It is true, however, that Sen. John Kerry did indeed serve in the Vietnam War. He served 4 months as a Lieutenant in the Costal Division. He had received three Purple Hearts. The first of theses purple hearts was caused by supposed enemy fire. When the two enlisted men that were with him on the exercise claim that it was caused by a flying piece of shrapnel when Mr. Kerry fired a grenade on some rocks too close to shore. The medical officer treated this wound with nothing more than a Band-Aid.

Another interesting point is that when Mr. Kerry returned from Vietnam he accused some two million plus soldiers, whom put their lives on the line, of war crimes. Imagine how that must make our brave soldiers, whom fight for our freedom, feel to go into extremely hostile territory only to come home to the people whom are supposed to show support, accusing war crimes on our soldiers. This is to be the leader of this great nation! If Sen. Kerry cannot support the brave men and women whom fight to keep this nation great, can we support him as president?

All information has been reviewed from http://www.swiftvets.com Please visit this site before you cast your vote!

Oh, I forgot - "Plan B" is to "Bug Out".

Iraq is a mess, and the real enemy, the terrorists that attacked our country are still in Pushtun controlled Pakistan.

Kerry however is trying to exploit three important differences. The first is based on the Democratic party line that Bush never had a plan to win the peace. This isn't true because Bush did have plan, it was just based on a mixture of naiveté, incompetence and faulty intelligence gathered from known crooks that should never have been trusted. In that light, it's very easy for Kerry to pick up points by saying "I would have done better". Obviously we will never know if Kerry would have, but he looks good for saying it, and Bush looks bad because he cannot say it.

The second is that Bush has never shown a clear understanding of the problems in Iraq, or at least been able to clearly and concisely explain it as Kerry does. For many voters, Kerry’s article in USA Today or at the convention was the first time they heard these steps. Bush should have done the same months ago (he tried at the Military College, but it was a small venue and he didn’t do well with it). Now he is in the odd position of looking like he is copying Kerry’s plan (when it looks more like the other way around). Bush's failure to do so has the added benefit of playing into the Democratic party's other line: that being Bush is too stupid to understand complex issues and thus cannot clearly explain how the troops will come home.

The third difference is that Kerry believes he will be more successful in convincing allies (even the Germans and French) to help out more with security, training, debt forgiveness, etc. Bush and his administration has been pretty disdainful of our allies (the name calling being the height of absurdity), so Kerry may have a valid argument here. Diplomacy is not a morality play of black and white dimensions. It's a careful balancing of interests. The Bush administation knows this (just look at their dance with terrorist loving Pakistan and Saudi Arabia). In light of their recognition of this, Bush's treatment of our allies is perplexing and gives Kerry another opening to say something that is unprovable ("I would never have renamed French fries" and "I will call them French fries forever")

Sounds pretty cheeky to me. I'm not sure the Iraqis would think very highly of that idea.

I once challenged an anti-Bush commenter on some blog, to explain what her candidate's plan was to do better than Bush.

What I got was, as you say, a series of platitudes instead of a plan. And I told her so.

I never did get a further response.

James nicely fisks John Kerry's plan to bring the troops home. You need to read th [...]