Presidential biographer Richard Reeves has a solid grounding in American history, which allows him to report today's events with a perspective shaped by the events of the past. Reeves is a shrewd and conversational observer of the power players in contemporary American life.

ON DEFENSE, AL GORE IS NO BILL CLINTON

Since young officers become veterans, that is a big plus for the Republican Party in general and George W. Bush in particular. This is a huge bloc of voters -- the military and veterans include more than 25 million men and women -- even if the Republican inclination is almost certainly less among enlisted personnel. And, of course, military-minded folk have other issues in mind, too, when they vote.

A retired general who is supporting Bush this year, Charles Krulak, former commandant of the Marines, put it this way to The New York Times recently: "All the people I talk to in the military, both those serving today and those who like me have retired ... they're just happy to have somebody who knows how to salute."

Well-chosen words, at least to those who know that President Clinton, the old draft-dodger, had to rehearse saluting before his first encounters with the military as their new commander in chief. He did, however, come to greatly admire the military, because he finally realized that they were in the same business as he was: public service.

The president's chosen successor did not have to practice. He enlisted in the Army in 1970 and volunteered to go to Vietnam, making him possibly the only Harvard graduate to do that during that lousy war. Yes, he was an Army journalist -- "a public affairs puke" in the Army jargon of the day. But he put more of himself out there than did George W. Bush, who learned to fly jets as a National Guard lieutenant sleeping in his own bed almost every night.

But if a New York Times survey of military voters is correct, former Pvt. Gore will pay a price for spending all that time in Clinton's office. That's ironic, because much of the time Vice President Gore spent in the Oval Office, he was trying to persuade Clinton to act more aggressively in national security affairs. Though the word is not used much these days, Gore was and is a "hawk."

One of Gore's significant services to Clinton, according to high-ranking members of the president's staff, was as "official spine-straightener."

In the House and, later, as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gore was considered to be as knowledgeable and confident in national security affairs as his party's leading military thinker, Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia. The senator from Tennessee was one of only 10 Democrats -- Joe Lieberman was another -- who voted to authorize the use of force in the Gulf War. Sen. George Mitchell, then the Senate Democratic leader, did not talk to Gore for a while after that vote, in January 1991, when George W. Bush's father was president. Now, Mitchell says Gore was proved right.

As vice president, in the privacy of the Oval Office, Gore consistently pushed his boss, the president, to use force in Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo and Iraq -- and had a great deal to do with curing Clinton of "Vietnam syndrome." Gore does not think that the military is for parades. One of his friends, U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, thinks that one of Gore's most significant assets is that because he came to Washington so young, he is one of the few people who understand American national security policy during the Cold War and now in a post-Cold War world, where national security involves such new issues as trade, environmental policy, and the public health of poor countries.

Whatever young officers think, Al Gore is one tough guy -- or, to put it another way, Al Gore is no Bill Clinton.