Now that media outlets have unearthed new information on the details of President Bush's National Guard service, the cycle of swift boat-led Vietnam War recrimination is complete.
Just as allegations by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth forced Democratic challenger John Kerry to defend his war record for weeks, revelations that family influence may have gotten Bush into the Texas Air National Guard threatens to hijack the campaign conversation less than two months before an election.
The deluge of disclosures came quickly last week. Former Texas Lt. Gov. Ben Barnes - a Democrat now raising funds for Kerry - appeared on CBS' 60 Minutes Wednesday to admit he got Bush into the Guard in 1968, following an appeal from a family friend. CBS also presented newly discovered memos from a now-deceased superior in the Guard expressing frustration over pressure to "sugarcoat" an evaluation of Bush, who was suspended from flying after failing to obey an order to appear for a physical.
Another veteran of the Guard will appear in TV ads this week saying he looked for and never found Bush in Alabama, where the future president had transferred in 1973 to work on the campaign of a family friend. And the Defense Department last week released two dozen pages of documents with controversial information on Bush's Guard service, months after saying it could not find any new records, in response to a lawsuit filed by the Associated Press.
Bush's supporters have questioned the timing of the revelations, implying payback for the swift boat controversy. And other news outlets have found document experts who question the authenticity of the memos found by CBS News, which had its own experts verify the material before airing it.
But Kerry backers say the Bush disclosures reveal a privileged son who used his family's considerable political influence to avoid the draft and Vietnam, shirking even the limited duties required by the National Guard. Later, they say, he lied about the substance of his service and pulled more strings to keep documents on the matter from the public.
As the charges and countercharges play out, the public remains mired in a media-fed quagmire, forced to focus on each candidate's service in a war three decades old. Again.
Certainly, journalists could not ignore charges that Kerry might have lied to get his war medals, though many of the swift boat group's meatiest allegations proved unsubstantiated by public records. And details revealed in the newest documents on Bush undercut past statements by the president that he never received special treatment during the war.
Indications are that Bush's troubles may pass quicker than Kerry's swift boat controversy - in part, because these allegations have dogged Bush for years and voters may already have decided how they feel on the issue.
Still, we hope this latest round of revelations does not keep the candidates from speaking substantively on how they will handle the current war in Iraq - along with a sagging economy, imperiled Social Security system, growing budget deficits and a host of other pressing public issues.
Voters should not have to pick their current president based mostly on dialogue about a long ago war.
