The Dems go on the offensive

Kerry will speak at Wesminster College on Friday

Salon examines the unanswered questions concerning Bush's National Guard history.

Former GA Senator Max Cleland calls Bush a National Guard "dropout" and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin slams the "new Vietnam snipers" of the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Tom Oliphant rebuts medals/ribbons controversy:

It was clear to me that Kerry had arrived here with only the ribbons he wore on his shirt -- which, by the way, were referred to as "medals" by the late Stuart Symington of Missouri, one of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee members present for his famous antiwar statement.

E.J. Dionne likens the Republican attacks to Joseph McCarthy:

"Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

It was the classic question posed by Joseph Welch to Sen. Joseph McCarthy 50 years ago during the Red-hunter's hearings investigating the Army for alleged communist influence. With his query, Welch, the Army's special counsel, began the undoing of McCarthy.

Unfortunately, the question needs to be asked again. It needs to be posed to shamelessly partisan Republicans who can't stand the fact that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are facing off against a Democrat who fought and was wounded in Vietnam. Cheney said in 1989 that he didn't go to Vietnam because "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." While Kerry risked his life, Bush got himself into the National Guard.