There they go again.

The Bushco smearmeisters are at it again. They’re swiftboating Rep. John Murtha, retaliating against him because he called for the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq last November. The man is a retired Marine with two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star with Combat "V", and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. The first Vietnam combat veteran to be elected to Congress, he has served honorably there for more than thirty years. As the top Democrat on military matters he has frequent contact with soldiers, from the boots on the ground to the top generals, and what he’s seen and heard moved him to call for withdrawal. "Our military has done everything that has been asked of them,” he stated, and, “It is time to bring them home." Now there’s someone who supports the troops.

But he disagreed with the president, so the chickenhawk-in-chief and his thuggish minions are trying to discredit him. The right-wing slime machine is chugging out allegations that Congressman Murtha’s two Purple Hearts were earned for wounds that weren’t very serious, and that consequently he is “a phony and a liar”. They always go after the Purple Hearts. I remember when Bushco was handing out the purple heart band-aids at the Republican Convention – that one made me so furious that I literally saw red.



Now if our imperial president and his court really gave a rat’s ass about our troops, they’d realize how demoralizing it must be for them to hear Murtha’s combat record denigrated, his medals discounted, his distinguished service to his country sneered at – all because he stood up for them! And of course, AWOL-from-the-NG Bush and 5-Deferments Cheney did the same thing to John Kerry. They may not have spit on the troops returning from Vietnam thirty years ago, but they’re sure as hell spitting on them now.

All of this bothers me on several levels. I have deplored the politics of personal destruction ever since the Nixon years; it distracts the electorate from the issues, which is exactly what it’s meant to do. In addition, I resent the breathtaking hypocrisy of the party that reviled Bill Clinton as a draft-dodger, and now has two draft-dodgers as its #1 and 2 men, attempting to impugn the patriotism of combat veterans who put their lives on the line for this country.

I hope this latest stratagem brings a sharp and sudden backlash. Or as Jack Nicholson said in A Few Good Men, “I'm gonna rip the eyes out of your head and piss in your dead skull! You fucked with the wrong Marine!”