One more comment on the need to refocus and get off the Democrats' bandwagon on Vietnam:
George Will just posed the following important questions which John Kerry should be forced to address:
"The Clinton years were, you say, glorious because "we were not at war and young Americans were not deployed." Did not the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, followed by the attacks on the Khobar Towers, the USS Cole and the East African embassies mean we were at war but were uncomprehending? Have not scores of thousands of young Americans been deployed, ashore and on ships, since 1942?
"You supported humanitarian military interventions in Somalia, the Balkans and Haiti. Would you intervene militarily to stop the accelerating genocide in Sudan?
"You say, "I stood up and fought against Richard Nixon's war in Vietnam." NIXON's war? Did it start after John Kennedy put U.S. combat troops there, and after Lyndon Johnson increased the number to 500,000?
"The easily distressed abortion rights groups were distressed when you said that your faith teaches you what elementary biology teaches everyone: life begins at conception. But you say personhood does not. Fine. When does it? What are its defining attributes? Does, say, an elderly person with dementia have it, and hence a right to life?
"You oppose, on federalism grounds, a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. You say marriage law is traditionally a state responsibility. But so was abortion law for the Republic's first 197 years, until 1973. What is the difference?
"When the Pope said Catholic legislators have a duty to oppose gay marriage, you said he had "crossed the line" because "it is important not to have the Church instructing politicians." Have you felt that way even when the Church has instructed politicians take liberal positions regarding economic justice, race and other matters?"
GET OFF VIETNAM!! It's a red herring! Force him to confront his 20-year record and his failure to provide leadership SINCE HE'S BEEN AN ADULT, not 30+ years ago. Put the hard questions to him as posed by George Will.
As long as the Dems can paint him as another scorned Vietnam veteran, they win. If he's examined by his statements and actions over the last 20 years, he loses.