Items From the Kerry Spot on National Review Online

FORGET WINDSURFING - THIS IS A FLIP-FLOP AD

The Bush team has stopped painting Kerry's flip-flops as a funny point of mockery, and are back to suggesting it would make Kerry an unreliable commander-in-chief.

Transcript:

President Bush: I'm George W. Bush and I approve this message.
John Kerry:

"It was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein, and when the President made the decision I supported him."

"I don't believe the President took us to war as he should have."

"The winning of the war was brilliant."

"It's the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time."

"I have always said we may yet even find weapons of mass destruction."

"I actually did vote for the 87 billion dollars before I voted against it."

Graphic:

How can John Kerry protect us…

…when he doesn't even know where he stands?


It seems like a much shorter version of the eleven minute tape that the RNC released during the Democratic convention.

CLIP AND SAVE THIS ITEM FOR WHEN KERRY MENTIONS VIETNAM

A point in a Newsweek article, noticed by Instapundit:

The standard rap against Bush is that he was ducking combat by joining the Guard. Actually, the Texas Air Guard had a program called Palace Alert that allowed pilots to volunteer for flight time in Vietnam. Three of Bush's fellow pilots—Udell, Woodfin and Fred Bradley—recalled to NEWSWEEK that Bush inquired with the base commander about signing up for Palace Alert. He was told no; he had too few flying hours at the time and his plane, the F-102, was by then deemed obsolete for air combat.
Compare that with this Daily Telegraph article about Kerry writing "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 contrast between the two men is not quite as clear as the Democratic strategists who planned their convention might hope, is it?

There is even more to this.

The Kerry campaign loves to say that Kerry "volunteered" for combat. Not really true.

The record shows that Kerry jpoined the Naval Reserve unit in Massachusetts because it was "unlikely" to be called up for duty in Vietnam. When called up for duty, Kerry did "volunteer" for Swift boat duty, but only bacause the Swift boats were in non-combat operations. It was only after Kerry joined the Swift boats that they were used in combat areas.