Politics aside, this is one reason why I like and respect Joe Wilson.....

Wetzelbill

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Sat Jul-16-05 04:09 PM
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Politics aside, this is one reason why I like and respect Joe Wilson.....

Last night on a thread it was pointed out that Karl Rove and the Bush Campaigns always make it a point to attack women.

For example, Theresa Heinz-Kerry was often attacked and portrayed as a daffy ball-buster who was awful and extraordinarily difficult.

But, as bad as that is, that's really just standard Right-Wing tactics because they fear women who have intelligence and ambition. Most of them want a women barefoot, pregnant, raising a family and making their dinner everyday. Hillary Clinton has been subject to this stuff for years, possibly even decades.

Where it got ugly was in the 2000 primaries when the Rove Attack Machine attacked John McCain, his wife and his daughter in South Carolina. Forget all of the stuff about McCain being accused of having an affair with a black woman and his being too nuts from being tortured in Vietnam etc.

But let's look at what Rove did to his wife. McCain's wife had a prescription drug addiction at one time. Rove started a whispering campaign about how she was loony from taking all those pills all the time. It was ugly and shameful.

I don't believe somebody's addiction should be made fun of at all. My mother suffered from prescription painkiller addiction too. I don't even make fun of Rush Limbaugh for his addiction. It's not right. Now here you have a woman who is not involved in the race other than her husband is a candidate, she has suffered from a disease and she not only is subject to her disease being belittled, but she is alleged to have mental problems because of it. Not just mental problems I should say, but to be insane. That is a low blow. Only a real rat would do that to someone.

So what does John McCain do. He sort of gets mad, but, by and large, he lays down after he lost that primary. Two years later, McCain is on television, beating the drums of war and selling the lies of the man whose campaign attacked his own wife among others. Two years after that, John McCain is on the campaign trail kissing ass to that same man who attacked his wife, at the expense of the man who is supposed to be his best friend. When his own wife was humiliated, John McCain let the bullies get away with it.

Now, whether you like Joe Wilson or not, when his wife was attacked, he fought for her tooth and nail. When Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA agent after her husband criticized the administration and debunked one of their lies, her husband didn't lay down. Karl Rove and the other Bushies, put a national security asset's life in danger and all of her contacts, which is bad from a security point of view.

But look at it from a husband's point of view.

I'd like to think that one day, I could be half the husband that Joe Wilson is to Valerie Plame. Because when the chips were down, when he was being personally smeared, when he could have just given up at anytime he stood by her side and has fought for her. He was at the same point where other men -supposed tough guys - gave up rather than face the people who trashed their wives. For two years, Joe Wilson has dealt with the worst smear tactics possible. Among other things, he has been called a liar, a partisan hack, a jerk, a traitor and yet not once has he ever wavered in the defense of the woman he loves.

And, I deeply respect the man for doing that.