The GOP has continued their campaign strategy of attacking the war record of political opponents.
I don’t recall when this tactic began. President Carter served from 1946 – 1953. Walter Mondale served from 1951 – 1953, I don’t recall Ford or Reagan making any sort of attack on their military service. The question of military service, specifically, hadn’t seemed to come into play until Clinton, when the Republicans fine-tuned their labeling of the Democrats as the party of the liberal pinko anti-war protester.
But I don’t think war protesting is where the attack on military service really comes from, despite the GOP’s very effective strategy in planting that seed. It doesn’t explain the subtle attack on John McCain during the 1999 primaries, the “loose cannon” attack. In an almost unspoken campaign, the notion was planted that someone who had suffered years in a POW camp might understandably have a reduced mental capacity. When we consider what a loose cannon George Bush is, the notion anybody ever thought that about McCain is hysterical. And, of course, there was your friend and mine, Ted Sampley, who has diligently labeled McCain a communist Manchurian candidate who gave secrets to the enemy, all because of his work to normalize relations with Vietnam.
The connections between Sampley and the attacks on Cleland and Kerry are well known in Democratic circles. Ann Coulter takes every chance she gets to make her claim that Max Cleland fell on his own grenade on the way to the latrine. The fact that this has been proven to be untrue, ad nauseum, doesn’t stop her and the other GOP attack dogs from repeating it. Blatant rebuttals to the attacks on Senator Kerry’s war record, from people who had never previously spoken of the incidents, didn’t stop them in 2004 either. They light the match, then point to the blaze and say “where there’s smoke, there’s fire”.
Now the GOP is at it again; and in familiar territory, making wild accusations over Paul Hackett’s ribbons and service. I often mused, in the midst of the purple heart bandaid bash, what the GOP response would be if someone questioned the service of an Iraq War veteran. I could not have remotely believed they would engage in that tactic themselves, one year later, while we still have troops on the ground in Iraq. Yet here they are, revving up the attack machine in the Ohio 2nd campaign; Jean Schmidt’s campaign manager:
“I understand that Hackett did not participate in combat at all. It is still dangerous over there as I can personally attest. Let’s just not act as though we led marines in combat if we did not, okay…
I have asked the question time and again, what role did he actually play?”
Asked the question, not once, but TIME AND AGAIN?!? They can’t get enough people to fight their war, and think this kind of thing is going to help? They had to be publicly humiliated into increasing the orders for armament, they won’t keep their commitments for services when troops come home, but can find time to engage in these kinds of underhanded tactics? I always thought that the only response to anyone who questions the war service of a veteran is a dumbfounded “say what?” I stand by that.
LINKS and LINK TO CONTRIBUTE TO HACKETT:
http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/?view=plink&id=1288
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