Some admirable candor from John Derbyshire: ...when all is said and done, he served. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney didn't, and they should have done. I say this as a Bush-Cheney voter. I like the ticket, and I'll be voting for it. I wouldn't vote Kerry-Edwards at the point of a gun. Yet if you ask me: "Doesn't it take some of the luster off the GOP ticket to know that when it came time for your guys to put themselves in harm's way at the nation's call, they ducked it?" my honest answer would be: "Yes, it does." And yes, of course I suspect Kerry's motives in going to VN just as much as you do. It is still the case that he went. It is still the case that if some NVA round had passed six inches further to the left, he would have been maimed or killed. The honor that we accord to our serving men and women is, in my personal opinion, indivisible. John Kerry is just as entitled to it as anyone else who served. That's how I see it, anyway.