A brief word on a subject that deserves longer treatment, but it does cut to the chase: the debate this week raging among the media bobbleheads and in the august pages of various Times about G.W.'s service record during the Vietnam war largely misses the point. The element that makes this an important consideration (though not an "issue") is that G.W. Bush supported the war in Vietnam---he thought it was morally right and good policy for the U.S. to be fighting in Vietnam---just as long as it wasn't his ass on the line. He had, as Cheney described his own absense, "other priorities." He got his congressman father to jump him over 500 or so applicants ahead of him to get into the National Guard, well known as a draft dodge in 1968, and he got promoted to second lieutenant with lightning speed, for no apparent reason. That is, he avoided participating in a war he supported, and used influence to do it. It isn't that he didn't fight. It's that he wanted others to fight, but not him. That's what is so reprehensible about what he did. And why it is relevant to his fitness for the presidency now, when he has shown no compunction about sending others to die in a war of aggression he began on false pretenses.


Now, just before voting in Wisconsin begins, we risk our perfect primary record with another hunch: that John Edwards will get enough of a late surge to come in second to John Kerry, instead of third behind Howard Dean, as the most recent polls predict.

However, that said, Edwards is becoming a less attractive candidate every day. His one-note campaigning and slumped-smile demeanor isn't wearing well. We suspect his v.p. stock is also falling. So though it's likely he will be the last man standing whose name isn't Kerry, he may have a share in the spotlight for only a few more weeks, until he gets his two-man race on Super Tuesday, and doesn't do all that well.

There is also the possibility, however remote, that Howard Dean's genial demeanor at the debate did not, as the media bobbleheads concluded, signal his surrender, but was a clever play for a more sympathic image. Which might translate into votes in Wisconsin.