Dawkins writes:

Now that it's clear that the Democratic challenger to Bush will be a decorated Vietnam veteran who's been barnstorming the country with a Band of Brothers, speaking up for the rights of neglected former soldiers, implicitly challenging the patriotism of a president who skipped out of serving his country, Sally Satel, a "scholar" from the American Enterprise Institute, lets loose with an essay on the Times Op-Ed page explaining how -- fascinatingly, contrary to the conventional wisdom! -- those Vietnam vets really never had it that bad after all.

Could the extrusion of this compelling, contrarian piece of "scholarship" have anything to do with the emerging contours of the presidential election? That is, shattered, warrior heroes pitted against chickenhawk draft-dodging phonies?

Some say the president is a big faker.

But what if it's those so-called war heroes who are the real fakers here?

Contends Satel, as she attacks the results of a study on post-traumatic stress disorder published in 1990 by the Veterans Administration:

"What is generally put forth as an established truth - that roughly one-third of returnees from Vietnam suffered psychological problems - is at best highly debatable."

And why is it that so many vets claimed to have suffered?

1. Because they're greedy:

"…There is an economic incentive to claim suffering. A veteran deemed to be fully disabled by post-traumatic stress disorder can collect $2,000 to $3,000 a month, tax free."

2. And they're whiners:

"…The syndrome provides a medicalized explanation for many unhappy, but not necessarily traumatized, veterans trying to make sense of their experience."

Because, you know:

"Psychological studies have shown that people tend to reconstruct the past in terms of the present - they often exaggerate the degree of earlier misfortune if they are feeling bad, or minimize old troubles if they are feeling good."

And so:

"Until a better study is done, the "facts" on post-Vietnam stress are simply speculation."

So now you see that there's no empirical evidence that proves that the war-time or post-war experiences of John Kerry or Max Cleland or their cohorts who served were any harder than those of George Bush or Dick Cheney.

Case closed! Let's move on to the real issues facing our country.