From Glen Johnson in the Boston Globe:
Dean, the former governor of Vermont, has been Kerry's most persistent critic among the nine candidates for the Democratic nomination. He regularly criticizes him for granting President Bush authority to wage war in Iraq, as well as for voting for the administration's ''leave no child behind'' education act.
Dean did not serve in the military during the Vietnam War because he received a medical deferment for an unfused vertebra in his back. Several articles in the last year have noted that after his deferment, Dean spent 80 days skiing in Aspen, Colo. ''It was a great time to be a kid and do something relatively fun,'' the Aspen Times quoted Dean as saying last August.
