by Ann Coulter
“Every day,” he said, “our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 A.M. to follow the growth of the American anti-war movement.” And he named names: “Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses.”
What are we to make of the fact that—as we learned from the 403–3 vote—the Democrats didn’t even want to withdraw troops from Iraq? By their own account, there was no merit to their demands. Before the vote, Democrats could at least defend themselves from sedition by pleading stupidity. After the vote, we knew even they didn’t believe what they were saying about the war. ‘ (Fortunately, thanks to that vote, the Islamo-fascists knew it, too.) The Democrats enjoy giving aid and comfort to the enemy for no purpose other than giving aid and comfort to the enemy. There is no plausible explanation for the Democrats’ behavior other than that they long to see U.S. troops shot, humiliated, and driven from the field of battle. They fill the airwaves with treason, but when called to vote on their own proposals to withdraw troops, they disavow their own public statements. These people are not only traitors, they are gutless traitors.
Or—as President Bush put it—Murtha is a “fine man, a good man” who served with “honor and distinction,” who “is a strong supporter of the United States military.” Bush said he was sure Murtha’s “decision to call for an immediate withdrawal of our troops … was done in a careful and thoughtful way.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also called Murtha “a fine man,” saying, “[I]t’s perfectly proper to have a debate over these things, and have a public debate.” National Security Adviser Steve Hadley called in his praise of Murtha from South Korea, saying Murtha was “a veteran, a veteran Congressman and a great leader in the Congress.”
The nation hadn’t witnessed this much jingoistic hero worship since General Douglas MacArthur returned from Korea. Can’t Republicans disagree with a Democrat veteran without praising him for six days straight? Even after Murtha had time to reflect on his insane proposal to withdraw troops in the middle of the war, his explanation was—according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette—that “his views began to change as attacks on U.S. troops rose this year and he realized that they `had become the target.’ ” It took this military genius two and a half years to realize that the Islamic fascists were shooting at U.S. troops? A veritable Patton, this Murtha. In other words, Murtha would support U.S. troops fighting a war, but only provided the enemy does not make our troops “the target.” I assume the logic of this position requires no further refutation than stating it.
It is simply axiomatic that any Democrat who ever brushed against the cloth of a military uniform is automatically a saint. How about our veterans? What about Sam Johnson, Duncan Hunter, Oliver North, Tailgunner Joe McCarthy? What about the Swift Boat Veterans? They were all brave men—braver than Kerry. Don’t they deserve the same presumption of magnificence as Democrat veterans? You wouldn’t know it the way Democrats are constantly carrying on about their military service, but there are a lot more Republican military veterans than there are Democrat veterans. Despite all their bluster about “chicken hawks,” in the very Congress whence Murtha issued his demand to withdraw troops Republican veterans outnumbered Democrat veterans 87-62.
Former representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham never did something as insane as proposing that we withdraw troops in the middle of a war. But a week after Murtha was proposing unconditional surrender in Iraq, Cunningham did admit to taking bribes as a congressman. Cunningham is a Navy ace. He shot down five MiGs, three in one day, including a North Vietnamese pilot with thirteen American kills. And yet Democrats don’t get sweaty whenever Cunningham’s name is mentioned. Indeed, no Democrat breathed a word of Cunningham’s unquestioned heroism before launching into angry denunciations of him. Representative Nancy Pelosi called Cunningham “the latest example of the culture of corruption.” Even in his disgrace, Pelosi is not fit to polish Cunningham’s boots. No liberal prefaces attacks on Colonel Oliver North with a recitation of North’s magnificent service as a Marine. And unlike Murtha’s, North’s record is known. As long as liberals are going to be jock sniffers for war veterans, let’s at least be equal about it. Why aren’t Democrats obligated to praise North’s war service before disputing his views?
