My second post of the day. How like me--don't post at all for two months, then post twice in an hour's time.

Anyway, more required reading. Amidst the incredible hate, shrillness, accusations and lies (and that's just from the Democrats) accompanying this election, how about a well-written, well-researched, dispassionate evaluation of the controversy surrounding Bush's National Guard service as well as a bit of dispassionate commentary on Kerry's service.

Keep reading. The link to the article will come...

There's so much crap out there that it's refreshing to read something that lays out the facts. Good and bad.

There's another web site that cites a "desperate need for F-102 pilots to fly the dangerous reconnaissance missions so vital to troops [in Vietnam]", inferring that Bush avoided that duty. That shit doesn't fly (so to speak). It's a bald-faced lie perpetrated by someone who simply hates, but doesn't think. If you want to make an argument against the man, fine, but make it factual. The F-102 was developed to make radar guided missile intercepts of Soviet bombers. We had a limited number of F-102s in Vietnam which were mainly used to escort B-52s until we realized there was almost no threat to them from enemy aircraft. A few F-102s were used in a ground attack role, but the results didn't justify their use. There was NEVER a reconnaissance version of the F-102. It was built to perform radar intercepts and that's the only thing it ever did well. And even that's a matter of opinion. The F-102 was well known for being every bit as lethal to its pilots as it would have been to Soviet bombers. Its accident rate was fully three times that of anything currently flying with the exception of the AV-8. And while the AV-8 is acknowledged to be an extremely dangerous aircraft, the F-102 still exceeded the AV-8's accident rate by a number of points.

So let us celebrate the season of pure, unfounded hate by looking at some facts:
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/history/q0185.shtml