VIETNAM, 2004

The continuing furor over Vietnam has made a couple things strikingly obvious. The first is that there is no level to which the GOP will not sink in order to score political points. No matter how dirty Democrats get, they'll find that Karl Rove has already been there, signed the guestbook, bought a t-shirt, and moved down a rung. The second is that we Americans will not achieve any sort of consensus on Vietnam, what it meant and what it means, until it no longer exists in living memory, that is until all of those whose lives were directly affected by it are dead.

The most popular GOP excuse for the scurrilous Swift Boater attacks on John Kerry is that Kerry essentially brought it on himself by making his Vietnam service a centerpiece of his campaign. This is like saying it's okay to falsely accuse George W. Bush of committing date rape in college because he has bragged about going to Yale.

I don't have an opinion on the controversial CBS memos regarding Bush's National Guard service, but to me the issue of whether he properly met his requirements is secondary. The issue is this: George W. Bush and his father both supported the Vietnam War, yet neither had any qualms about using family connections to help W. avoid combat. W. has, in the past, claimed that he received "no special treatment" on getting into the Texas Air National Guard, which at this point we can safely say is a flat-out lie.

It's a tribute to the GOP spin machine that voters seem tired of the issue to the point that they're willing to say "Okay, okay, they both served, let's move on, fer chrissake!" No, there's no equivalence here. I'd be very happy to move on to more relevant issues, but just for the record: Bush supported the war, and did everything he could to avoid serving in it. Kerry had his doubts about the war, but volunteered to serve in Vietnam anyway.