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1. I don't see Bush avoiding service. Many NG pilots went to VN, and if his plane had not become obsolete his unit would most likely have. Folks who were trying to avoid service didn't sign up for flight training, they would be counting socks in a QM company somewhere in the Midwest.

2. Nobody objects to Kerry's using his service in his campaign. What I object to is what appears to be undeserved decorations that he put himself in for, and apparent doctoring of his records over time to improve them. That's dishonest and hypocritical, and it has nothing to do with his actual service.

3. I was almost 20 in '71, my husband-to-be was in ROTC, and I beg to differ. Kerry wasn't speaking for "an entire generation" - he was speaking for a small group of liberals who were determined to destroy American morale and undermine the troops at home and abroad. And I don't care if he was "self serving" or not (even if I think he was) - false accusations of atrocities including torture and indiscriminate slaying of civilians and burning villages, etc. is just wrong. Even if you suppose that his aim (undermining American resolve) was "noble," no end justifies such fundamentally evil means. And you'll note that he is STILL at it - encouraging our enemies by undermining the country while our soldiers are being shot at.

When you add all the facts together - Kerry's Kennedy connection, his short tour via the sea-lawyering dodge of "three ouchies and you're out", his attempt to run as a war hero before running as an anti-war candidate (reminiscent of George Wallace running as a moderate, getting whipped, then deciding nobody would ever run to the right of him again on the race issue . . . ) - it does look self serving to me.

It's not about his service - it's what he did afterwards that smells.