Fonts, fast boats, and the marketing of the Presidency

I’ve gotten lots of email about the Texas National Guard memos and their possible forgery. At this point, I don’t know what to believe and I don’t really care. Were they typed with an expensive IBM typewriter that was a pain in the ass to use? Or were they done three weeks ago in Microsoft Word? Or maybe they were retyped from the originals by a bored secretary in 1993. The most plausible explanation seems to be that after Bush wins the election in November, a disgruntled someone whips up these documents in Word, travels back in time, gets Jerry Killian to sign them, repeatedly photocopies them, sticks them in an envelope, and leaves it with the post office with instructions to deliver it to Dan Rather in September of 2004.

And if they are forged, what an amateur effort. Fer crying out loud, bloggers figured it out. If a Kerry supporter did this, may I suggest you sit the rest of this one out…I don’t think he needs this kind of help. And if a Bush supporter did this to distract everyone from the real issue (more about that in a bit), well, that’s just brilliant ‘cause it’s working like a charm.

But like I said, I don’t care. All this National Guard Swift Boat Purple Heart Vietnam crap is a red herring. Daddy got Bush out of going to Vietnam and he goofed off at his National Guard job. So what? A lot of people did that…some people fled to Canada. And Kerry could have done the same thing, but didn’t. Good for him. And now they and their supporters are trying to outdo each other by telling tall tales and discrediting the other side. Bush said he did this but really he did this. Kerry said this but these other people say the opposite. Shut up, Shut Up, SHUT UP!

We’ve got an election to think about. Yeah, the election…remember that? We need to choose the leader of our country in just under two months from now. That sounds pretty important. How about we look past election political tactics and judge the candidates based upon their records, their promises, Bush’s actions over the past 4 years as President, Kerry’s plans for the future, the respective platforms of the two parties and what they’ve done to advance them, etc. etc. Let’s look at the men, not the marketing. By all means, factor in their Vietnam military service or lack thereof, but I think it’s safe to say that neither Bush’s National Guard service or Kerry’s Swift Boat adventures were their defining moments as potential leaders of the United States. Let’s stop acting like they were.