Covering for Kerry or Just Lookin' for Lies in All Kinds of Places?

I continue to wonder as to whether Kerry and his surrogates really ought to try to fight this campaign based on the 1970s. It seems that between Kerry’s anti-war stances and his somewhat bizarre views (at least for a congressional candidate) on the UN, that he has more to lose by a lengthy return to the 1970s than does Bush over his Guard duty.

Of course it may well be, as Robert Tagorda notes, that the goal isn’t so much to tar Bush as it is to give Kerry cover—although I am beginning to wonder if the cover in question is to advance the debate to the point that there will be an attempt to declare any discussion of the 1970s off-limits. Such a truce, while seemingly helpful to Bush right now, would actually be more to Kerry’s benefit because at this point the Democrats have done such a good job of painting Kerry as a war hero they have almost totally erased his post-service (and, as Kaus notes, pre-service) opposition to the war in Viet Nam.

Really, it seems that aside from creating a patina of national security prowess, as I noted yesterday, the main way that all this AWOL brouhaha could hurt Bush is if the opposition could catch him in a provable lie. Indeed, I expect that the "truth issue" is going to be the biggest (in terms of abstract issues) area of attack by the Democrats in this campaign. The Democrats are going to pull out the stops trying to prove that Bush is a liar. The problem to date is that on issues such as Iraq there is a reasonable alternative to the idea that he is a liar, i.e., that his positions were the result of interpretation of intelligence. If they could catch him in an honest-to-goodness lie they would be able to construct a campaign on that foundation, attacking everything from what he knew about 911 to the planning for Iraq and so forth.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum of CalPundit concurs: that that issue is, and will be, a question of honesty.

My guess is, however, that barring undeniable evidence, that the Guard issue will be yet another issue where the pro-Bush types see the world differently than the anti-Bush types, and never shall the twain meet.

ANOTHER UPDATE: This is my entry in today's Beltway Traffic Jam