Swiftboating Murtha

January 14, 2006

When Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) unveiled a redeployment plan for Iraq, most of us assumed it would only be a matter of time before the decorated Marine veteran received the Swiftboat treatment. I just didn’t expect it to be so literal.

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), the former Marine who is an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq, has become the latest Democrat to have his Vietnam War decorations questioned.

In a tactic reminiscent of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth assault on Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) during the 2004 presidential campaign, a conservative Web site yesterday quoted Murtha opponents as questioning the circumstances surrounding the awarding of his two Purple Hearts.

David Thibault, editor in chief of the Cybercast News Service, said the issue of Murtha’s medals from 1967 is relevant now “because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the antiwar movement.” Thibault said: “He has been placed by the Democratic Party and antiwar activists as a spokesman against the war above reproach.”

Cindy Abram, a spokeswoman for Murtha, said, “We certainly believe that the questions being raised are an attempt to distract attention from what’s happening in Iraq.” As for how Murtha won the Purple Hearts, she said: “We think the congressman’s record is clear. We have the documentation, the paperwork that proves that he earned them, and that he is entitled to wear them proudly.”

We’re talking about a man who left college to volunteer to serve in the Korean War as a marine, where he was quickly promoted to captain. Murtha was discharged from active duty after the war, but reenlisted at the age of 34 to volunteer for Vietnam duty, where he won two purple hearts, a Bronze Star with Combat “V” and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry.

I realize Murtha, as a credible and articulate critic, became a problem for Bush and his allies. It’s led to some bizarre ethics complaints that have no basis in reality, and some unusually petty snipes from the White House itself. But to question the man’s valor? It’s just shameless.

At what point does the media decide that these claims are not the story, but instead it’s who/why/how they’re making the claims.

Of course, these people are shameless, but the media’s just plain piss-poor for giving them an uncritical platform.

  • As an antiwar Vietnam veteran who was anti that war and this one, I can assure you that the questioning of one’s service is not now and was not then limited merely to the well-known like Congressman Murtha or Senator Kerry. There is a right-wing e-mail currently going around, being circulated by “concerned veterans” that claims there are something like three or four times as many men in America claiming to be Vietnam veterans as there are actual veterans. I know personally that there is a phenomenon of people who didn’t serve claiming they did – the Writers Guild of America, West, Inc. had a President resign a few years ago when it came out that his claim of military service was false – but to my knowledge it is certainly not as widespread as these people claim. However, this “information” is used to make the claim that anyone who speaks up as a veteran against the war must be one of these “false” veterans.

    What burns me up as a “real” veteran is that for the past 40 years, the scum questioning my presumed lack of patriotism have always been far righties who never ever served. Back in the day, when the Young American Fascists would heckle me, I would reply, “so, you’re so strong for the war, when are you going to drop out of school and volunteer for combat duty like a real hero?” Shut their yowling up every time.

    I am sure the same sort of fascist slime are doing the same thing to Congressman Murtha. Funny how they thought he was such a hero when he was a Democrat who worked with them…

    Republican: a synonym for “lying cheating stealing scummy futhermucker.”

  • Odd, all the Democrates that actually went to Vietnam, got shot at, and won decorations are lying. While all the Republicans that joined the National Guard, or were to busy to fight in Vietnam, are pure as the driven snow.

    Funny world indeed.

  • My understanding is that Murtha has very strong ties to the military establishment and the Pentagon, not only because of his military service but also because of his many years of support as a representative. I wonder how this slime job is going to fly with his friends in the Pentagon. I hope they’ll rise to his defense.

  • One Vet’s Opinion on War:
    I was honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy in August, 1954 as one of our wars (Korean) was winding down and troops were beginning to return home. I served the rest of my eight year commitment as an inactive reserve. I had voluntarily served during the Korean War and returned to my university. Although I liked the discipline and camaraderie of the service, I began to question “why wars?”

    That began to grind on me even though I was a Republican back then. I took steps to study peace and conflict through outreach at another university and discovered that guest lecturers from foreign countries had experienced (and were nearly always concluding) U.S. foreign policy was stubbornly off track and harming their people. The textbook (Foreign Policy) was saying the same thing.

    My G.I. Bill educational subsidies helped me understand and feel strongly that the Korean and Vietnam wars were wrong-headed for the U.S. and the world. We have caused much unnecessary dying, disability and suffering in those wars …and this war! We wonder why we are hated and invaded. We create our own and others’ problems, and in the end deserve the animosity and isolation we receive.

    Lets get out ASAP.

    GH

    PS – today it was reported we bombed homes and killed many innocent citizens in Pakistan without their OK to go after terrorists in their country

  • And the Republicans complain about the pretty tepid grilling of Alito by Democrats? PLEASE!

    As we’ve already seen, these people will stop at nothing to disparage an opponent. They are disgusting excuses for human beings, let alone Americans!

