I think this quote from Doug Brinkley in the NY Times sums up the problems the Kerry campaign is facing right now:

“Every American now knows that there’s something really screwy about George Bush and the National Guard, and they know that John Kerry was not the war hero we thought he was,” said Douglas Brinkley, the historian and author of a friendly biography of Mr. Kerry’s war years, acknowledging that Mr. Kerry’s opponents had succeeded in raising questions about his service.

The difference between Bush and Kerry on this is that Kerry has made his Viet Nam War service a cornerstone campaign issue. The whole “reporting for duty” nonsense just served to underscore this. Bush, on the other side, has never made a big deal about this National Guard service. Kerry likes us to think that he’s in the same league as John McCain. Hardly.