War Records

After the Swiftvet campaign, everything's on the table. And this, at least, has the advantage of being true:

Lawrence J. Korb, an assistant secretary of defense for manpower and reserve affairs in the Reagan administration, said after studying many of the documents that it is clear to him that Bush ''gamed the system." And he agreed with Lloyd that Bush was not alone in doing so. ''If I cheat on my income tax and don't get caught, I'm still cheating on my income tax," Korb said.

After his own review, Korb said Bush could have been ordered to active duty for missing more than 10 percent of his required drills in any given year. Bush, according to the records, fell shy of that obligation in two successive fiscal years.

Korb said Bush also made a commitment to complete his six-year obligation when he moved to Cambridge, a transfer the Guard often allowed to accommodate Guardsmen who had to move elsewhere. ''He had a responsibility to find a unit in Boston and attend drills," said Korb, who is now affiliated with a liberal Washington think tank. ''I see no evidence or indication in the documents that he was given permission to forgo training before the end of his obligation. If he signed that document, he should have fulfilled his obligation."

The documents Bush signed only add to evidence that the future president -- then the son of Houston's congressman -- received favorable treatment when he joined the Guard after graduating from Yale in 1968. Ben Barnes, who was speaker of the Texas House of Representatives in 1968, said in a deposition in 2000 that he placed a call to get young Bush a coveted slot in the Guard at the request of a Bush family friend.

I'll be right quick to condemn any outrageous lies about the president. In fact, my position on Michael Moore/Moore's liberal defenders is clear and unequivocal. In this case, the only plausible hypothesis, based on the available evidence, is that Bush 1) got a cushy position in the National Guard because of family connections and 2) proceeded to "game the system," in Korb's words. I don't think that disqualifies him to be president. But his cronies decided to slander a man who actually did fight in Vietnam, and who could have avoided combat as easily as Bush did. Some of the Swiftvet apologists have claimed that Kerry is to blame for the smears, since he made his war service an issue. As if brandishing his credentials as a veteran is justifiable incitement to libel. Bush, on the other hand, by enabling the SBVF"T", has earned an exhaustive review of his own uncomfortable and likely damaging past.