. . . but he shouldn't be. He may have been wrong about the 200,000 number (Who knows how many people died in the massive bombing campaigns or were poisoned by the tons of herbicides?), but Kerry was right about the big picture. The war was immoral.

"Vietnam was an atrocity from the get-go," Mr. Hackworth said in a recent telephone interview. "It was that kind of war, a frontless war of great frustration. There were hundreds of My Lais. You got your card punched by the numbers of bodies you counted."

Hackworth, America's most decorated living soldier, agrees with Kerry about the war's immorality. In his book, About Face, he tells of his first ambush in Vietnam killing a family walking down a trail. Other Vietam vets have told similar tales.

Too bad Colin Powell wasn't Secretary of State in '64. He coulda told Johnson, "Let's not go there."