There are three ways in which John Kerry can weather the intern storm. The most obvious is to make it be not true. He could say "I did not have sex with young Alex Polier" and have that actually be the case. As this rumour was hatched on the Drudge website, which was responsible for the first Lewinsky stirrings, the temptation is to believe it utterly. But you know, gossip websites aren't always right. Or he could get one more mile out of his Vietnam vet status. (The third option, since you ask, is to squeeze another dram of goodwill out of his handle - commentators call him "the new JFK", but skim over the vital point that it's only because his middle name is Forbes.)  The second is the most interesting path: a straight pitch of infidelity against martial honour, to see which triumphs. Intern shenanigans and military service are the two Arthurian tests of American politics - misdemeanour in either area is always credited with the power to bring a candidate down, though time and again this has proved not to be the case, or only indirectly.  Now, neither fidelity nor bravery is all that useful, on a practical level, in running a country. The first suggests self-denial, altruism, a long-sightedness and commitment to the principles of honesty and deferred gratification that are totally at odds with aggressive first world capitalism. The second combines altruism with reckless self-endangerment and the privileging of physical instinct over rational judgment - qualities that aren't going to do anyone a power of good in a situation room.  The importance of these two notches on the CV of the psyche is mainly symbolic. The immutable importance of sex and death transcends a candidate's position on Medicare payments for the highest tax bracket; his (and I use the pronoun advisedly) ability to forgo the first and risk the second attest to his govern-worthy strength of will. He pulled the sword out of the rock (but didn't impale).  The problem - and here Kerry hits paydirt - is that most presidential candidates didn't go anywhere near Vietnam, for the simple reason that most are rich, and the best way to avoid the army is to have a lot of money. Bush Jnr draft-dodged with the aid of a family friend, who busted him into the Texas Air National Guard, despite an aptitude score that sounds like a Michael Moore joke. Clinton went to Oxford. And Quayle went somewhere not dangerous and nowhere near any communists. If you were going to make any political point out of military service, it would surely be that laying down one's life for America is a poverty issue rather than one of honour. If you balk at the sight of the skiving super-rich, then do something about the system that lets them get away with it. While you're there, redistribute their wealth. Don't just sit there and hope they'll do the right thing.  Furthermore, there are far more important lessons about presidential suitability to be learned from how a candidate has behaved vis-a-vis military action - how did he vote on Iraq? Afghanistan? Was he pro- or anti-Vietnam, as an idea? These clues are no less than axiomatic to world affairs of the next four years; and yet it's fair to say that both left and right are more interested in dressing their guy up in mental khaki, then standing back to see how authentic he looks.  This is politics at its most primitive; it harks back to an era when a ruler would prove his credibility by lancing someone through the guts. The nation rewards this gladiatorial scion with quasi-Christian rhetoric - I've seen Kerry described as a "son of Vietnam" (with Oliver North, as it goes) who was "baptised in the Mekong delta".  Genuine veteran status gives you more than a certain glittery something - it makes you both father and son of the nation. The war doesn't need to be just; your views don't need to dovetail with your service; all that matters is that you were there, and hopefully were awarded a few medals - though frankly, the US army seems to give those things away like sweets. (Kerry got three, but technically he has none after throwing them at the steps of Congress in an anti-war protest.)  Ultimately, voter assessment of a candidate's worth is becoming more literal-minded: all action, no talk. And candidates have no problem with this, Kerry's current catchphrase being: "Measure me by my life. That's how you know that nothing I'm saying to you is just words." This is the clearest signal yet (clearer even than Babes against Bush, the soft-porn Democrat website) that political rhetoric - which I use non-pejoratively to mean words strung together to form thoughts - plays an ever-dwindling role in the overall process.