I watched these two face off tonight. On every point of discussion Kerry was better informed and more articulate. I understand that is not the whole of a man's character, but let me pose you this thought: if Bush intentionally set in motion the machinations of war, knowing innocent civilians would surely die, and he did it based on a credulous acceptance of information that was faulty (and smelled it, I would add), without insisting on findingh out the facts, with out bending over backwards to spare innocent lives, he is not my kind of man nor would ever be my kind of president.

He did exactly that -- based on bad data he didn't have the gumption top insist on getting his facts straight before throwing the nation into war and killing human beings in large numbers in direct consequence.

He may smile a nice Texas smile, but as far as I am concerned he is more the murderer than John Kerry ever was.

Maybe somewhere in your life you were taught that war "in defense of country" is glamorous. I was taught that taking another person's life in any but the most dire circumstances of self defense is a crime and a sin beyond forgiving.

Maybe you believe there is something cleansing about the fire of battle and something self-forgiving about the extremes of warfare. I believe, instead, that allowing such conditions to come about is a complete failure of leadership and the ugliest opffense a leader can commit.

In Vietnam. as in Iraq, men of George Bush's ilk forced others to take up the gauntlet and fight it out in the field, never duisturbing their own lives or their own children int he process.

When Bush's girls head off to Baghdad as Marines I will reconsider. The longer I ponder this, the more of failure he appears to me, as a human and as an American.

Open to correction.

A