remember now whether this statement by Kerry was an off-the-cuff answer to a question or a scripted policy statement.

But ironyroad's point is valid either way. The tactic has been widely used by Republicans (and amplified through repetition ad nauseum by the right wing noise machine). Because it works. Unfortunately. And we've been seeing it more and more in the last few weeks in the Democratic race as well, with the various tempests in a teaspoon that have occurred lately. When tactics like that work, we really do get the result we deserve -- really dumb political discourse.

I think it was a statement in one of the TV debates.  But it doesn't seem to be so relevant whether or not Churchill would have said it.  If Republicans had been out to get Churchill when he said "Never in the history of human conflict has so much been owed by so many to so few," one can imagine the sneering contempt for even a slight complexity of syntax that might demand a little effort.  Everyone knew what Kerry was saying.  They chose either to consider it, or to ignore it by pretending that they didn't know.

Jeff Frey, what you an irony are referring to is the game of GOTCHA.  It is played by politicians on both sides.  But, more importantly, it is played by the media.

All and sundry are constantly on the lookout for a gaffe, a slip, a misspeaking.  In the age first of 24 hr cable and now of the Internet, the least verbal mistake can be fatal.

I think it is blindered of both of you to believe this practice is the exclusive game of either party.  And, more to the point, it is the media that leverages it most thoroughly.

I believe it harks back to Watergate and the immense personal success enjoyed by Woodward and Bernstein.  It's not that they did this trick.  It's that the shortcut to the kind of sleuthing and digging they did, which brought down a president, is Gotcha.  Which can also bring down a politician with a lot less work.

A good example is the "Macaca" incident.  Now, I think that Senator Allen is kind of a boob.  But, in another era, this fatal slip of his would not even have been noticed.

irony, pick another utterance of Churchill's.  The people understood the "few" statement.  I don't think the opposition or the press could have disabused them of their comprehension.

And, before we let Senator Kerry off the hook, he is a terrible communicator.  The American version of a twit.  And, frankly, I don't think the man is very bright.  

Which is why it amused me no end during the 2004 election when Democrats seemed to think him an "intellectual".

Of course the people understood the "few" utterance back in Britain in 1942, Chan, but my somewhat whimsical point was that if today's Republicans had been out to get Churchill, then the complicated syntax would have been an ideal target.

I don't think that Allen's "macaca" comment is analogous.  Kerry's "sensitive" was an odd word choice in the context, agreed, but the matter at hand was a serious one (how and where we fight Islamic terrorism) and everyone knew or should have known that it was serious.  It was perfectly possible to disagree with Kerry on the substance.  His use of "sensitive" was deliberately misunderstood to avoid that discussion.  I don't know how I can make it any clearer.

In contrast, Allen's "macaca" was unmistakably an insult or at least an unfriendly jibe.  It wasn't a matter of misinterpretation, whether deliberate or not.  One can regret that politicians can't be spontaneously aggressive anymore without it appearing all over the civilized world on YouTube, but there is (to me at least) an important distinction to be made between the kind of formal word-choice error that Kerry fell into and the kind of public-interaction misstep that Allen made.

Or, to put it another way, neither Allen's ejaculation (you're a foreigner and you look weird) nor Kerry's comment (we need new thinking and finer micro-targeting to fight terror) could be misunderstood.  So one had to choose to misunderstand Kerry.

irony writes, "...but my somewhat whimsical point was that if today's Republicans had been out to get Churchill, then the complicated syntax would have been an ideal target."

Everybody was out to get Churchill at one time or another.  He was never trusted by the conservatives of the Tory party, which he had abandoned for a time and then returned to.

Mr. Churchill could take care of himself, thank you, and sparred just fine with all and sundry.

Question Time, which I wish we had in Congress, hones top British politicians, most specifically the PM, superbly.  They have actual debates, not fake ones, and every week.

For the record, irony, the "few" speech was made in 1940 after the Hurricaines and the Spitfires won the Battle of Britain against the Heinkels and the Messerschmitts of the Hun.

"So one had to choose to misunderstand Kerry."

irony, you cannot bring effete sensibilities to politics.

When a presidential candidate uses a word, like "sensitive" that in the context of a savage war sounds to most reasonable ears to be a rather ludicrous choice, then, of course, he is going to be attacked for the use of it.

When you speak out on something as central as war policy, you damn well better be precise.  And being precise mean understanding that the word "sensitive" even if not grammatically wrong, sounds way off to most regular folks.  Including this one.

The burden of using the great English language properly, with all its power and nuance, falls to the American politician if he wishes to ascend to that exquisitely high office called the presidency of the United States.

Certainly poor elocution and imprecision has cost George Bush the Younger dearly.  Why should it not be for the Democrats?

CORRECTION:  Question Time does not take place weekly.  It takes place daily, according to Wikipedia, while Parliament is sitting.

Chan -- yes, apologies.  A black-out of some kind occurred as I wrote.  1940 it was, of course.

I think Prime Minister's Question Time is weekly.

Other than that, I reiterate my point that Kerry's bad word-choice was used as a tool to avoid a very necessary discussion.

In fact, we still need -- now, in 2008 -- a smarter and more sensitive war on terrorism.

"And no recount of any kind that was done ever put Gore ahead"

Incorrect, a simple look on google would disprove this Bill O'Reily talking point. Ironically, they discovered Gore would have won if they adhered to the Bush standard and vice versa. In any event, the butterfly, which was a fluke by any standard, gave perhaps 19k votes to Pat Buchanan that should have gone to Gore. By any fair measure of voters intent, Gore won Florida and took the poular vote by 500k.

Well, mpatrickhendri, given that Democrats created the butterfly ballot (which only people in that one county seemed to be flummoxed by), then it's poetic justic that the Dems sowed the seeds of their own loss.

Tell you what:  Give Nixon back the win he ought to have had in 1960 if the Daily machine hadn't stuffed the ballot boxes in Cook County.  

Then we'll see how history meanders.  Think of it, maybe no Vietnam.  Maybe no assassination, no LBJ, on and on.