Joe Conason of the NY Observer states one point of view on the oddest political controversy in the media this year. Mr. Conason’s frame of reference seems to have relatively little in common with our own, which, in this instance, more resembles that of Jack Kelly. Here is an excerpt from Conason’s piece:

Only in a media environment where conservatives have long felt exempt from scrutiny would Limbaugh still feel free to mock the military service of those who disagree with him. He is, after all, a certified chicken-hawk who cheered on the Vietnam War as it ground up tens of thousands of young Americans, but saw no reason why he should serve. His local draft board in a Missouri county, where his family enjoyed political influence, granted him a 1-Y deferment after he dropped out of college and forfeited his student deferment. Explaining how he escaped the draft, he has cited both a “bad knee” and a cyst on his backside that supposedly rendered him medically unfit.

Despite that undistinguished record, however, he has never hesitated to denigrate the service of Sen. John Kerry, former Sen. Tom Daschle and other Democrats who volunteered to wear the nation’s uniform. He spent hours repeating the “Swift boat” lies when Kerry ran for president in 2004. And now he insinuates that the troops and vets who question this war are “phony soldiers.”

What really worries Limbaugh and his right-wing comrades is that more and more of those who bravely serve America abroad, from foot soldiers to flag officers, have begun to voice their anger at the reckless policies that have cost them so dearly. Leaders of VoteVets, a group of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans organized in support of smarter security policy, have angrily challenged Limbaugh to repeat his slur to their faces — something he is most unlikely to do.

Thanks to all the veterans with the courage to speak out — no matter what their opinion — it is no longer so easy for the Limbaugh crowd to claim the military and the flag as their exclusive property. That illegitimate seizure of everyone’s patriotic heritage is coming to an ignominious end.

Of course some in the military oppose the war, and certainly many object to the way it has been fought. Yet we are still talking about a US fighting force that, when polled three years ago, supported Bush over Kerry by a 69% to 24% margin. The idea of the rising tide of an anti-war all-volunteer military — “more and more of those who bravely serve America abroad, from foot soldiers to flag officers, have begun to voice their anger” — seems a bit far fetched, and the overheated prose of Mr. Conason suggests a wish rather than an observation.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Democrats, General, MSM, New Media, Polling, Republicans, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.