After Murtha proposed withdrawing troops from Iraq, not one Republican attacked him personally. To the contrary, the only personal attacks leveled in response to Murtha’s proposal came from John Murtha—who responded to Vice President Cheney’s defense of the war by saying, “I like guys who’ve never been there that criticize us who’ve been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war and then don’t like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done.” This must have been Murtha’s way of thanking Cheney for referring to him as “my friend John Murtha” and “a good man, a Marine, a patriot.”
Democrats brag endlessly about their war records and wave the flag like mad until it comes time to cough up the record. When challenged repeatedly over the years by various Vietnam veterans, Murtha has refused to release medical records on file with the Department of Defense proving he was entitled to his two Purple Hearts. A fellow Democrat, decorated Vietnam veteran, and congressional colleague who ran against Murtha in a primary, Don Bailey, has said on numerous occasions that Murtha admitted to him that he didn’t deserve his Purple Hearts because he wasn’t injured.
But despite the peculiar murkiness of Murtha’s war record, I will stipulate that the records he refuses to release are filled with exploits that would put Audie Murphy to shame. I am willing to impute greater courage to Murtha than exhibited outside the gates of Troy. I shall assume he fought at Valley Forge and in the Peloponnesian War. Whatever is in those elusive DOD files, Benedict Arnold was a hell of a better fighter than John Murtha. Benedict Arnold captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British, repelled a British invasion near Lake Champlain, and most significant, led the charge at the Battle of Saratoga. Yet and still, there is one thing we can’t forgive even a great military hero for. Benedict Arnold was a traitor and we revile him, his name enshrined as a synonym for treason.
Perhaps the Democrats should resuscitate George McClellan as the original anti-war combat veteran of their party. McClellan was appointed commander of the Union Army by President Abraham Lincoln. But he was constantly carping about the war—he complained it was being fought against slavery instead of against the Confederate Army. McClellan repeatedly refused to go on the attack, saying Lincoln hadn’t planned or provided the Union Army with sufficient armor. Finally, Lincoln fired McClellan in a letter that read, “My dear McClellan: If you don’t want to use the Army I should like to borrow it for awhile.” In 1864, McClellan ran against Lincoln as an anti-war Democrat. Lincoln faced huge internal opposition within the Union from people who didn’t care about slavery and had grown weary of the war. Should people have backed McClellan over Lincoln because of McClellan’s demonstrably superior military service? He would have allowed the dissolution of the Union and the continuation of slavery. But who could speak with greater certainty of the horrors of war than General George McClellan?
If those of us who didn’t fight are wimps who don’t know the real truth of war, I say, Fine. Let’s allow only combat veterans and active military members to vote. Everybody else shut up—including me and the vast majority of liberals. Kerry, Kerrey, Cleland, Inouye, and Murtha—that’s it; they’ve got five votes. Until then, I don’t want to hear anything more about “chicken hawks.” Let’s have an end to it.
The media’s persistent use of the word hawk to describe Murtha was somewhat misleading. His 2005 demand that we withdraw troops in the middle of a war was not the first time Murtha failed to live up to the description. To be sure, in 1991 Murtha supported the Gulf War, as did most sentient primates to the political right of Gore Vidal. He’s been dining out on that vote ever since.
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September 2002, amid loud claims that Murtha was “one of the first of President Bush’s chief Democratic supporters” in the Gulf War, Murtha was described as a surprising naysayer on the Iraq War resolution. He said the president was going about it “the wrong way.” Boasting of his superior credentials in matters of war and peace because he served, Murtha said, “I have found that the guys who haven’t been there are more likely to vote to go to war.” In the end, ex-marine John Murtha voted in favor of the war resolution so that, henceforth, each one of his repeated criticisms of the Iraq War would be treated as a shocking about-face from an Iraq War supporter and provide reporters with a new excuse to retell the story of his daunt-less valor as a soldier (with precious few details).
In September 2003, Murtha complained that the administration had “severely miscalculated” the war in Iraq and noted that the “latest polls show that we’ve lost the American public.” On May 6, 2004, he said, there weren’t enough troops “to prevail in this war.” In his defense, at that point there had only been one successful free democratic election in Iraq—their first in some fifty years—as opposed to the three we’ve got under our belts now.
