Dionne asks the right question

In Tests of a Smear Campaign E.J. Dionne asks the question many of us have been asking for some time:
If what Kerry did during Vietnam is so important why doesn't the press look at what Bush and Cheney did during the war?

You would have thought that if the issue of who served under fire during the Vietnam War became a big deal at this point in the presidential campaign, it would be a major advantage to John Kerry.

After all, there is no dispute that Kerry served in Vietnam's combat zones while both President Bush and Vice President Cheney avoided the war. Bush served stateside in the National Guard (it's still not clear how much of his duty time he missed) and Cheney avoided the military altogether. The hawkish veep has explained blithely, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."

OK you "journalists", lets tell everyone about Cheney's activities during Vietnam and for once talk about all the questions about Bush's National Guard Service. You too Fox, that's what "Fair And Balanced" is all about. So you won't have to work too hard here is Cheney's record:

Dick Cheney is another who, on paper at least, supported the war. But we know Cheney's story: A series of deferments going back to 1963, when he was a student at Casper College in Wyoming. As Tim Noah reported in Slate, Cheney went on to marry -- as fate would have it, right after the Gulf of Tonkin incident, when it was clear that young single men would be called up in larger numbers than before. And then he went on to have a child, Elizabeth, born precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service ended the proscription on the drafting of married but childless men. What a happily timed burst of passion he and Lynn were consumed by! So, while Kerry was plying the Mekong Delta, Cheney was safe and dry stateside, dropping out of Yale because his grades weren't sufficient to maintain the scholarship the school had offered him.

From Michael Tomasky's Cowards All Around in the American Prospect.

Update
Before the virtual HTML ink was even dry on this post I discovered that USA Today has an article on Bush's National Guard Record.

• Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?

• What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?

Good for you USA Today, keep it up.