More heroic? Possibly striking a pre-convention aw-shucks stance of brotherhood and compassion, the president yesterday admitted that John Kerry's Vietnam service was "more heroic" than his own military record. Interesting semantics: Bush implies that his time in the Air National Guard--what he calls "flying fighter jets," which has a distinctly different feel than his dull description of Kerry "going to Vietnam"--somehow puts his service on a continuum of heroicism: whether Kerry is more heroic and Bush less heroic, they're both still heroes! That's not how I'd characterize it: Bush scored in the 25th percentile on the pilot aptitude portion of the Air Force officers test and declared in 1968 (contrary to yesterday's assertion that, if called up, his unit would've served) that he didn't wish to serve overseas. As thousands of American GIs were dying in Vietnam, he used family connections to get assigned to the "Champagne Unit" of the Texas Air National Guard (alongside the son of Lloyd Bentsen), failed to show up for a physical, and allegedly ditched out on the final year of his obligation. And now, as Commander in Chief, he refuses to fully open the archives on his military records.

My hero...

In the spirit of full disclosure: I have not chosen to serve in the armed forces, so I suppose you could say Bush's service is "more heroic" than mine. But before you fill my comment box with irate opinions about honoring our military men and women, I wonder how you feel about the pro-Bush "swift boad" ad campaign that suggests Kerry's combat experience is somehow an issue that impugns his character...

On the topic of heroism: 974 American men and women have been killed to date in Iraq.

Perspective:

This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.

—Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.