The Democratic seething has led--surprise!--to a new round of stories questioning President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard.(The Week)

* The Democratic seething has led--surprise!--to a new round of stories questioning President Bush's Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard. These new questions involve a man named Ben Barnes, a former speaker of the Texas House, who claims that he greased the way for a young, draft-averse George W. Bush to get a coveted spot in the Guard. "I became more ashamed of myself than I've ever been because it was the worst thing I did," Barnes said recently. But there are some problems with Barnes's story. First, Barnes concedes that no one from the Bush family asked him to help young W. In fact, in 1999, Barnes's lawyer issued a statement saying, "Neither [George H. W.] Bush nor any other member of the Bush family asked for Barnes' help.... Barnes has no knowledge that Governor Bush or President Bush knew of Barnes' recommendation." Second, although Barnes claims that a Bush family friend, a man named Sidney Adger, made the request, he concedes that he simply assumes Adger was asking on Bush's behalf, because Adger never said anything about it. Adger isn't talking; he died in 1996. Third, remember how the allegedly partisan motives of the Swift ...