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 Washington
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 Rep. Don Bailey, D-Pa.,
whom Murtha defeated in a 1982 congressional race 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 downplay 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 Dick (``I had other priorities in
the '60s than military service'') Cheney 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 own 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
Gov. Clinton's various stories and 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, Vietnam service wasn't the thing at all. When a Democrat
goes to war, there must be something wrong with the way he's done
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' ``60 Minutes'' 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.