  • Swiftboat tactics, along with the impending “danger of Iran” are very predictable. Tom Cleaver’s comments about propaganda stating many claimed heroship they had not earned is very valid. There have been books published on that very subject.
    Our republic is dead. The so-called senators and representatives are either on the take or weaker than old dishwater. We have a government of the few by the wealthy for the benefit of international corporations.
    I studied history with emphasis on the art and science of propaganda. Mainstream media is corporate.
    People seem too busy to care. The 2004 election told me the vote is dead, too. The exit polls were at strong variance with the so-called total. Nobody said a word. John Kerry disappeared the day after it was over with no protest.
    Again, nobody spoke up. Those that did were not covered by the news media..
    It is too late.

  • As we’ve already seen, these people will stop at nothing to disparage an opponent.

    In George Bush’s vision of America, you won’t even have the right to be wrong.

  • notice who wrote the WaPo article – Kurtz – bought and paid for whore. When “real” journalists pick up the story – and not just Kurtz’s “reporting” of it – then I’ll be worried.

  • Ok, the most irritating thing to me about something like this, though, is that the liberal reaction to it on the whole tends to be to say to another ardent liberal “That’s bad that those guys are doing that!!”– and then that’s it– end of reaction.

    I agree that the fact that the Republicans keep lying about people is pretty fucked up. But what we should be doing is figuring out how to get from “here,” being a state of affairs where Republicans often lie about people with impunity, to “there,” being a situation in which Republican lies will be neutralized, or will backfire. No one’s really been providing this, IMO. Everybody’s really just been throwing their arms up in the air and standing there with sour looks on their faces.

    I think a big part of the problem is that some of the most capable people among liberals are people who assume that because they’re very good a few things, that means that they’ must be good at everything. Maybe a lot of people who have been handling getting the message out for the liberal point of view need to get out of the way.

    I’m not saying that their aren’t a lot of great voices out there. I love a lot of the most prominent liberal voices, and they need to keep speaking in their respective venues. But different people have to be suggesting what gets said– different people have to be doing the prompting, or else the old ones have to learn some new tricks– they need to learn to be more discerning, more critical and less trusting, to communicate to the average person better, and to develop the habit of adjusting when faced with poor results. It just seems like the message should be getting out better, like people do a great job of talking about things except they consistently come up just a little too short, and like people just aren’t hearing us well enough. It seems like people give up too easily and on the whole are a little too shy of critically examining the Republicans’ motives and arguments. I know that might sound odd if you look at the left-blogosphere all day, but seriously, it’s not getting out there. People tone down what they know is the truth, depending on who they’re talking too, while the Republicans aren’t afraid to straight-out lie; very ignorant Republicans will act nice for 10 seconds in a totally fake move that’s calculated to disarm a person, and it takes the wind out of a liberal’s sails because it’s as if they’re always ready to give people the benefit of the doubt in the absolutely worst situations possible.

  • Alright, here’s an example, and I’m going to exaggerate just a little bit, for effect:

    How hard would be for Eleanor Clift, every time she’s on TV from now on, to work the question of President Bush’s TANG service into just about every sentence that comes out of her mouth? E.g., “Well, in a country where we have a President who apparently lied to the entire nation about his Texas Air National Guard service, and who maybe was out partying instead of doing his duty, to be talking about what we need to do in a war is…” or whatever. It wouldn’t kill her to do that.

    Could Kevin Drum do that? Could Atrios do it? Could Al Franken do it? Could they all do that together? Whoa, then they’d be doing what the Republicans do.

    They just need to pick out one thing to do, and the difference it would make would be big. Look at Katrina, TANG, Plame, all the lying. It would be perfectly fine for any of these big voices to keep talking about TANG, keep bringing it up now. They should have kept explaining it until the story got across to people, kept it up consistently.

    How hard would it be for one of these big persons to say, “Whoa, people basically use a politician’s past military service as a proxy for the politician’s character when they assess the politician. Maybe we should try making a big deal about this military stuff sometimes and see how it goes. After all, for some reason, the Republicans keep attacking people’s military records. Maybe there’a a reason why the Republicans think that it’s a good idea for them to do that.”

  • Murtha knew what he was going to be subjected to when he went up against the republican lie machine, and that makes him even more of a hero in my eyes.

  • I don’t think the severity of Murtha’s (or Kerry’s) wounds is really important. What’s important is that they were in position to receive them. The same can’t be said of Bush or Cheney.

    And the same people who implore us to support our troops seem to be wishing that Murtha and Kerry were more seriously wounded. Thanks for the support, folks!

  • The Dems have been very foolish in their handling of this issue. It’s very simple. When the right questions someone’s, anyone’s, purple heart, they are degrading and attacking the purple heart itself. Democrats should take the stance that these rightwingers are attack artists that seem to think the purple heart means nothing and was easy to attain.

    If the right continues to attack the purple heart, grandkids all over the country will be asking their grandpas, “Did you really earn that purple heart? How can you prove it?” Until now, the fact that you had the purple heart was proof enough that you’d earned it.

  • And behold…their God hath spoken it:
    …”Congressman Murtha is a fine man, a good man, who served our country with honor and distinction as a Marine in Vietnam and as a United States Congressman. He is a strong supporter of the United States military.” — G.W. Bush

    Are they questioning their leader?

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