Secretary of the Navy Speaks Slams Bush

Secretary of the Navy Slams Bush

… 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. … PURPLE HEARTBREAKERS BY JAMES WEBB

If you want to know the foundation for my disgust regarding our
president this is it. Bush\’s vile for real veterans knows no bounds, which has
been proven time and time again. That he sanctions others to smear and malign
veterans who actually proudly served this country shows the cowardice by which
our president, the commander in chief, will go to make a case, regardless of
its basis in fiction. George W. Bush\’s behavior towards veterans has been an
unmitigated disgrace. Expect the next attack to be directed at James Webb.