Furore over 'suckers and losers': US election about 'decency' as much as policy

WASHINGTON - With less than 60 days from the Nov 3 election and early voting already begun in North Carolina, the rivals for the White House lashed out at each other with a new ferocity ignited by allegations in an article that President Donald Trump was disrespectful about the sacrifices of American military personnel - and particularly those buried at the site of the 1918 Battle of Belleau Wood in France.

The article published in the largely well respected magazine The Atlantic landed like a grenade in the middle of the tightening presidential race - and it probably won't be the last such missile in the weeks ahead.