[carton253]

Well, that's twice you missed the point. Once in Ann's article...and in my post.

Ann isn't disparaging what Cleland did... She is disparaging the fact that he allows the Democrats to misrepresent these particular wounds as sustained on the battlefield when they were not.

Ann is disparaging the fact that Cleland allows it because suddenly he has been elevated onto some heroic, righteous platform from which to criticize the President's service in the National Guard.

It is your basic compare and contrast. Cleland - hero, left three wounds on the battlefield in Vietnam... Bush... rich frat boy AWOL from the National Guard. It is smoke and mirrors.

SOP for Dems... And it seemed to work...at least on you.

[Bluntpoint]

Change two facts. Cleland today was supporting Bush.

A Begala was taking on Cleland.

This whole thread would me turned on its head.

[optimistically_conservative]

She is disparaging the fact that he allows the Democrats to misrepresent these particular wounds as sustained on the battlefield when they were not.

What an assinine argument.

So, let's tell the families of 100s that died in Iraq their deaths were less meaningful and were not "sustained on the battlefield". Let's tell the thousands injured in Iraq that they are not heroic injuries.

I get the point. I don't like it. As a vet of the first Gulf War, I don't think I have to and I'll be damned if I sit quietly by and watch the honorable and heroic service of someone I politically disagree with be disparaged and mischaracterized.

Have I made myself crystal clear?