In September 2004—right about the time John Kerry mysteriously took up goose hunting—an increasingly unhinged Kerry began claiming Bush had a secret plan to reinstitute the draft as soon as the election was over. We’re still waiting for our draft notices, Senator. Of course, Kerry also predicted during the campaign that he would release his complete military medical records, and that hasn’t happened either.
Only one member of Congress backed Kerry’s claims of an impending draft: John Murtha—based on secret inside information. Murtha said “he had learned through conversations with Pentagon officials that beginning in November, `the Bush administration plans to call up large numbers of the military Guard and Reserves, to include plans that they previously had put off to call up the Individual Ready Reserve.’ “ What happened to those plans? Did no one in the media ever ask? And why were Democrats constantly excoriating Bush for not having a “plan,” while simultaneously accusing him of having plans he didn’t have?
But a year after complaining Bush had not deployed enough troops—and, indeed, that there were secret plans to reinstitute a draft—Murtha thought there were too many troops in Iraq. Murtha didn’t like the “not enough troops” porridge, so then he tried the “too many troops” porridge, but he never found the “just enough troops” porridge.
So it wasn’t that big a surprise when, in November 2005, demurely standing in front of seven American flags and a bust of John F. Kennedy, Murtha called for withdrawing all troops. But once again, the media treated Murtha’s carping about the war as especially damaging to Bush inasmuch as it was coming from a “leading Democratic hawk on the Iraq war turned dove,” as the New York Daily News put it. The Washington Post breathlessly reported Murtha’s call to withdraw troops under the headline “An Unlikely Lonesome Dove.” The article noted that Murtha’s “brand of hawkishness has never been qualified by the word `chicken.’ “
How many times do we have to hear about the bolt of lightning with this guy? I did not know the road to Damascus was this long, with so many opportunities for conversion.
The Democrats and their pals in the media considered the vote in November 2005 on Murtha’s proposal to withdraw troops from Iraq a Republican dirty trick. I see that my handy Democrat-to-Republican phrase book translates “dirty trick” into “up-or-down vote.” Democrats think they should have a right to naysay the war effort and embolden the enemy without anyone calling them on it.
Deploying their usual fallacy of composition, liberals say that because they have a constitutional right to say stupid things, the stupid things they say must have merit. The Nazis had a constitutional right to march in Skokie, Illinois; that doesn’t mean we should kill the Jews. Yes, Democrats are constitutionally entitled to be stupid. They are, after all, Democrats. But they’re wrong and everyone knows it including them, apparently, by a vote of 403-3. They say their “right” to carp pointlessly about Iraq is patriotic because that’s what the “troops are fighting for”—implicitly admitting, I might add, that our cause in Iraq is just. Yes, and I have a right to call Democrats blowhards, moral cowards, and traitors. (But in the interests of brevity I’ll spare you the twenty minutes of praising them first.)
No one is disputing whether anyone has a right to say anything. What we’re saying is—as indicated above—they are liars, cowards, and traitors. If the same person who told President Bush to nominate Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court were advising him on foreign policy and we invaded the Cayman Islands instead of Iraq, I, too, would be criticizing the war. But I wouldn’t pretend that by calling for an immediate troop withdrawal, I wasn’t encouraging the Cayman resistance force to hold on and fight harder. Clearly I’d be offering aid and comfort to the poolside waitresses, cabana boys, and scuba instructors we were fighting. But if there were a vote to withdraw troops from the Cayman Islands, I wouldn’t pout and say that’s not fair and then vote against it. It is simply a fact that naysaying the war and claiming that things are going so badly that troops must be withdrawn will encourage the enemy and demoralize our troops. Why can’t the Democrats just admit that?
