Thanks to all who posted comments in response to my maiden voyage into blogging yesterday as we explored why Barack Obama holds such appeal for young voters. Today’s subject is less elevating. I’m in California today, same as John McCain, and though I’m not traveling with the Republican candidate, it was hard to avoid the trans-continental spat over veterans’ benefits swirling around the campaign.

If you haven’t followed the issue, Sen. James Webb, a Virginia Democrat and fellow Naval Academy grad of McCain’s (and fellow Vietnam Vet), is pushing a long-overdue package updating educational benefits for military veterans. McCain favors upgrading the GI Bill, too, but prefers apportioning benefits on a sliding scale by the number of enlistments and years in service. McCain worries about discouraging re-enlistment if those who enlist a single time get as much in educational benefits as those who re-up two or three times. Webb answered this with a study that shows that the attrition this disparity might cause would be more than offset by a surge in new recruits.

It’s a substantive policy debate, but in an election year, no honest difference of opinion can ever be just that: Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean claimed in a morning press release that it was a "myth" that McCain cares about veterans, following that up with another release chiding McCain for campaigning in California while "putting politics ahead of our troops and veterans—again." That’s about what the McCainiacs expect from Dean, but when Obama took to the Senate floor during the debate over Webb’s bill and argued in the same tone, Camp McCain went ballistic. (Obama accused McCain, inexplicably, of "partisan posturing.") The McCain campaign issued a blistering response: "Perhaps, if Senator Obama would take the time and trouble to understand this issue he would learn to debate an honest disagreement respectfully," the McCain release said. "But, as he always does, he prefers impugning the motives of his opponent, and exploiting a thoughtful difference of opinion to advance his own ambitions. If that is how he would behave as President, the country would regret his election."

It’s going to be a long campaign, and it’s too bad it has to adhere to this attack/counter-attack model. The truth is that there has always been a tension between John McCain’s fiscal conservatism and love of the military. Nothing nefarious about that. It’s also true that Barack Obama prefaced his criticism of McCain today with a grace note. (“I respect Sen. John McCain's service to our country,” Obama said. “He is one of those heroes of which I speak. But I can't understand why he would line up behind the President in his opposition to this GI Bill.”) By the way, Webb’s bill passed the Senate yesterday by the veto-proof margin of 75-22—a result that might partly explain McCain’s frustration.