Much has been made of Sen. John Kerry's continual references to his service in Vietnam as he chases the Democratic presidential nomination. But what's he said about the current war - the war that started on Sept. 11? Not nearly as much, it turns out.

If you read Kerry's last 50 public statements - as chronicled by Project Vote Smart - you'll find that Kerry has made exactly four (4) references to Sept. 11. (Two of them are fleeting references, in an attempt to provide a back-of-the-hand to President Bush's efforts at fighting al Qaeda.)

By constrast, Kerry has raised Vietnam in no fewer than 12 public statements in the past month. He's more than three times as likely to talk about a war 35 years ago as he is to talk about the war America is desperately trying to win today.

Two of the four Sept. 11 references Kerry has made going back a month were actually derisive - attempts by Kerry to minimize the impact of the 9/11 attacks on world events.

In one, in response to President Bush's statement on non-proliferation, Kerry said:

“President Bush said today that September 11th 'raised the prospect of even worse dangers of other weapons in the hands of other men.' He's mistaken. Those threats existed in North Korea, the former Soviet Union, and Iran the day this Administration took office, and the Administration's rigid ideology, resistance to multilateralism, and fixation with Iraq stopped the President from addressing them in concert with our allies.”

In another, during a candidates' debate in South Carolina, Tom Brokaw asked Kerry if President Bush exaggerated the threat of terrorism, as some in Europe believed, or if the President was closer to being right. Kerry responded:

I think it's somewhere in between. I think there has been an exaggeration, and there's been a refocusing that it's --

MR. BROKAW: Where has the exaggeration been in the threat on terrorism?

SEN. KERRY: Well, 45 minutes deployment of weapons of mass destruction, number one; aerial vehicles to be able to deliver materials of mass destruction, number two. I mean, I-nuclear weapons, number three. I could run a long list of clear misleading, clear exaggeration.

The linkage to al Qaeda, number four. That said, they are really misleading all of America, Tom, in a profound way. The war on terror is less-it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time, and we will need the best trained and the most well equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.”

Eventually, he was reminded by rival Sen. John Edwards:

“You asked, I believe Senator Kerry, earlier whether there was an exaggeration of the threat of the war on terrorism. It's just hard for me to see how you can say there's an exaggeration, when thousands of people lost their lives on September the 11th.”

President Bush doesn't have nearly as difficult time remembering Sept. 11 as Kerry. In the past week alone - again according to Project Vote Smart - Bush has mentioned 9/11 on four occasions in ten public statements. The gist of his message is essentially the same each time, as it was today when he addressed the governor's conference:

(I)n Iraq, obviously, I made a tough choice. But my attitude is, is that the lessons of September the 11th mean that we must be clear-eyed and realistic and deal with threats before they fully materialize.

One man, President Bush, appears to be thinking in the language, images and anger of Sept. 11 almost non stop. The other appears to be thinking constantly of a war we lost - Vietnam - and almost never of the war that started on Sept. 11.

Again, when Kerry talks about 9/11, he's just as likely to minimize the attacks' impact on world events as not.

Is 9/11 Kerry's forgotten war? Judging by his public remarks, it very well may be.