One of the real myths is that Bush is a great commander in chief who has built up our armed forces (even as he's slashed veterans' benefits). Not so. Bush inherited a great military from Clinton. That's not my opinion. It's Dick Cheney's, who said in an August 2000 forum at the Southern Center for International Studies right here in Atlanta: "A commander in chief leads the military built by those who came before him. There is little that he or his defense secretary can do to improve the force they have to deploy. It is all the work of previous administrations." (Thanks to Al Franken for digging up that quote for his book, Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them.)

That policy emphasizes improving the quality of life for service members, providing cost-of-living pay raises, maintaining military combat readiness and keeping the overseas force steady at 100,000 in Europe and 100,000 in the Pacific.

At the urging of top uniformed commanders, Clinton plans eventually to shift some funds into weapons procurement, a spending category that this year reached its lowest level since the Korean War. But sources familiar with the proposal for next year said the procurement increase apparently is being put off until defense budgets are compiled for 1998 and beyond.