G
Guest
·Re: Republican scum
miguel wrote:
>IT should come as no surprise that an arch-conservative Web site is
>questioning whether Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania
>Democrat who has been critical of the war in Iraq, deserved the combat
>awards he received in Vietnam.
>
>After all, in recent years extremist Republican operatives have inverted
>a longstanding principle: that our combat veterans be accorded a place
>of honor in political circles. This trend began with the ugly
>insinuations leveled at Senator John McCain during the 2000 Republican
>primaries and continued with the slurs against Senators Max Cleland and
>John Kerry, and now Mr. Murtha.
>
>Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the
>current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate
>effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt
>about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or
>opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This
>pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree
>risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve,
>and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves.
>
>Not unlike the Clinton "triangulation" strategy, the approach has been
>to attack an opponent's greatest perceived strength in order to diminish
>his overall credibility. To no one's surprise, surrogates carry out the
>attacks, leaving President Bush and other Republican leaders to benefit
>from the results while publicly distancing themselves from the actual
>remarks.
>
>During the 2000 primary season, John McCain's life-defining experiences
>as a prisoner of war in Vietnam were diminished through whispers that he
>was too scarred by those years to handle the emotional burdens of the
>presidency. The wide admiration that Senator Max Cleland gained from
>building a career despite losing three limbs in Vietnam brought on the
>smug non sequitur from critics that he had been injured in an accident
>and not by enemy fire. John Kerry's voluntary combat duty was
>systematically diminished by the well-financed Swift Boat Veterans for
>Truth in a highly successful effort to insulate a president who avoided
>having to go to war.
>
>And now comes Jack Murtha. The administration tried a number of times to
>derail the congressman's criticism of the Iraq war, including a largely
>ineffective effort to get senior military officials to publicly rebuke
>him (Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was the only one to
>do the administration's bidding there).
>
>Now the Cybercast News Service, a supposedly independent organization
>with deep ties to the Republican Party, has dusted off the Swift Boat
>Veterans playbook, questioning whether Mr. Murtha deserved his two
>Purple Hearts. The article also implied that Mr. Murtha did not deserve
>the Bronze Star he received, and that the combat-distinguishing "V" on
>it was questionable. It then called on Mr. Murtha to open up his
>military records.
>
>Cybercast News Service is run by David Thibault, who formerly worked as
>the senior producer for "Rising Tide," the televised weekly news
>magazine produced by the Republican National Committee. One of the
>authors of the Murtha article was Marc Morano, a long-time writer and
>producer for Rush Limbaugh.
>
>The accusations against Mr. Murtha were very old news, principally
>coming from defeated political rivals. Aligned against their charges are
>an official letter from Marine Corps Headquarters written nearly 40
>years ago affirming Mr. Murtha's eligibility for his Purple Hearts -
>"you are entitled to the Purple Heart and a Gold Star in lieu of a
>second Purple Heart for wounds received in action" - and the strict
>tradition of the Marine Corps regarding awards. While in other services
>lower-level commanders have frequently had authority to issue
>prestigious awards, in the Marines Mr. Murtha's Vietnam Bronze Star
>would have required the approval of four different awards boards.
>
>The Bush administration's failure to support those who have served goes
>beyond the smearing of these political opponents. One of the most
>regrettable examples comes, oddly enough, from modern-day Vietnam. The
>government-run War Remnants Museum, a popular tourist site in downtown
>Ho Chi Minh City, includes an extensive section on "American
>atrocities." The largest display is devoted to Bob Kerrey, a former
>United States senator and governor of Nebraska, recipient of the Medal
>of Honor and member of the 9/11 commission.
>
>In the display, Mr. Kerrey is flatly labeled a war criminal by the
>Vietnamese government, and the accompanying text gives a thoroughly
>propagandized version of an incident that resulted in civilian deaths
>during his time in Vietnam. This display has been up for more than two
>years. One finds it hard to imagine another example in which a foreign
>government has been allowed to so characterize the service of a
>distinguished American with no hint of a diplomatic protest.
>
>The political tactic of playing up the soldiers on the battlefield while
>tearing down the reputations of veterans who oppose them could
>eventually cost the Republicans dearly. It may be one reason that a
>preponderance of the Iraq war veterans who thus far have decided to run
>for office are doing so as Democrats.
>
>A young American now serving in Iraq might rightly wonder whether his or
>her service will be deliberately misconstrued 20 years from now, in the
>next rendition of politically motivated spinmeisters who never had the
>courage to step forward and put their own lives on the line.
>
>Rudyard Kipling summed up this syndrome quite neatly more than a century
>ago, writing about the frequent hypocrisy directed at the British
>soldiers of his day:
>
>An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
>
>An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!
miguel wrote:
>IT should come as no surprise that an arch-conservative Web site is
>questioning whether Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania
>Democrat who has been critical of the war in Iraq, deserved the combat
>awards he received in Vietnam.