When our troops came under a bloody attack in Somalia in 1993, President Clinton ordered a humiliating retreat—on the advice of John Murtha. Calling on Clinton to pull the troops out, Murtha said, “Our welcome has been worn out”—which I think is the essence of battlefield valor: the ability to know when staying another minute would just be tacky. And sure enough, perhaps out of force of habit, Clinton pulled out before finishing. Our troops emerged from a typically incompetent Clintonian mission with unvarnished heroism. They didn’t run, Clinton ordered their retreat—a retreat that was later specifically cited by Osama bin Laden as proving to al Qaeda fighters that America was a “paper tiger.” After a few blows, bin Laden said, America would run in defeat, “dragging their corpses and their shameful defeat.”
In the current war, Democrats make the same proposal over and over again and then attack disagreement by portraying it as an attack on their “patriotism”—and it is a violation of law to question a liberal’s patriotism.
Democrats screamed like stuck pigs when White House press secretary Scott McClellan meekly remarked that by proposing to withdraw troops in the middle of a war Murtha had adopted “the policy positions of Michael Moore.” The Chicago Tribune said the “debate got ugly” when McClellan “lumped Murtha with filmmaker Michael Moore.” A Boston Globe columnist said the White House was “impugning the reputations and patriotism” of opponents by comparing them to Moore. The New York Times called the comparison to Moore a “blistering statement” and “an unusually critical statement.” Liberals could conceive of no greater calumny than associating a Democrat with Michael Moore.
To be sure, Moore’s propaganda film Fahrenheit 9/11 was pretty seditious. Moore compared the terrorists in Iraq killing American troops to the Minutemen of the American Revolution saying, “They are not the enemy” and “their numbers will grow—and they will win. Get it, Mr. Bush?”
But since when was Michael Moore persona non grata with liberals? A year earlier, Times columnist Paul Krugman had hailed Fahrenheit 9/11 for telling “essential truths about leaders who exploited a national tragedy for political gain.” The only time Democrats tried to dissociate themselves from Moore—other than when they found themselves positioned between him and a buffet table—was when McClellan compared him to John Murtha. Until that moment, virtually every prominent Democrat was rushing to associate himself more closely with Moore.
The Democrats’ most beloved president ever, Bill Clinton, gave Fahrenheit 9/11 a ringing endorsement in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, saying, “I think every American ought to see it…. As far as I know, there are no factual errors in it” (and to be fair, it was more factual than Clinton’s 1997 grand jury testimony) “but it may connect the dots a little too close�
�about the Saudis and the Bushes, and the terror and all. I’d like to see it again before making a judgment about whether I think it’s totally fair.” Clinton might have been a little touchy on the subject of the Saudis, having accepted millions of dollars in donations from the Saudi royal family and Saudi businessmen for his presidential library, to say nothing of their shared viewpoints on the status of women.
When Moore endorsed Democrat Wesley Clark for president, Clark proudly posted the endorsement on his website and invited Moore to speak at his fundraisers. And, of course, Moore sat with Jimmy Carter at the Democratic National Convention, which drew more than a few stares, mostly from people wondering when the luxury box would collapse.
Tom Daschle and Terry McAuliffe attended the Washington, D.C., premiere of Fahrenheit 9/11, when Daschle was still Senate minority leader and McAuliffe was chairman of the DNC. David Boies, former election-stealing lawyer for sore loser Al Gore, was cohost of the event.
Moore’s movie was being promoted by a veritable Who’s Who of Democrat flacks, including Howard Wolfson, Hillary’s former press secretary; Michael Feldman, former adviser to Al Gore’s 2000 presidential race; and Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane, former spokesmen for both Bill Clinton and Al Gore. Attending the advance screening of the movie in Manhattan were former UN ambassador and Democrat Richard Holbrooke; former Clinton adviser, Democrat Vernon Jordan; former Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton; Democrat Al Franken; and devoted Clinton supporter, Democrat Martha Stewart—representing convicted felons, a key segment of the Democratic vote. It was like a Diddy birthday party in the Hamptons, but with less gun-play.
