As I say, this partisan interest in attacking Kerry through his military service medical records and the many awards he earned for combat bravery is crap. But there is another issue related to the time of his service in the Navy and Naval Reserves which is not: whether Kerry, while still an officer on active duty, was involved in distinctly un-American conduct, both here and abroad. Some part of the answer is explored here, but also see today's New York Times' big story by David Halbfinger where the confusion over the dates of Kerry's service and the exact nature of his anti-war activities persists.
The thing to remember about John Kerry (besides the fact that a vote for him is a vote for those who hate America) is that his entire Senatorial career is based upon his service in Viet Nam and, just as importantly, the extremely controversial way in which he protested the war upon his return. Kerry absolutely earned the right to protest it however he wished, but the moral and experiential authority he wielded in doing so did not and does not immunize him from serious doubts about his judgement. He freely associated himself with utter frauds and communist dumbasses, and took part in meetings where he had no business. These things should be discussed openly.
The Democratic Party, which remains traumatized by its role in the Viet Nam War to this day, has nominated a man who, by one of those strokes of irony with which History is painted, is poised to redeem their self-conception as a party of peace. Kerry surely thinks as much himself. But he's first going to have to answer to the charges of why he consorted, in a time of war, with people who were explicitly the enemy of their own country. He is going to have to do more to justify his slanders against his fellow servicemen as depraved drug addicts, sadists, and the committers of atrocities.
After all, this is the stuff on which his claim to fame was first made. That shit may have passed muster with the post-Watergate pinko mentality that made Kerry a hero to the liberal constituency that first elected him to government back in Dukakichusetts, but Middle America won't cotton to it.
Time again to stand tall before the man, John.