When Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) dared question President Bush’s leadership by calling for immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, the hawkish Vietnam veteran seemed an unlikely target for another swift boat-style attack.
But smear the messenger is a reflex among fringe activists unable to stomach questioning of their leaders, much less debate “responsibly” (the president’s word) how best to destroy al-Qaida or accomplish the mission in Iraq.
On Jan. 13, Cybercast News Service retaliated by insinuating that Murtha’s combat decorations are undeserved. The “swift boating” of Murtha had begun. We’ve gone from questioning fitness to lead to questioning fitness to question.
Reagan administration Secretary of the Navy James Webb responded in the New York Times, “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.”
David Thibault, former producer of the Republican National Committee’s televised news magazine, runs Cybercast. Former Rush Limbaugh writer/producer Marc Morano wrote the article. Thibault told the Washington Post Murtha’s record is relevant now “because the congressman has really put himself in the forefront of the anti-war movement.”
“In other words,” the Post’s E. J. Dionne wrote, “if Murtha had just shut up and gone along with Bush, nothing would have been said about his service.” The message to combat veterans: get in the way of Bush and you’re road kill.
So Vietnam veteran Webb is one Virginia Democrat who had best watch his back.
In his Jan. 18 op-ed piece, he cautioned that such attacks invert the tradition of honoring combat veterans and will backfire in Republican faces. “A young American now serving in Iraq,” Webb wrote, “might rightly wonder whether his or her service will be deliberately misconstrued 20 years from now.” Webb believes that may be why most Iraq war veterans to declare for public office have chosen to run as Democrats.
Swift boating is one of the crudest forms of political activism and any past bipartisan misbehavior does not excuse it. Even Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly cries foul, if for no other reason than conservative operatives have begun eating their own.
On Jan. 17, Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances (PRCB) called for an investigation into the president’s authorization of the National Security Agency to violate domestic surveillance restrictions in the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act. PRCB members include former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr; Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation; Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation; and David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union.
The liberal blogger, Digby, observes, “‘Conservative’ is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives’ good graces. Until they aren’t. At which point they are liberals.” Even “patriots” has lost its mojo. PRCB members are excoriated online as terrorist enablers, traitors and not real conservatives.
By now the list of treasonous subversives includes Brent Scowcroft, former national security advisor under Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush; former National Security Council member Rand Beers; former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke; former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill; former State Department Chief of Staff Col. Larry Wilkerson; National Review magazine’s founder William F. Buckley and editor Rich Lowry; the Washington Times’ Bruce Bartlett; Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Sam Brownback (R-Kan.); and former Sen. Max Cleland, among others. All have questioned Bush’s leadership. Several drew campaigns of character assassination.
Real conservatives briefly considered that unethical. At a recent conference, “The Conservative Movement: Its Past, Present, and Future,” author Rick Perlstein spoke of being inspired by Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) who in 1960 supported Sen. Barry Goldwater for president over Richard Nixon, whom they considered unprincipled.
In 1965, YAF chairman Tom Charles Huston condemned conservatives “who abuse the truth, who resort to violence and engage in slander,” and “who seek victory at any price without regard for the broken lives … incurred by those who stand in the way.”
Yet, YAF moralists were soon working for President Nixon, including Huston as architect of the political espionage campaign that became Watergate.
That anything-for-the-cause coldness persists. It would be nice to believe these attacks are aberrations, actions of a reactionary fringe that ethical Republican politicians will repudiate.
Don’t expect that until the public no longer lets them get away with it.
Thomas M. Sullivan is a professional engineer who consults for industries ranging from chemicals to biotech. He lives in Asheville. His columns appear on alternate Saturdays and he can be reached at tm_sullivan_act@yahoo.com.
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