Even the AP's ridiculous Nedra Pickler managed to do a half-decent job of reporting this one.
Kerry demands Bush Prove Guard Service AP 04/26/04
"If George Bush wants to ask me questions about that through his surrogates, he owes America an explanation about whether or not he showed up for duty in the National Guard. Prove it. That's what we ought to have," Kerry told NBC News in an interview. "I'm not going to stand around and let them play games."
And on the phony medals-and-ribbons story that an eager political press lapped up from the Republican Party talking points:
Kerry has never said he pretended to throw away his medals. For years, he has said that he threw his ribbons over a fence at the Capitol, not his three Purple Hearts, Bronze Star and Silver Star. He also has said that after the protest he threw the medals of two other veterans.
Nearly 800 veterans "gave back" their medals, ribbons, dog tags and other military items during a protest in April 1971. ...
The U.S. Navy (news - web sites) pamphlet calls them medals," he said. "We referred to them as the symbols, they were representing medals, ribbons. Countless veterans threw the ribbons back."
Josh Marshall points out that Bush, in using surrogates like Karen Hughes to make these kinds of attacks on Kerry's service record, he is practicing familiar habits:
When he faces a challenge or a tough scrape, he lets his family and friends bail him out, do his fighting for him. You see it again and again through failed businesses, legal scrapes, the whole matter of ducking service in Vietnam and then getting help cleaning up subsequent unfortunateness while he was serving in the Texas Air National Guard.
It's even come up again and again on the campaign trail. George W. Bush has faced three opponents (McCain, Gore and Kerry) since he came onto the national political stage -- each served in Vietnam, though each under very different circumstances. He's had his lieutenants attack the service of each one.
Steve Gilliard taunts him for the same things, using terms that even ole Chuckie could understand:
Bush has been a coward his entire life. John Kerry clearly was not. If they want to compare the two records, let's do so. Too bad he can't get daddy to buy him a few medals now. Bush's entire career is the result of a father's errant love for his son. He never asked of his son what he asked of himself. Which is a tragedy. Maybe if he had, maybe his son wouldn't be the cowardly failure that he is today. He even has to hide behind a woman to attack Kerry. If he thinks Kerry didn't deserve his awards, why not say so himself? No, like a coward, he sends a woman to do his dirty work. If he were a man, he'd say it himself or drop the issue.
Kerry didn't use quite the macho rhetoric. But he's called Sheriff Top Gun out on the issue. It's put up or shut up time for Lt. AWOL on this one.
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