Reply #4: It's not about the 1970s

[mhollis]

OK, so Shrub went AWOL and Kerry "manufactured" his medals so that he would not have to serve for the full year. Both are half-truths. The only outright lie told recently here is that Shrub stated that, had his guard unit been called up, he would have gone to Vietnam.

Of course, everyone who was alive then knew that the National Guard was the place where rich and well-connected people sent their sons so that they could fulfill their service in the days of the draft with a guarantee that they would not see any combat.

But I digress.

This election is not about the 1970s. Every time you concentrate on Shrub's record or Kerry's record from back then you ignore the present and the present is what's important.

Shrub is putting former corporate lobbyists into positions where they oversee those they used to serve. He has caused the EPA to drop suits aimed at making our air cleaner. He has sold the land in our National Parks to logging and mining interests for pennies on the dollar. He has run up a huge national deficit that will deny the American public Social Security when he was the beneficiaty of a budgt surplus that might have been instrumental in helping pay for the shortfall.

Kerry is not gaining any traction against Shrub. He is not talking about how he is going to solve the Social Security issue. He has offered no specifics on how he will pay for an increased Medicare benefit. He has never said that he intends to get rid of the "Marriage Penalty" for the middle classes and I have heard nothing on exactly what income level he intends to tax (and at what rates) to pay for his programs.

These are the considerations that need to be foremost. Calling Kerry a flip-flopper and Shrub a liar is character attack, not defining the differences between the two. And it is Karl Rove's strategy to make this entire campaign into one of character attack because Shrub cannot run on his record.