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Politics : GOPwinger Lies/Distortions/Omissions/Perversions of Truth -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (20640)	8/29/2004 11:02:12 AM
From: Ron	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 173976

Veterans have replaced NASCAR dads as this year's political cliche. Soccer moms and angry white guys are politically passe, but vets are all the rage. Lucky us. But instead of politicos pandering to win our support by providing the level of medical care we were promised or decent benefits for the families of soldiers killed on duty, we're being sacrificed as shock troops in the presidential campaigns. Watching my brother vets fight one another, I can't wait for it to be someone else's turn in the national bull's-eye. We've bled enough. There are ample reasons to be for or against President Bush or Sen. John Kerry. Take your pick. But instead of helpful discussions about the economy, education, the environment, immigration, Social Security, deficits, the fight against terrorism or a dozen more substantive issues that will directly affect our lives in the years to come, we're re-fighting the Vietnam War. And we're taking casualties. I know, it's the other side that's to blame, not your candidate. They started it, not you. Stripped of all the grandstanding, here's what matters: Neither Bush nor Kerry is a combat hero in the tradition of Sgt. York or Audie Murphy, but they are honorably discharged veterans. Everything else is partisan political spin. My heart breaks for the swift boat vets being used to attack Kerry. Eight years ago, when Kerry was running for re- election to the Senate, they bragged about him. Now they've been manipulated, advised and financed by powerful Republican operatives to turn on one of their own. Meanwhile, their credibility is being shredded by independent investigations. And I feel for those vets who gallantly served on Kerry's crews. The vicious attacks launched against their skipper have wounded them, too. I'm sick of seeing good and decent men being fooled into fighting other good and decent men for the amusement and political profit of draft-dodging, neo-conservative chicken hawks who've never been closer to a pair of combat boots than their favorite G.I. Joe doll. Few of them were willing to dirty their hands when their nation went to war. Yet now they're cynically and disgracefully egging on brave men to rip away the scabs of old war wounds not yet healed. If we let political campaigns get any more vicious and mean-spirited than they are now, about the only rational way left to choose our political leaders will be the old-fashioned .44-caliber showdown on a dusty street at high noon. Come to think of it, that might be an improvement over the current presidential campaign. At least if we had a mano-a-mano gunfight to choose the next occupant of the White House, Bush and Kerry would be doing their own fighting and suffering. Instead, we have the sorry spectacle of hurting Vietnam vets being used, as they were in the war, as cannon fodder. And when votes have been counted, these same politicians will again turn their backs on those who did the real fighting for them. And some people wonder why voter apathy is so widespread in this country. Maybe it's because a lot of us can't abide the stench of today's political campaigns. Columnist Dennis Rogers newsobserver.com