I understand why "Memo-gate" continues to hang around in the pro-Bush circles; if I were a Bush supporter, I wouldn't really want to talk about the issues either (note: I said "pro-Bush", not "republican".)

I was reading through some of your archives, when these two posts.

For someone who doesn't really care what Bush or Kerry did 30 years ago, you sure do have a lot of recent posts detailing memos that may or may not describe what happened 30 years ago.

But what really jumped out at me was your assertion that one should vote for George Bush based on his record in the War on Terror. I would argue that the successes in the War on Terror have been few and far between.

Thusly, I would like to make the following proposal: make a list of major achievement in the War on Terror, emphasis on the word "terror". For instance, while building schools in Iraq is laudable, it only indirectly reduces terrorism.

Don't think of it as a challenge. Rather (get it?), consider it an opportunity to educate a guy with some serious doubts.

My original post had tags around the "For someone who..." paragraph. It reads kind of harsh, without them.

And when I say tags, I mean [snark]...[/snark] tags. Stupid Typekey...

Andy, you will have to forgive me a little if I get a little incoherent - just got back from the saloon. And don't worry about snarky - I like snarky! You may have already noticed that, I suppose.

Anyway, I am dead serious when I say I don't care about what happened 35 years ago. But I also am as happy as can be to see the legacy media get its come uppance. The content of the memos matters not to me. This is so huge and I couldn't care less about the content. This is power to the people - distributed media making a difference. Hell, even 5 years ago, people would have accepted the memos at face value. Anyone who didn't would have been dismissed as a loonie. Now the media knows it can't get away with this bullshit anymore.

Now, about the content of the memos. Again, I don't give a damn. You can't unseat a sitting president very easily by talking about stuff from 35 years ago instead of his record in office. Nobody cares. Well, almost nobody.

For those who do:

Did W get special treatment? Possibly - it isn't that hard to imagine. So did Gephardt. Hell, so did Clinton - he didn't serve at all. Kerry sought a deferrment and was denied, so he volunteered for swiftboats which at the time weren't involved in combat. Why didn't he get front line duty? Who knows? I just don't give a shit.

For those who do, and think the seriousness of charges in bogus documents deserves an answer or qualifies as "the issues", I presented some evidence that Bush's service was satisfactory here.

I seem to recall you claiming that each new piece of evidence seemed to damn Bush and vindicate Kerry. Well it turns out that the new evidence against Bush was forged. Meanwhile, the original Silver Star citation for Kerry, written by Kerry, has turned up and it supports the claims of the SBVT. No expert will stand up for the docs against Bush, but 250 Vietnam Vets stand up for the charges against Kerry. Is this really a winning scenario for Kerry? He was a total fool to go down this road and now he is reaping the wind. I don't feel sorry for him - in fact it is almost enough to make me personally dislike him - which says a lot because politics isn't personal to me. People can disagree and still be reasonable. But I am sick to death of Vietnam. It seemed the Clinton - Dole race had finally put it to bed as a campaign issue, but no, Kerry brings it up again in a desperate attempt to be seen as capable of leading a nation at war.

You say you understand why Bush wouldn't want to talk about the issues, but which candidate has talked about nothing but Vietnam? Tell me, where does Kerry stand on Iraq? On gay marriage? On offshore outsourcing? When was the last time he gave an interview and took questions from the media? The guy is a disaster and now the Dems need to worry about saving the rest of the ticket, such as Daschle in South Dakota, who is so desperate he ran an ad showing himself hugging President Bush.

I will have to compose my thoughts on the rest of your request - the part about listing the successes of the war on terror.

Andy, who again is it that isn't talking about the issues?

Anwyay, you asked for examples of success in the war on terror. I will provide one link that shows the kinds of things I consider success in the war on terror. Some other things offhand that shows what we are doing is working: Libya coming forward to say it has been trying to get nukes but wants to come clean after Ghaddaffi saw what happened to Hussein, and Hezzbollah immeidately retracting its threat to attack US interests after Israel assassinated one of its leaders for fear of bringing our wrath down on them.

However, to fully understand my support for Bush, you need to read this article by Norman Podhoretz. It is quite long. If you don't have time, I have written some summaries and posted them to this site.

It should be noted that though I support the Bush doctrine, it doesn't mean that I don't think any other person wanting to be President would defend the country. The Truman doctrine was followed for over 40 years by Presidents from both parties.

I just happend to believe that this doctrine is the right way to fight terror, and won't vote for someone who will not adopt it. Returning to the days of treating terror attacks as criminal acts is not a viable solution.

Andy, here is a more eloquent explanation of how I feel about this whole memo-gate business. It isn't about Bush, and it isn't about what happened 35 years ago. It is about what is happening right now.