It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

This post nicely summarizes one thing I have concluded about the whole sordid mess:

I'll let you in on a secret: until the recent memo fiesta, I was 100% certain that Bush was AWOL in some sense from something at some point in Texas, since I vaguely remember this going around once or twice before (insert typical rumor about alternative service with Captain J. Daniels, if you know what I mean). Thanks to the CBS/DNC revisitation of the issue, I have boringly learned that there was some kind of flex-time system that operated with an annual "points" scale, and apparently (as I understand this) if you look at Bush's attendance points, they line up adequately. So now I'm apathetic about the issue and the meta-issue.

I suspect that if pushed to reveal their heart of hearts, many Bush supporters will acknowledge that it is possible, nay, likely, that a younger hard-drinking, drug using Dubya did not fulfill all of his National Guard obligations. And, at the end of the day, they didn't care. Now, with blatant forgeries being used and defended by a once reputable news organization, one starts to wonder whether Dubya may have been maligned more than even he deserved. Whatever the case, the more Bush's enemies try to bring up the AWOL story in some frenzied attempt to achieve a mudslinging symmetry with the Swift Boat Verterans, the less likely it is that voters will hear about issues of real concern that might cause them to change their minds about Dubya. Sigh.