http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/16/AR2006011600913_pf.html
Murtha and the Mudslingers
By E. J. Dionne Jr.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006; A17
I underestimated the viciousness of the right wing.
Last November, Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat and a decorated Marine combat
veteran, came out for a rapid American withdrawal from Iraq. At the time, I
wrote: "It will be difficult for Bush's acolytes to cast Murtha, who has
regularly stood up for the military policies of Republican presidents during
his 31 years in Congress, as some kind of extreme partisan or hippie
protester."
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.
John Kerry, as well as John McCain -- who faced scurrilous attacks on his
war record when he was running against Bush in the 2000 South Carolina
primary -- could have warned Murtha: If you're a Vietnam veteran, don't you
dare get in the way of George W. Bush.
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.
As it is, 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."
Authentic war heroes (including McCain) often play down their own heroism.
In any event, what we know about Murtha, McCain, Kerry and, yes, Bailey, is
that they served in combat in Vietnam. What we know about Bush and Vice
President Cheney ("I had other priorities in the '60s than military
service'') is that they didn't.
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.
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."
But from 2000 forward, the Republicans had a problem: They confronted
Democrats, first Al Gore and then John Kerry, who actually did go to
Vietnam, while it was their own standard-bearers who had skipped the war.
Suddenly, service in Vietnam wasn't the thing at all. When a Democrat went
to war, there must have been something wrong with the way he did it. Gore's
service was dismissed because he worked "only" as a military journalist. You
can even find Bush's defenders back in 2000 daring to argue that flying
planes over Texas was actually more dangerous than joining the Army and
serving in Vietnam the way Gore did.
The Republicans had an even bigger problem with Kerry, who did
unquestionably dangerous duty patrolling rivers. Not to worry. The Swift
Boat Veterans simply smeared him.
"War's a nasty business," Murtha said on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday. "It
sears the soul. The shadow of friends killed, the shadow of killing people
lives with you the rest of your life. So there's no experience like being in
combat."
Unfortunately, politics is a nasty business, too. And there is no honor
given to those who serve if they choose later to take on the powers that be.
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