This story is going to get a lot of

coverage.

Now, I’ve said this before and I’m going to keep saying it. It’s not

right — it’s improper, unseemly, unethical and dishonorable — for a party

with a Bush-Cheney ticket to mock John Kerry’s service.

Yes, I know the temptation is strong; and I know there are all sorts of

respects — including this latest one — in which Kerry’s military service

is pretty darn mockable.

But when all is said and done, he served. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney

didn’t, and they should have done. I say this as a Bush-Cheney voter. I

like the ticket, and I’ll be voting for it. I wouldn’t vote Kerry-Edwards

at the point of a gun. Yet if you ask me: “Doesn’t it take some of the

luster off the GOP ticket to know that when it came time for your guys to

put themselves in harm’s way at the nation’s call, they ducked it?” my

honest answer would be: “Yes, it does.”

And yes, of course I suspect Kerry’s motives in going to VN just as much as

you do. It is still the case that he went. It is still the case that if

some NVA round had passed six inches further to the left, he would have been

maimed or killed.

The honor that we accord to our serving men and women is, in my personal

opinion, indivisible. John Kerry is just as entitled to it as anyone else

who served. That’s how I see it, anyway.