I need to make a keyboard shortcut for the words Ezra is right.

The right has smartly fought to attach the credibility of the whole story to the authenticity of a few memos, and is now battling to stalemate on said memo’s veracity. But the point isn’t the memos, they just explicitly state the picture the facts already paint. No serious person who has reviewed the evidence believes that Bush just stumbled into a cushy Guard position and was then able to flit hither and fro, working on senate campaigns and getting smashed. Everyone knows that, through his family, he had powerful benefactors who pulled the strings allowing him to emerge from the war unscathed and, in fact, uninvolved.

This really is the crux of the matter. Chimpy took a way out that a lot of guys took, and he’s been lying about it and weaseling around about it ever since. You want to vote for him, fine, but acknowledge that at the very best, you are voting for a guy who doesn’t want to face facts about his own past.

I’m not a huge fan of PJ O’Rourke, think he’s a smarmy “ex-liberal” asshole, but there’s a very poignant moment in “Give War A Chance” when he steps back and considers the man who had to go to Vietnam while he stayed at home protesting. He mentions a veteran who called him a long-haired peace creep and punched him, and O’Rourke said he hoped that vet was the guy who had to suffer unimaginable hells because he didn’t want to.

Chimpy stayed safe and warm at home while other guys went over and died. Right about now he should be thinking of the poor schlub whose name he’ll never know, who had to go in his place. He’s shown no evidence that this, or any other consideration of the cost of his actions, has ever crossed his mind.

A.