>
>After all, in recent years extremist Republican operatives have inverted
>a longstanding principle: that our combat veterans be accorded a place
>of honor in political circles. This trend began with the ugly
>insinuations leveled at Senator John McCain during the 2000 Republican
>primaries and continued with the slurs against Senators Max Cleland and
>John Kerry, and now Mr. Murtha.
>
>Military people past and present have good reason to wonder if the
>current administration truly values their service beyond its immediate
>effect on its battlefield of choice. The casting of suspicion and doubt
>about the actions of veterans who have run against President Bush or
>opposed his policies has been a constant theme of his career. This
>pattern of denigrating the service of those with whom they disagree
>risks cheapening the public's appreciation of what it means to serve,
>and in the long term may hurt the Republicans themselves.
>
>Not unlike the Clinton "triangulation" strategy, the approach has been
>to attack an opponent's greatest perceived strength in order to diminish
>his overall credibility. To no one's surprise, surrogates carry out the
>attacks, leaving President Bush and other Republican leaders to benefit
>from the results while publicly distancing themselves from the actual
>remarks.
>
>During the 2000 primary season, John McCain's life-defining experiences
>as a prisoner of war in Vietnam were diminished through whispers that he
>was too scarred by those years to handle the emotional burdens of the
>presidency. The wide admiration that Senator Max Cleland gained from
>building a career despite losing three limbs in Vietnam brought on the
>smug non sequitur from critics that he had been injured in an accident
>and not by enemy fire. John Kerry's voluntary combat duty was
>systematically diminished by the well-financed Swift Boat Veterans for
>Truth in a highly successful effort to insulate a president who avoided
>having to go to war.
>
>And now comes Jack Murtha. The administration tried a number of times to
>derail the congressman's criticism of the Iraq war, including a largely
>ineffective effort to get senior military officials to publicly rebuke
>him (Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was the only one to
>do the administration's bidding there).
>
>Now the Cybercast News Service, a supposedly independent organization
>with deep ties to the Republican Party, has dusted off the Swift Boat
>Veterans playbook, questioning whether Mr. Murtha deserved his two
>Purple Hearts. The article also implied that Mr. Murtha did not deserve
>the Bronze Star he received, and that the combat-distinguishing "V" on
>it was questionable. It then called on Mr. Murtha to open up his
>military records.
>
>Cybercast News Service is run by David Thibault, who formerly worked as
>the senior producer for "Rising Tide," the televised weekly news
>magazine produced by the Republican National Committee. One of the
>authors of the Murtha article was Marc Morano, a long-time writer and
>producer for Rush Limbaugh.
>
>The accusations against Mr. Murtha were very old news, principally
>coming from defeated political rivals. Aligned against their charges are
>an official letter from Marine Corps Headquarters written nearly 40
>years ago affirming Mr. Murtha's eligibility for his Purple Hearts -
>"you are entitled to the Purple Heart and a Gold Star in lieu of a
>second Purple Heart for wounds received in action" - and the strict
>tradition of the Marine Corps regarding awards. While in other services
>lower-level commanders have frequently had authority to issue
>prestigious awards, in the Marines Mr. Murtha's Vietnam Bronze Star
>would have required the approval of four different awards boards.
>
>The Bush administration's failure to support those who have served goes
>beyond the smearing of these political opponents. One of the most
>regrettable examples comes, oddly enough, from modern-day Vietnam. The
>government-run War Remnants Museum, a popular tourist site in downtown
>Ho Chi Minh City, includes an extensive section on "American
>atrocities." The largest display is devoted to Bob Kerrey, a former
>United States senator and governor of Nebraska, recipient of the Medal
>of Honor and member of the 9/11 commission.
>
>In the display, Mr. Kerrey is flatly labeled a war criminal by the
>Vietnamese government, and the accompanying text gives a thoroughly
>propagandized version of an incident that resulted in civilian deaths
>during his time in Vietnam. This display has been up for more than two
>years. One finds it hard to imagine another example in which a foreign
>government has been allowed to so characterize the service of a
>distinguished American with no hint of a diplomatic protest.
>
>The political tactic of playing up the soldiers on the battlefield while
>tearing down the reputations of veterans who oppose them could
>eventually cost the Republicans dearly. It may be one reason that a
>preponderance of the Iraq war veterans who thus far have decided to run
>for office are doing so as Democrats.
>
>A young American now serving in Iraq might rightly wonder whether his or
>her service will be deliberately misconstrued 20 years from now, in the
>next rendition of politically motivated spinmeisters who never had the
>courage to step forward and put their own lives on the line.
>
>Rudyard Kipling summed up this syndrome quite neatly more than a century
>ago, writing about the frequent hypocrisy directed at the British
>soldiers of his day:
>
>An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
>
>An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool - you bet that Tommy sees!
