From The Toronto Star: now the Swift Boat Veterans are airing another ad, one that says you shouldn’t vote for Kerry because “Do we want to vote for a guy who was loafing about doing nothing with George W. Bush back during the Vietnam years?”. I must be missing something, ’cause I’m completely baffled. Your guy served and was decorated in the war, but for a few months we’re alleging he might have come back and been in the general vicinity of our guy, who skipped the whole thing entirely, so you should vote for our guy.

Here’s an analogy (mine, not from the Star): two men are walking down the same street and see a house on fire. One guy runs into the house, braving fire and smoke, risking his life. The other man hides behind a car. The man who ran into the house rescues the entire family, returning to face the fire time after time while the other man cowers and pretends to see nothing. The brave man, after rescuing the last person from the house, walks over and stands next to the coward for a minute or two, then goes and talks to fireman and reporters about what happened.

Several years later, both men run for mayor. Close friends of the coward who lived down the street from the house which burned — but were not present and did not see the brave man in the burning house — take out an ad saying that we should not vote for the brave man because he may have talked to the coward for a few minutes by the car.

If Americans don’t vote for Kerry (or worse yet vote for Bush) because of these ads, then they’ll deserve the global reputation they’re garnering of being stupendously ignorant.