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The page linked here, from the conservative National Review's own 1992
print edition archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/kerry/...0408231323.asp
makes enough references to the techniques that the George HW Bush campaign used
in 1992 to repeatedly attack opponent Bill Clinton's anti-war record in the Vietnam
War era, to reasonably call into question, the reliability of your central point.

There are even more accounts at the above link, of GHW Bush promoting his presidential
candidacies in 1980, 1988, and in 1992, by making statements in media interviews and in campaign
appearances, that were obviously intended to link his WWII military service with his presidential
campaigns, to promote his own leadership, and to favorably compare himself to his opponents' lack
of combat service.

The next two quote boxes provide ample evidence that Bob Dole promoted his candidacy, as far back as
his 1966 congressional campaign, and in his several presidential campaigns via the recounting of his
WWII military service, and his combat "wound". Dole was still denying how blatant his use of his war
record had been in his politcal career, as recently as on Aug. 23, 2004, in a CNN transcript linked
below.

The two quote boxes below contain information tha makes a strong case for an argument that it is
doubtful that, examining Kerry's "war Record" <b>"it turns out there was a ton of debate there"</b>.
Who can offer an argument against my observation that, if George W. Bush received confirmation that he had
indeed continued his ANG service when he moved to Alabama in 1973, as he claimed that he did, by a witness
with the independence and integrity of William Rood, the newspaper editor who vouched for the legitimacy of
John Kerry's combat actions that resulted in Kerry's receipt of the Silver Star combat medal by the U.S. Navy,
the controversy over Bush's inability to offer convincing proof that he served in Alabama ANG, would have disappeared.
This exchange with Ustwo, and the link to an earlier exchange with Marv, displayed in my last post,
are excellent examples of the "cycle" that occurs on this forum. In May, 2005, four months after the Duelfer report and the Bush administration conceded that there were no WMD in Iraq, and that there was no evidence that WMD had been moved from Iraq before the March, 2003 U.S. invasion, Marv claimed that the opposite was true.

By making his claim, accompanied in his post with the full text of an Op-Ed published by a Harvard student newspaper, as his sole support for his opinion on existance of Iraqi WMD, Marv, IMO, paralleled a strategy of posting an opinion that I observe in Ustwo's last post, on this thread. The qualifier, "don't say it, if you can't (or won't) back it up", if you're "called on" the opinion that you posted, does not seem to be used as a pre-post "filter" in the example posts.

I see this as a challenge that has similarities with 9/11 conspiracy theory discussions that we've seen "erupt" in the politics forum. Those theories, if they can be "backed up", at some point in the future, would be reasonable subjects on this forum. I'm assuming that they are moved out of here now, not because they are too outlandish, but because they cannot be "backed up". Can we consider removing other "controversies" from the politics thread, in a similar way? Would the discussion here, not improve, if we could "move out" opnions that fail to be "backed up", when they first fail this "test"?

My posts are often criticized for being too lengthy, too full of pasted, third party text and links, but I view them as reasonable, balancing repsonses to the two examples that I described above.

Now, I am hoping that Ustwo will contest the material that I've presented, or concede that he cannot support the points he made in his last post, because of the effect of the additional information, that I've placed here, to be compared with the ideas that he advanced about the way each politcal party campaigns.