re: #134 Charles Johnson

Exactly, and that’s why the docs actually were important to the story. Without them, it was not really significant news. But if the docs were real, they would have shown Bush’s superiors knew about him shirking his duty and deliberately covered it up because of his privileged position - and I think that would have been a much more damaging story for Bush.

Of course, they weren’t real.

And I also think even that scenario shouldn’t have been damaging for Bush. The kids of the privileged get treated like that, without them asking for it. Sure, Bush didn’t volunteer for Vietnam. Kerry did. That was established already—whether Bush also sucked at not volunteering is a pretty minor issue. Really, I think, the ‘left’ was just so gobsmacked by the really unrecepedentedly shameful ‘Swiftboat’ campaign that they were reeling and thought it’d help.

The problem is that, obviously, Kerry was ‘braver’ than Bush in the Vietnam era. His military record is miles above Bush’s, in that he was active combat, successfully led men in battle, and was decorated for bravery. But still, the right wing wasn’t going to let him have any of that. It was a disgraceful event that I really think, more than Obama’s election, was the beginning of the absolute devastation of the moral center of the right-wing, when they decided to smear Kerry—and by association, other veterans—like that.