It is now thirty years since the end of the Vietnam War, but the 2004 Presidential campaign is fighting it all over again. That long after the Civil War, the bloody shirt had been put away, and politicians were arguing about other things, such as free silver. In 1896, the Democrats actually nominated a presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan, who had been only four years old at the time of Appomattox, and whose activities during the war were not (as far as can be determined) subjected to the scrutiny of the other side's opposition researchers. Learning the lesson of Vietnam...