I don’t think this will ever have enough visibility to be actionable, unless some anonymous (yet ‘reliable’) source happens to provide a pro-Bush anchorman with photocopies of papers purporting to be the alleged missing documents.

Personally, I find speculation regarding the candidate’s military service to be rather distracting. Public records show that both served in their capacities.

My own personal opinion is that while Bush served in the Gaurd, his heart was in politics. His service wasn’t extraordinary, but it was on par. He wanted to pursue politics, and I’m fine with that. It’s a form of service in its own right. Honorable discharge.

On the other hand, I believe that Kerry did do some extraordinary things in Vietnam. Extraordinary here doesn’t mean heroic or honorable or noble, but that those soldiers had to do extraordinary things because they were humans in a bad situation. Some of the things they did were horrible and some of them heroic. Whatever the circumstances were, the military saw fit to recognize Mr. Kerry according to their own standards. And for whatever reason, Kerry decided that he was not proud of his behavior, and that there were war crimes, and that Vietnam was a mistake. A lot of vets got angry about that at the time, because they were still in combat. But I have news: Go back five years and ask any conservative, “what do you think of Vietnam?” Oh, it was a big mistake. Rough on our boys. Bad for America. A sorry loss. War crimes and things we would rather forget about. Quagmire. It even says so in the history books. Anyway, Kerry also holds an honorable discharge.

Detractors will stir up every conceivable doubt.

My favorite is the famous Kerry “flip-flop” that conservatives love to bring up. This isn’t an argument at all.

In fact, I have a feeling that Mr. Kerry goes with public sentiment. You might say that he goes with what’s popular at the moment. The conservatives will say this is a lack of principle.

HELLO. Isn’t that what representative government is all about? What is it about this concept that the conservatives can’t grasp? Mr. Kerry is not here to make his own calls in the Senate. He has a constituency that dictates how he is going to vote on the issues, and if he flip-flops it’s because his people elected him to vote in a certain way. Believe me, no Senator operates in a vacuum. When he isn’t pleasing his corporate overlords, he has his hand on the political beat in his district back home.

So when the GWB campaign pulls out the flip-flop, it scares me to death. When the people say flip, Mr. Congressman BETTER flip.

OK, well that was a major digression. Anyway, I think both men served their country, that both are patriots, and that the whole military records thing is getting old. When they find actual evidence of something, then I say bring it out. In the meantime, this speculation does nobody any good.