Away from the particulars of the pros and cons of the New Deal, here's how I see this little medals/ribbons dust-up:
A wartime deserter sends surrogates to attack a decorated war hero.
The notion is stunning in its outrageousness, isn't it?
George W. Bush did in fact disappear from his Guard post after the government spent nearly a million dollars training him. He did not, in fact, produce anything close to conclusive proof that he fulfilled his obligations to our government and the Texas Air National Guard. He only escaped closer scrutiny over the issue because he rope-a-doped the media until they were tired of asking questions to which no answers would ever be forthcoming, and he topped it off by doing a document dump -- which included such utter detritus as a receipt for a dental appointment -- on a Friday afternoon and then had his surrogates declare the matter closed.
In short, he put out the mother of all smokescreens, and the media fell for it.
And now, in the midst of his political campaign for re-election, he sends out Dick Cheney (who recorded
six draft deferments to avoid going to Vietnam, the last of which he got for impregnating his wife) and Karen Hughes (who allegedly left the White House to "spend more time with her family"; I guess she spent enough time with them, because now she's taken up near-constant residence on any TV show that will allow her prevaricating ass to sit in a chair) to whine about Kerry's 'flip-flops' and how he is somehow not fit to lead the country because he had the nerve to go to war, save some fellow sailors, get some of the highest decorations this country can bestow on its military, then come home and tell the American people the truth about how wrong that war was.
It's all I can do to keep from growing nauseous at the rampant hypocrisy and the overwhelming stench of blind, jingoistic, unquestioning fealty to a man who was given the chance to serve this great country -- and bailed for reasons that he refuses to disclose.
And that is the type of people we're dealing with here.
People who take the easy way out for themselves, who avoid the hard choices in life and who have gotten everything they have through the largesse of privilege, criticizing and belittling a man who actually got in the way of bullets in a hot zone and got medals for his wounds and his bravery. These same people make a living by duping people too lazy or stupid to research the subject for the facts, and worse yet, for some reason the duped actually seem to
like being lied to.
This attitude is ignorant and hopelessly stupid, and this type of rank stupidity makes me fear for my country almost as much as the reality of the despicable, selfish greedheads we were collectively stupid enough to allow to occupy the offices of leadership in the first place.
Kerry served and was awarded. George W. Bush ran away. All his supporters are able to do in response is to attempt to trash Kerry's reputation, much as they did to decorated veteran Max Cleland, and even one of their own loyal footsoldiers, John McCain.
Those are the facts. On the ground.
Now, call me unpatriotic or that I support the terrorists or tell me to leave the country for telling you the facts, and I'll tell you to take your fake patriotism, your smarmy innuendo, and your desperate, rabid attack-dog politics and
shove them up your ass with both hands. 
