Murtha's Mudslingers...Or, The Fat Fucking Cowards Who Defame a War Veteran

As we've seen, if you dare to oppose President Bush on an issue of national security, not only will your opinion be attacked, but your very character, honesty, integrity, bravery, etc., etc., is fair game to the bloggers and commentators on the right. E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post calls them out for their hypocrisy in today's column:

No, the conservative hit squad didn't accuse Murtha of being a hippie. But a crowd that regularly defends President Bush for serving in the Texas Air National Guard instead of going to Vietnam has continued its war on actual Vietnam veterans. An outfit called the Cybercast News Service last week questioned the circumstances surrounding the awarding of two Purple Hearts to Murtha because of wounds he suffered in the Vietnam War.

The charges are remarkably flimsy. Former representative Don Bailey (D-Pa.), whom Murtha defeated in a 1982 congressional primary after a redistricting, said that Murtha had told him he did not deserve his Purple Hearts, Kurtz and Murray reported. Bailey, who won a Silver Star and three Bronze Stars in Vietnam, recalled Murtha saying: "Hey, I didn't do anything like you did. I got a little scratch on the cheek."

David Thibault, editor in chief of Cybercast, made it very clear to The Post's Howard Kurtz and Shailagh Murray that Murtha was facing accusations about his 1967 service now because "the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement." In other words, if Murtha had just shut up and gone along with Bush, nothing would have been said about his service.

If you're like me you're reading that comment and thinking "Well that's just two old soldiers talking to each other." Only a right-winger lacking in rational thought or integrity could take that mean something like "Ha ha, see my purple hearts were just scratches! I wouldn't say I fought or anything like you did...but I've sure got the good people of America fooled, don't I!"

Now why is is that these same right-wingers go beyond to being just slugs lacking in any decency or integrity to actual hypocrites? Could it be their famous record for going after Gore and Clinton for their service or lack thereof?:

What's maddening here is the unblushing hypocrisy of the right wing and the way it circulates -- usually through Web sites or talk radio -- personal vilification to abort honest political debate. Murtha's views on withdrawing troops from Iraq are certainly the object of legitimate contention. Many in Murtha's party disagree with him. But Murtha's right-wing critics can't content themselves with going after his ideas. They have to try to discredit his service.

Be sure to note that they espeically go after your character when your ideas are so powerful that they know they're in a losing fight, or your character so spotless that you bring credence to whatever you say. War hero? Only until the get ahold of you. After that they'll have people believing Murtha radioed VC to guide them into his base.

Moreover, the right has demonstrated that its attitude toward military service is entirely opportunistic. In the 1992 presidential campaign, when the first President Bush confronted Bill Clinton -- who, like Cheney, avoided military service entirely -- conservatives could hardly speak or write a paragraph about Clinton that didn't accuse him of being a draft dodger. In October 1992, Bush himself assailed Clinton. "A lot of being president is about respect for that office and about telling the truth and serving your country," Bush told a crowd in New Jersey. "And you are all familiar with Governor Clinton's various stories on what he did to evade the
draft."

And yet when you try to point that out little disconnect to a right-winger, they get all red in the face and start blabbering about how failing to fly a fighter jet in Vietnam instead of at home doesn't make one less qualified to be President, and when you ask them why they weren't in Vietnam or why they're at home blogging instead of in Iraq...well, then they usually just lose it. I've had this argument myself with a right-wing blogger who accused Murtha of being a coward. Now this guy was a former soldier himself (though he didn't mention whether he saw combat like Murtha did) so he's not a hypocrite, but the specific statement he took issue with was Murtha saying he wouldn't enlist nowadays with Iraq going on. So I guess Murtha's a coward for not wanting to enlist...despite the fact that he's already enlisted and fought in a war that had more justification then even this adventure in Iraq? And I pointed out to him that if he wants to argue about it, he should stick to Murtha's comment, instead of slandering the war veteran as a coward and generally frothing at the mouth about it. And as my post title alludes to, that guy-despite his nuttery-gets more respect from me then the bloggers, two-bit editors and commentators, and radio nuts who either sat on their fat asses during Vietnam and whined about the hippies, or who sit on their asses in their studios or at their computers instead of fighting over in Iraq now. To me, these guys have nothing to say and nothing I want to hear, and would be doing American a favor if they just shut up.