Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The broad outlines are these: John Kerry had grave misgivings about the Vietnam War. Yet he volunteered to fight anyway, braving deadly combat. After serving two tours with distinction and experiencing the war firsthand, he returned to exercise his right as an American to speak out against it--which he did eloquently and powerfully. You may not agree with what he said, but you cannot deny that he earned the right to say it, or that he had the courage of his hard-won convictions. George Bush, by contrast, supported the Vietnam war just as long as he didn't have to fight in it himself. He explicitly declined the opportunity to serve "in-country," instead preferring a stateside berth in the Texas Air National Guard's "Champagne Unit" where he flew an obsolete plane and caroused with other sons of privilege. Just about the time mandatory drug screening was implemented, Bush skipped his required flight physical and was grounded. To this day, despite a confounding avalanche of Friday-evening document dumps, he has been unable to demonstrate that he even reported for all of his required duty. Now we have this book, written by the very man Nixon recruited to trash Kerry back in 1971 and funded as part of a larger effort by the same GOP surrogates who smeared POW John McCain and triple amputee Max Cleland. O'Neill is joined by other veterans with conspicuous ties to the Bush campaign (neocons, please apply the same standards you used to "link" Al Qaeda and Saddam). Many of these men once praised Kerry's service to the skies in their official capacities but have now flip-flopped 180 degrees, for reasons that are all too transparent. None of them served aboard Kerry's swift boat, yet they now claim to know what happened better than those who did. Their latter-day revisionist accounting contravenes their own earlier statements and award citations, the Navy's official records, the testimony of Kerry's crewmates, physical evidence, and basic common sense. It's ridiculous to argue over whether Kerry's mission to Cambodia took place in late December or early January when George Bush can't account for six whole MONTHS of his National Guard obligation. It's pure desperation to insinuate that Kerry wounded himself because it would look good on his resumé. And it's deeply insulting to ALL who served to gauge the supposed legitimacy of war wounds and Purple Hearts by how much blood was spilled, when the difference between a minor scratch and six-feet-under is a matter of inches and dumb luck. It's the courage in being there to begin with that really counts: Kerry showed up; Bush weaseled out. No compendium of lies can alter that basic truth. It's time to apply Occam's Razor to this tangle of Gordian garbage and Astroturf angst, follow the money, and consider the source: namely, Republicans who are deathly afraid of Kerry's manifest competence and the inevitable comparisons to their own unfortunate standard-bearer. Whom would you rather have as YOUR commander in chief? A decorated combat veteran who decisively and instinctively rescues his comrade in the heat of battle, or a chickenhawk who sits paralyzed in a room full of kids reading "The Pet Goat" while our country is under attack, waiting for others to supply him with marching orders? Side-stepping Vietnam, getting bailed out of one bad business deal after another, smearing John McCain, trashing Max Cleland, sending our sons and daughters to wage an ill-conceived elective war in Iraq...this reprehensible book is just the most current example of George W Bush letting other people fight his dirty battles for him. This November, you have the opportunity to decide if this is what you really want in a leader. Make sure you exercise it: REGISTER and VOTE!