More from Thomas Lipscomb in the New York Sun:

A former officer in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve has built a case that Senator Kerry was other than honorably discharged from the Navy by 1975, The New York Sun has learned.

The "honorable discharge" on the Kerry Web site appears to be a Carter administration substitute for an original action expunged from Mr. Kerry's record, according to Mark Sullivan, who retired as a captain in the Navy's Judge Advocate General Corps Reserve in 2003 after 33 years of service as a judge advocate. Mr. Sullivan served in the office of the Secretary of the Navy between 1975 and 1977.

On behalf of the Kerry campaign, Michael Meehan and others have repeatedly insisted that all of Mr. Kerry's military records are on his Web site atjohnkerry.com, except for his medical records.

"If that is the case," Mr. Sullivan said, "the true story isn't what was on the Web site. It's what's missing. There should have been an honorable discharge certificate issued to Kerry in 1975,if not earlier, three years after his transfer to the Standby Reserve-Inactive."

Another retired Navy Reserve officer, who served three tours in the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, points out that there should also have been a certified letter giving Mr. Kerry a choice of a reserve reaffiliation or separation and discharge. If Mr. Meehan is correct and all the documents are indeed on the Web site, the absence of any documents from 1972 to 1978 in the posted Kerry files is a glaring hole in the record.

For blogosphere reaction, see N.Z. Bear, Glenn Reynolds, PoliPundit, Captain Ed. The consensus is that no matter what the truth might be, it's too late.

There are too many glaring holes, in too many places, and they've been there for too long.

Now that I think about it, there's a bit of a glaring hole in this blog! I don't think I've ever endorsed anyone, much less stated clearly my preference in the presidential race.

As symbols go, the glaring hole will do quite well, for a lot of reasons. Most Americans have been thinking about the glaring hole in the ground where the World Trade Center once stood. Before that, concerned Americans worried about other glaring holes -- from the first WTC blast, to the Khobar Towers blast, to this glaring hole:

Vietnam is another unresolved glaring hole. Regardless of how anyone feels about it, I don't think the way to address the glaring hole which has been staring us in the face since September 11 is to return to a hole still glaring after three decades.

I'm not saying it's easy for anyone to face these or any other glaring holes, but I think a lesson from childhood which might shed light. We often hear people pontificate about the need to stand up to bullies. Every child has had to contend with the issue at one time or another. Parental views differ about what a child should do if he is bullied. I try to understand both points of view, but I tend to lean strongly towards the view that one should always stand up to bullies, and encourage children to do the same.

I stood up to bullies as a kid. (I was lucky enough to be picked on by bullies I could beat, so after that I was left pretty much alone.) But back in the 1970s, my view was put to the test with someone else's kid, and it made me a little more understanding of the rationale behind the other viewpoint (that sometimes it's better to back down).

A 12-year-old boy who lived across the street from me had the usual complaint -- one we've all heard many times. A pack of bullies in school preyed on him, took his lunch money, and his teachers wouldn't help. His parents didn't encourage him to fight, either, as they didn't want him to get in trouble or have the situation "escalate." I told him that while he might not be able to defeat all the kids at once, he should pick out one of the bullies, and single him out for an all-out, highly visible, full frontal attack. That way, the group would collectively decide he's too much trouble, and pick on someone else.

I soon forgot about dispensing this advice, but a few days later, the kid came running over and told me that he had publicly kicked the ass of one of his tormenters (the one he believed was the most cowardly), and that it worked! He was feeling proud of himself, and his parents were greatly relieved.

Happy ending? No way; that Friday night the family went out to dinner, and when they got home they found most of the windows in the house broken. It seems the bullies had older brothers, and told them where this upstart who dared stand up to them lived.

My advice had escalated the situation to the point where it could be called a quagmire!

Each broken window was, figuratively, another glaring hole.

And I recognize that others can make a strong case for not standing up to bullies by looking at the precise example I just gave.

Except I think they're very, very wrong.

To give in under duress, to yield to superior force to preserve your safety, is to lose your dignity, whether as a child, as an adult, or as a country. While smaller countries such as Sweden might make an argument that they must yield to survive, once a large country considered the champion of freedom does that, then it ceases to be a champion of freedom.

I realize that many would consider the story of a boy's lost lunch money too simplistic. Surely the world is more complicated than that. True, the world is more complicated than a boy and his lunch money, but there's no getting around the fact that the principle involved is not complicated.

Hemingway and MacArthur, while philosophically very different, agreed that wars are caused by undefended wealth. (I don't want the glaring hole in the ground created on September 11, 2001 to become a glaring symbol of undefended wealth.)

This is not a question of wanting to vote for Bush. I have to vote for Bush, even though I disagree with him on many things, because he understands this elemental principle better than Kerry. Too many of Kerry's statements make me think he's immersed in the philosophy of denial, and pandering to a mindset which thinks the same way.

It's very tempting to say, "Just change the channel so you don't have to look at that glaring hole!" "Vote for the PREVIOUS CHANNEL!" (People forget that the previous channel was one glaring hole after another -- each one unaddressed. It might as well have been called The Nuisance Channel.)

Return to the simplistic story of the boy and his lunch money. In light of the broken windows which were visited upon his family, wouldn't it have been "safer," also "wiser," to do the smart thing, and simply go back to handing over his lunch money?

In the long run, might it even make him "stronger"?

To me, that's surrender -- the opposite of strength. Even hinting at such a thing during war is unconscionable.

It's why I'm voting for Bush.

MORE: As I write this I see (via InstaPundit) that Osama bin Laden's statement has been translated more accurately; it's as a threat to retaliate against individual states that vote for Bush:

Bin Laden is now accepting surrenders on a state-by-state basis.

UPDATE: Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell thinks Osama Bin Laden wants Bush to win because he's so hated:

...it's just another reminder of the fact that we're at war and we're fighting terrorists, and that's the only card that the President has in his hand.

"But it's obvious to me that bin Laden is trying to help George Bush, because George Bush is the best recruiter that al-Qaeda has. George Bush is so disliked in the Arab world that we're creating terrorists every single day - more terrorists than we can even come close to killing."

A president more terrorists can love? Is that what Ed Rendell wants? (To think that I voted for him in the 2002 Democratic primary.....)