Though some people don't seem to get it, there are valid reasons to criticize certain Bush campaign attacks on John Kerry. Moreover, those reasons needn't include adoration of the pompous patrician from Massachusetts.

Let us assume that Kerry is bad, nay, evil, nay, worse than Bush. (I believe the first two charges and am willing to entertain arguments for the third.) Does it then follow that anything negative (or ostensibly negative) said about him must be accepted or at least ignored in light of his proven negatives? If someone lies about Kerry – even about crimes of far less moral gravity than others we know Kerry has committed – should we give the liar a pass? Extreme analogy, coming right up.

Hitler and Stalin were incredibly evil men. Yet, to the best of my knowledge, neither was a pedophile. Now, pedophilia, as bad as it is, is far less bad than what we know Hitler and Stalin actually did. So if we hear someone padding Hitler's or Stalin's rapsheet with pedophilia, should we merely say, "Oh well, both were genocidal, sadistic maniacs, so why not throw in the kitchen sink?"

No, we should object – not to defend Hitler and Stalin, but to defend the truth. For one thing, if a false belief in the pedophiliac tendencies of these men were to become common "knowledge," our understandings of their actual motives might become terribly distorted. We might de-emphasize (or even forget) the centrality of each man's political creed to his actions, explaining them away as manifestations of a "mental illness." (Which has, to a great extent, already happened with Hitler, with the endless literature on his childhood, his artistic frustrations, his missing testicle, etc.) Whatever we have learned about the fundamental evils of Nazism and Communism would be swept away by the shallow insights of pop psychology. I can almost hear leftists saying, "Stalin had some great ideas; he just needed a little therapy." And from the hard right: "Militarism and the corporate state aren't so bad, so long as a pervert's not in charge."

Second, I would have several questions for anyone who fabricated such stories about Hitler and Stalin. What, they weren't bad enough already? You and your audience aren't sufficiently impressed by the concentration camps or the gulags? Why did you choose that specific charge? Are you trying to deflect certain questions about yourself?

All of which are reasonable questions to ask the Bush campaign about the dubious attacks on Kerry's record in Vietnam. Why not run an ad accusing Kerry of war crimes, instead of whining over his testimony about them? Oh, that's right, your audience doesn't give a damn about how many Vietnamese civilians were raped, tortured, or murdered, so that wouldn't score you any points. Why not question Kerry's eagerness to kill innocents, instead of questioning his valor? Oh yeah, because your boy only wishes he had had the "courage" to go and bag some gooks.

Before you leave any furious comments, please note that I'm not defending Kerry by any stretch of the imagination. I'm defending the sad, sorry truth: In 2004, we get to choose between two mass murderers separated only by their personal willingness to shove in the knife.