One fun aspect of all this is that the guy we have to thank for injecting this long-dormant issue back into the campaign is Michael Moore. When he was stumping for Clark, he repeatedly warmed up the crowd by calling Bush a deserter. The press immediately grabbed it as a gotcha issue for Clark: did he or did he not disavow Moore's words? And it completely blew up in their face: the more they tried to prove Moore was wrong, the more clear it became he was right.
The irony of all this is that we on the left have often been embarassed by how Moore doesn't double check his facts. But on this one, which may turn out to be the most crucial of all, he's golden.
At first I didn't understand the fuss about this. As far as I was concerned, the circumstances whereby he got into the Guard were far more scandalous. That was a clear case of corrupt abuse of power to get out of serving. It seems much worse than mere draft dodging.
But now it's just dawning on me why reporters love this so much: because (unlike the part I like) they can prove this. And because the statute of limitations never runs out on the crime of desertion. And because, while in normal life we can say this didn't matter to the life of the country any more than if he'd faked his community service for DUI -- in official life, it is absolutely impossible to say "Desertion sometimes doesn't matter that much."
Even though Stewart was hilarious making fun of reporters last night, American reporters may well be making a judgment we haven't sufficiently appreciated. That when it comes to the juglar, it's not how outrageous a lie is that counts. It's whether you can prove it.
And it gets better. Having now proved that there would be documents if Bush was there, it's now up to Bush to disprove it. Which means the odds are high that we'll get a constant drip of faked evidence to keep it all going, starting with the infamous torn document that has yet to get its full due. Next up: suborned witnesses?
And like the Monica Lewisky case, the lie that can't be squirmed away from allows everything distasteful about the man that is in any way connected with it to be fixated in the public gaze. In Clinton's case, it was his adultery and his legalistic slickness. In Bush's case, it's his lack of service (compared with Kerry the hero who then opposed the war as a veteran) and his corrupt life of privilege. Both of which -- to take an excuse often used with the Dean scream -- resonate with character problems already long suspected: that he is irreponsible and shallow and got this job through his Daddy's strings.
Michael