In one of the stranger photo-ops in an increasingly bizarre presidential season, former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland yesterday rode his wheelchair to the front gate of President Bush's Texas ranch to protest attacks on Democratic candidate John Kerry's Vietnam War record.
Cleland lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam — hence the wheelchair — but we won't patronize him by pretending he is anything other than what he became after losing his Senate re-election race two years ago: bitterly resentful, highly partisan and an effective deflector shield for Kerry whenever the latter's military bona fides are called into question.
[This was so terrible...guess Max doesn't mind his amputated limbs being used as visual props for Kerry's unconscionable political ambitions.
You know, this is the 21st Century and we live in the most modern and wealthy country in the history of the world, so why can't Mr. Cleland get some prosthetics?
We even got new false hands for those poor Iraqi men that Saddam had multilated so I know we have the medical know-how.--Jen]
There is some irony in this.
Cleland earned no Purple Heart for his grievous injuries (they were not suffered in combat), and he regularly is called on to defend Kerry — who received three Purple Hearts, but who seems not to have a scar on his lanky body to show for it.
Some veterans — including an impressively large number who served with Kerry in Vietnam — think not all of the senator's medals were earned.
Certainly the record is sufficiently ambiguous to suggest that there is some merit to these doubts.
And, for better or for worse, Kerry has made Vietnam service the centerpiece of his campaign — though it is not at all clear why Kerry & Co. are working so hard to keep this issue alive.
[My personal view is that Kerry is a confirmed Leftist--if not an out and out Marxist and Communist-- and has been all his life.
As such, it is mandatory to people of his political stripe to curb American power and to subjugate our sovereignity to the aegis of Socialist organizations like the U.N.
To that end, he was instrumental in getting our country to give up in Vietnam (we weren't losing and weren't going to), he has a Senate record of voting against every bill to strengthen our military, and he's warned us that if elected President, he would pull our troops out of the WOT and leave the problem of Islamist terrorism to the UN and the EU.]
As evidenced by Cleland's visit to the Crawford ranch.
"The question is where is George Bush's honor. The question is where is his shame," Cleland said after Secret Service agents at the Texas ranch refused to accept a letter calling on Bush to disavow the anti-Kerry veterans.
[Where's your shame, Mr. Cleland?
And he allows the press to perpetuate the lie that he wasn't returned to Congress because the "Republicans questioned his patriotism!" Wrong!
Your constituents didn't like your voting record and voted for your opponent!]
Tough talk.
But the Bush people had a compelling counter:
"You can't have it both ways. You can't build your convention and much of your campaign around your service in Vietnam, and then try to say that only those veterans who agree with you have a right to speak up," said a Bush spokesman.
Quite so.
We suspect that anti-Kerry vets are more angry with what the senator said and did after returning from Vietnam than about whatever happened — or didn't happen — while he was there.
And it may be that Cleland and the others are trying to abort that debate before it begins.
If so, it won't work.
This campaign has only just begun.
But it may already be over because the Swifties are speaking truth to power about who John Kerry really is and has been for 30 years with their ads and their book "Unfit for Command," which is the Number #1 bestseller on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and the New York Times!
Instead of dispatching bathetic, maimed Max Cleland out in the Texas heat to bug President Bush (who's a busy wartime President!), Kerry needs to sign Form 180 and disclose his military and medical records, so we can all see how he earned those medals in Vietnam and whether or not he was in Cambodia for Christmas '68.
Further, if he's upset about the Unfit for Command book, the author John O' Neill has invited Mr. Kerry to sue him for libel!
Kerry's a lawyer, Edwards is a lawyer, and they've got plenty of attorneys on their team--what's the problem?*
[*Speaking of lawyers, prominent attorney Ben Ginsburg resigned yesterday because he had been giving legal advise to both the Bush campaign and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.To avoid even the hint that there were any improprieties concerning either group, Mr. Ginsburg tendered his resignation.
As is our want, the GOP takes the example of "Caesar's wife," which is to be beyond reproach.
As is their want, the Leftist media, water carriers for the DNC, made much of this resignation and implied early and often that Ginsburg was guiltier of violating McCain-Feingold 527 laws than he would admit. *Sigh*]
But acting as the Swifties' initiative is Bush's fault and that he's responsible for the "scurrilous" ads against sKerry? Sheer grandstanding to try and deceive the American voting public yet again.
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