Your 527s are evil, unlike my 527s

So the biggest current talking point of the two major presidential campaigns and punditocracy is what did or didn't happen over three decades ago.

Republicans have spent the last several years canonizing all soldiers. They've spent the last several years convincing people that people that the only way to serve your country meaningfully is to wear a military uniform (or to be a Republican president or vice-president). They've made exceptions to those rules for John Kerry, Max Clelland and John McCain. Suddenly, the Democrats decide to co-opt that line

Kerry, back in 1971, accused American soldiers in Vietnam of war crimes. Pro-Bush groups say that these accusations smeared soldiers, that they undermined morale, that he's unfit to lead. Indignant outrage abound. None that I've seen say the accusations were false.

Former Sen. Bob Dole pooh-poohed Kerry's wounds, calling them "superficial." Apparently, it's not a REAL injury unless you lose use of a limb; though that hardly explains Republican smears against Max Clelland who lost three limbs.

Basically, some people think it's horrible to accuse American soldiers of actual war crimes, but ok to accuse them of suffering only "superficial" wounds.

If Republicans are going to fetishize the miltiary and deify soldiers as a group, then they'd better be prepared to do it across the board.

The Democrats are only slightly less disingenuous. Kerry himself accused Republicans of "misleading the American people, hiding behind front groups, saying anything and doing anything to avoid the real issues that matter, like jobs, health care and the war in Iraq."

This is a pretty astonishing charge since some left-leaning groups, most notably MoveOn.org, have made it their primary mission in life to run an attack campaign against the president and his allies. They're not FORMALLY affiliated with the Democratic Party or Kerry campaign, any more than the Swift Boat attack group is formally linked to the Republicans or Bush campaign.

MoveOn.org has raised and spent millions of dollars on this objective. They just don't FORMALLY coordinate with Kerry's representatives; but they don't have to because it doesn't take a genius to know what the Kerry-ites want MoveOn to say. The Kerry campaign is depending heavily on those ads to do his dirty work.

I think these groups coarsen the debate, if that's possible. But I have no legal problem with these groups. They have the right to do these things (unless they violate libel/slander or defamation laws) just as sane people have the right to ignore them or to criticize them.

But it's telling, as I said in the beginning, that the focus is yet again on what happened several decades ago instead of how these two men plan to lead our country from 2005-2009. This is yet another reason why neither deserves to lead this country. Let them argue about what happened in the 60s and 70s and leave the presidency for serious candidates.