Do you remember when Dan Rather asked W. Bush's father about Iran-Contra connections? It involved a CIA pilot named Eugene Hassenfuss, in Nicaragua.

Rather asked Bush The First about it on the air, and Bush acted all offended, and never answered the question, and later used it against Rather.

Please keep after Bush II, Dan Rather! And maybe, eventually, we will find out about Bush I, Eugene Hassenfuss, and Reagan, and all the rest of those creeps, as well.

... If he tested positive on September 13? A couple days? A couple weeks? How long does it stay in the system?

2. Great idea to put the * on Barry's baseball shirt! Some team could do all symbols. Tigers Outfield could be:

% for Batting Ave. Champ Magglio Ordonez in RF,

! for the great young Curtis Granderson in CF, and

?? for whatever rookie or journeyman they put into RF next season.

Students got deferments. High schoolers always were deferred. Undergradute college students had deferments right up through 1971, and then we got out of Vietnam. By 1973, draftees were being released before training.

Originally, graduate students were deferred, but that ended in 1968 (as I recall). Many of these guys you are discussing were just the right age to be affected by this change.

Clinton delayed a year or so, but he got out legitimately. The original draft was replaced by a lottery, and Clinton's lottery number was very high, so that he never would have been drafted.

I had the same situation a couple years later.

Cheney's story sounds relatively legitimate too. He went to school, and was deferred, and then he turned 26, and no longer was liable for the draft.

Here's the conclusion: After about 1965, almost nobody just joined up. Almost nobody went unless he had to go. I only can think of one person I knew who wanted to go.

The problem is that people such as Cheney are such murderous hypocrites. I fully understand why Cheney stayed away from the Vietnam War. But he is not allowed now to turn around and order Americans to their deaths in Iraq.

And W. Bush is even worse than Cheney.

Clinton's draft lottery number was 314. He never would have been drafted. Are you old enough to remember how the draft used to work?

But Cheney and W. Bush did, for no good reason. Actually for evil reasons. Bill Clinton and I, and most Americans learned not to do stuff like that, when we saw the supreme snafu of Vietnam.

What happened to that www rumor that W. Bush had purchased an enormous rancho in Paraguay, and positioned a US military base next to it, and was planning to flee down there after his term?

Remember? Supposedly, his daughters went down there to look the place over and deliver suitcases full of dollares, sometime last year.

American cars' quality is on par with other cars. All this talk about bad cars is at least fifteen years out of date. And the UAW always has been a progressive union. The, "I'm alright, Jack," stuff applied to some other unions, especially in the UK, but not to the UAW.

For cryin out loud, the UAW opposed all the devil Republicans including Nixon, Reagan, and the Bushes.

US auto industry management deserves a lot of blame for lack of vision and broken promises, but that is old news. And Michigan's state-level politicians, particularly Republicans, are incomprehensibly incompetent. Nobody can figure out why they have not acted on the state budget.

But we are far beyond the generalized cliches we keep hearing. We are well into the 21st century, and this is a beautiful, friendly place. Even Detroit is beautiful, and Detroiters are the nicest, most polite people I ever have lived among.

Come here. I will show you. And I will find you a wonderful house at a low, low price. And I will find you a great shop or office, with plenty of smart, productive employees, who have lots of technical expertise.

This just dawned on me:

Dan Rather went to Vietnam, and reported on battles there. He was under fire. Lots of TV stories prove it. You probably can find them somewhere on the www.

So it does not matter that he never made it as a Marine. He went to war anyway. And he deserves credit for that.

40% born after 1988? ???

America has no shame anymore, except for those of us who are ashamed to be American. Our leaders do this sort of thing, and then alternately brag about it and deny it, often both at once, to different audiences.

Americans killed some Spanish journalists not very long ago, and shrugged it off. Americans kill powers more innocent people than Myanmar. A lot of it is on the www, and it makes no difference at all.

Jenna does not seem evil. She plays too young for a 25-year-old woman. Probably, she would annoy my hip, smart nieces. And they would run rings around her in any interview.

Diane Sawyer, will you interview some great, interesting, real American women? I have these smart nieces...

Moderation,

You must live in the Detroit suburbs. Or maybe in Zealand, Michigan. Try Grand Haven or Ann Arbor.

The weather here is great right now, but November through May is as bad as you said. Get out on the water while the weather still is good.