With the big release of documents yesterday, I imagine that the Bush National Guard story is entering its final phase for now. Bush obtained some special favors to get into the National Guard so he wouldn’t have to go to Vietnam, and by the end of his service he was too busy or bored to keep showing up regularly. In the end he asked for and received permission to leave the Guard early. Either this bothers you or it doesn’t. One defense of Bush, though, that was also used by Clinton defenders during the Monica Lewinsky scandal, was that polls show that most people don’t care about the scandal and that therefore it should be dropped. That sounds almost logical, but it’s really just a disingenuous way to change the subject. Setting aside the fact that when people are asked such questions, they often say what they feel they’re supposed to say rather than what they actually think, there’s also the issue that they aren’t really qualified to answer. During the course of an investigation into a scandal, people don’t know which facts will be unearthed before it’s all said and done. Just because someone hasn’t heard anything that captured their attention yet doesn’t mean that tomorrow there won’t be a new break that absolutely blows their mind. If a scandal is in the public interest, polls that show that people don’t consider it to be an issue are beside the point.