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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Skywatcher who wrote (21557)	7/6/2003 12:19:57 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

This 4th of July weekend, spare a thought for decorated Vietnam veteran Max Cleland, a man who sacrificed both legs and one arm in his country's service. Then spare a shudder for how casually the Bush Republicans -- utterly indifferent to this man's honorable record at war and at peace -- smeared him as some sort of Osama bin Laden-loving traitor. The Bush Republicans are all about such vague smears. Democrats are indistinguishable from Chemical Ali, Qusay Hussein and the other Iraqi villain face cards. Bipartisanship is just another word for date rape. Cleland -- who is profiled in today's Washington Post -- lost his Senate seat in November to challenger Saxby Chambliss, a Republican who first made the scene via Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America". Control of the Senate was riding on the Cleland-Chambliss contest, so money had poured into Georgia, and George Bush visited five times to campaign. Then came the TV spots, which opened with pictures of bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, then moved to attacking Cleland as an opponent of the President's Homeland Security bill (Never mind that Cleland was a key supporter of the similar Democratic version of the bill). "That was the biggest lie in America -- to put me up there with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein and say I voted against homeland security!" Cleland angrily tells The Post. "I volunteered 35 years ago to go to Vietnam and the guy I was running against got out of going to Vietnam with a trick knee! I was an author of the homeland security bill, for goodness' sake! But I wasn't a rubber stamp for the White House. That right there is the epitome of what's wrong with American politics today!" Republican senators John McCain and Chuck Hagel -- both, like Cleland, Vietnam veterans -- immediately denounced the ads. "Putting pictures of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden next to a picture of a man who left three limbs on the battlefield -- it's worse than disgraceful, it's reprehensible," says McCain. For Hagel it was "beyond offensive," especially applied to a man who'd given so much to his country. "It made me recoil, quite honestly," Hagel said. (Senator Chambliss, sticking to the low road that's served him so well, had someone tell The Post he would have no comment). The Post says Cleland also now feels he was "bamboozled" into supporting a wrongheaded war in Iraq. "I voted for it because I was told by the secretary of defense and by the CIA that there were weapons of mass destruction there," Cleland says. "The president said it, Colin Powell said it, they all said it. And now they can't find them! Our general over there, who has no dog in this fight, he said he sent troops all over the place and they found two trailers and not much of anything else. So we went to war for two trailers? "Now wait a minute," Cleland continues. "Let me run this back: We have a war. A bunch of Americans die. After the war, we try to figure out why we were there. There's a commitment of 240,000 ground troops with no exit strategy. You know what that's called? Vietnam! Hey, I've been there, done that, got a few holes in my T-shirt." thenation.com