Posted 7:51 PM by Robert

Pathetic ... And Bound To Lose VII: Captain Renault Reports!

Why is the British newspaper - the Telegraph - reporting this as if it were a shocking discovery:

Senator John Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate who is trading on his Vietnam war record to campaign against President George W Bush, tried to defer his military service for a year, according to a newly rediscovered article in a Harvard University newspaper.

He wrote to his local recruitment board seeking permission to spend a further 12 months studying in Paris, after completing his degree course at Yale University in the mid-1960s.

The revelation appears to undercut Sen Kerry's carefully-cultivated image as a man who willingly served his country in a dangerous war - in supposed contrast to President Bush, who served in the Texas National Guard and thus avoided being sent to Vietnam.

Could it be that the Telegraph is reporting this to its readership as a new and shocking development because the paper thinks that its readership will take the report as new and shocking? Maybe that's because the mainstream media has completely failed to draw this aspect of Senator Kerry's past to the public's attention - in this country as well as Britain? Of course, OpinionJournal noted the Harvard Crimson article and the Senator's draft history on February 11 - making for an interesting use of the term a newly rediscovered article by the Telegraph. But for some reason the mainstream media hasn't really followed up, yet.

Personally, I'm shocked, shocked to find that self-serving exaggeration, misrepresentation and misleading representation of Senator Kerry's military service is going on in and through his campaign! I wonder how long the Bush campaign will take to ensure the public is better educated?