American Presidential Candidate "JFK" joined the U.S. Navy as an officer and was sent to Vietnam, where he gave up a relatively safe posting on a ship of the line and volunteered for duty in small patrol boats; saw action in combat and was wounded multiple times; and was admired, even beloved, by those who served under him.

American Presidential Candidate "GWB"'s congressman father used his political influence to jump GWB to the head of the line for pilot training in the national guard, thus dodging the draft; but lost his flight status when he failed to show up for a medical exam after drug testing was first instituted; then went AWOL entirely, and failed to fulfill his commitment.

Question: which candidate was portrayed as a war hero by the U.S. media in the 2004 "election", and which candidate was portrayed as a war criminal? The answer, as they say, might surprise you.

It's the eternal dilemma in this the Age of the Internets: whether or not to respond to trolls. Salon readers do a good job of staying on point and moving the various discussions forward. But human beings can tolerate only so many lies; and sometimes it is deeply satisfying to confront the lies, no matter how irrelevant to the particular article at hand. I, for one, have been in a responding mood lately; and I think it would be easier to ignore the trolls if we didn't also have to hear the very same lies repeated every day in America's partisan right-wing media and even in America's worthless corporate/celebrity media.

If Salon were to establish stricter guidelines for our letters, such as requiring relevance to the underlying article -- and then enforce that policy, perhaps by being more generous with red stars so as include all of the many interesting letters, while excluding only the irrelevant and/or stupid ones -- I would applaud and comply. But until then, there's only so much GOP propaganda and disinformation one can take, even if it means that every single thread must eventually deteriorate into a discussion of Bill Clinton's sex life.

The article at hand, by the way -- Gary Kamiya on Bush Jr.'s Iran Madness -- was terribly interesting and amazingly thoughtful -- so much so that I have nothing to offer, and was content to merely read and learn. That is, until I saw the letters calling John Kerry a big fat phony (just like Al Gore and Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, etc., etc.).

It should have taken six months -- one year, tops -- to round up Osama bin-Laden and his gang of criminals. Yet Bush-Cheney chose to ignore the terrorists who planned 9/11, and instead have done everything in their power to create a world war between Christianity v. Islam. Needlessly. Foolishly. Disastrously. But to the cheers of the red-state dummies who can't find Iraq on a map but want to kill everyone else who is not just like themselves.

Bill Clinton and NATO stopped a genocide in Kossovo, at the cost of zero American lives. (I believe that is literally true.) And the GOP did nothing but bitch and moan about how he was wagging the dog, and was not fit to order U.S. forces into battle, blah blah blah blah. I've heard it said that the GOP-controlled Congress was so partisan that it refused to pass a simple "support the troops" resolution; and I know several congressmen, including Tom Tancredo, boycotted one of Clinton's later State of the Union addresses, because they felt he did not deserve to be president, despite twice winning the popular and electoral votes.

If the U.S. had a fair and impartial media, rather than its worthless celebrity-obsessed corporate-owned Action McNews, the American people would know these basic facts.

You compare the U.S. with Iran thusly: "You have a free Republic on one side, and on the other you have a despostic theocracy which believes that inflicting many deaths will cause their mahdi to show up."

Might I inquire, in your comparison, which is which? Because on one hand the U.S. was a free republic up until the Bush-Cheney "unitary executive", while on the other U.S. policy is now heavily influenced by red-state end-of-days evangelicals who demand that a new crusade in the Middle East will bring about the second coming of their savior. At the same time, while Iran is still reeling from the overthrow of its democracy by the U.S. in favor of a despotic shah, its foreign policy is much more sophisticated than "inflicting many deaths."

Please advise.

I realize it is a favorite refrain of right-wing hate media, to claim that Bill Clinton did nothing in response to "repeated Muslim attacks" (meanwhile giving Saint Reagan a free pass despite the Beirut barracks bombing that killed 243 Marines, Achille Lauro, etc.). But let's move beyond partisan rhetoric for a moment. I'd like to ask you the following question:

Why, on the one hand, is it so easy for you to see that Tim McVeigh, Terry Nichols, David Koreish, Eric Rudolph, and the murderers of "abortion doctors" are not typical Americans and do not fairly represent Christians or Christianity -- but on the other, you assume and insist all Muslims are responsible for any terrorist act committed by Muslims? You would be aghast (and rightly so) if President Clinton had responded to the 1995 OKC bombing by jailing thousands of evangelical Christians at Gitmo, etc.; yet in addition to (merely) arresting, convicting, and punishing the terrorists responsible for the 1993 WTC bombing you think he should have done what? Declare war on Islam? Really, blonderichmond?

By the way, you DO realize Osama bin-Laden and his al-Qaeda gang remain at large, more than five years after 9/11, don't you? I would think that even if you agree with the Bush-Cheney neo-cons that starting a world war against Islam is the right thing to do, capturing the criminals responsible for the 9/11 attacks would still be desirable; yes?