Just a program note for “High Noon,” my weekly radio program on WVOX.
The show will air live on Thursday and the topic will be a post-election analysis. This is a special show. It will be expanded from the usual one-hour length to 90 minutes.

Guests will include Journal News political writer Glen Blain and political analyst Mike Edelman. Matt Davies, the Pultizer Prize-winning cartoonist for The Journal News, may also join in the conversation.

So tune into the show at 12 noon Thursday. That’s 1460 on your AM dial. If you’re out of listening range, remember we also stream live at www.wvox.com.

Feel free to call in, too, at 914-636-0110.

This is a photo of yours truly and state comptroller candidate Chris Callaghan who was stumping earlier this week in front of the Super Stop & Shop in Yonkers. Supermarkets are an ideal place for politicians to campaign because they’re busy places and it’s easy to buttonhole shoppers.

There are hazards, however. For instance, it went unreported that Callaghan was standing only 10 feet or so from the store’s recycling station where a grubby homeless man was stuffing cans and bottles into the redemption machines. This was hardly a positive image for a politician to be contrasted against, especially a politician seeking to run for an office that oversees a multi-billion dollar public pension fund.

Speaking of huge responsibilities… Callaghan, a Republican from Saratoga County, is generally considered to be unqualfied for the comptroller’s job. As a municipal treasurer, he has only managed an office of 12 employees.

And yet, thanks to allegations of corruption leveled against incumbent Democrat Alan Hevesi, Callaghan has at least an outside chance of winning the election on Nov. 7. At one point, he was 27 points behind in one poll, but recent surveys now have him behind by 11.

In the photo, I’m asking him: “What’s with the bow tie?” But it looks like he’s decribing the circumfrence of a cantalope he just bought.

Whatever, it will be incredible if he pulls a miracle and defeats Hevesi.

If that should occur, think of the movie “The Candidate,” in which the victorious politiciian played by Robert Redford is stunned at the prospect that he will actually have to assume the office he won. “Now what’ll we do?” he asks.

John Kerry ought to shut up, make no mistake. His gaffe or joke or whatever the hell it was about the education level of soldiers in Iraq was just plain stupid.

But the sanctimonious response from so many Republicans is even harder to swallow. This operation in Iraq is a travesty perpetrated by too many men who dodged the draft or otherwise didn’t step up to the plate, but are raging hawks when it comes to sending today’s young people into harms way.

It’s worth revisiting the military records of some of our notable leaders of today and the not-so-distant past..

DEMOCRATS

Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71. David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72. Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72. Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army
journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade. Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam. Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII. John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V
V, Purple Hearts. Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea. Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star & Bronze Star,
Vietnam. Paraplegic from war injuries. Served in Congress.
Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53.
Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74.
Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91.
Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons. Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars,and Soldier’s Medal.
Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and
Legion of Merit.
Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart. Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze Star with Combat V. Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star. Pete Stark: Air Force 1955-57 Chuck Robb: Vietnam Howell Heflin: Silver Star George McGovern: Silver Star & DFC during WWII. Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments. Entered draft but received #311.
Jimmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy. Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953 John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and AirMedal with 18 Clusters. Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg.

REPUBLICANS—and these are the guys sending people to war:
Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.

Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
Tom Delay: did not serve.
Roy Blunt: did not serve.
Bill Frist: did not serve. Mitch McConnell: did not serve. Rick Santorum: did not serve.
Trent Lott: did not serve.
John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business. Jeb Bush: did not serve. Karl Rove: did not serve.
Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. “Bad knee.” The man who attacked Max Cleland’s patriotism. Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve. Vin Weber: did not serve. Richard Perle: did not serve. Douglas Feith: did not serve.
Eliot Abrams: did not serve. Richard Shelby: did not serve. Jon! Kyl: did not serve. Tim Hutchison: did not serve. Christopher Cox: did not serve.
Newt Gingrich: did not serve. Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor. George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty.
Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non- combat roll making movies.
B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in
Korea. Phil Gramm: did not serve.
John McCain: Vietnam POW, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit,
Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve. John M. McHugh: did not serve.
JC Watts: did not serve.
Jack Kemp: did not serve. “Knee problem,” although continued in NFL
for 8 years as quarterback.
Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard. Rudy Giuliani: did not serve. George Pataki: did not serve. Spencer Abraham: did not serve. John Engler: did not serve. Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base.

This is a photo taken Sunday of Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone and Josephine Spano, the matriarch of the Spano political family, who a few years ago was very unhappy with the way Amicone conducted his primary campaign against her son, Mike.

The two appear to be pleased to see each other, so maybe it’s true that the rift between City Hall and the Spano clan has been closed. On Sunday, I wrote a column pointing how bitter things were during the 2003 mayoral race

In a letter she wrote to Republican voters at the time, Mrs. Spano accused Amicone of waging “an ugly campaign…the ugliest I’ve seen in all my life.”

Amicone shot back with a mailing of his own, saying that “Mike needs to stop lying to his mother” and “quit hiding behind his mother’s skirt.”

But see! They’re friends. It’s like June Cleaver forgivng Eddie Haskell for the wedgie he gave Beaver back in high school.