Have you heard this hypothesis? That John Kerry's campaign is actually cratering and losing control so as to create the appearance of a victim being bullied by the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, thereby drawing the sympathy of swing voters?
Don't forget that Bill Clinton is the most popular Democrat of the past quarter-century ---and he was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Even though the great majority of the American public knew he was a liar and a philanderer. And even though he betrayed many of the basic liberal tenets of his party and sold out the Left wing to save his own job, Democrats still revere him as everything from the "first black President" to the Greatest Fundraiser Ever Known.
So, in a sense, Viet Nam is John Kerry's Monica Lewinsky. Everyone accepts that he was involved for all the reasons any man is (the rush of excitement, the thrill of the chase, the glory of blasting away at all your frustrations, the dangerous allure of the forbidden, etc.). But, once it's done, you can't put it down or lie about what happened. Other people are involved, too. Maybe they don't want to be slandered or exploited to prop you up in your ambitions. Yet, none of that matters. You just have to win. So you do what comes naturally: take everyone down with you, dishonor what should be honorable, and pull out all the stops. Your ego demands it. And in the end, if enough people hate your enemies as much as you do, the prize may be exoneration.
Yeah, it's a risky strategy, but how else does one explain the incompetence of these people? The surface of John Kerry's contempt for intellectual honesty and ideological coherence has barely been scratched.
Let's please move on. The medals thing is starting to rob us of valuable time needed to examine the 1970-1972 anti-war period.