[Kozak]

Uggh. As much as I admire Ann, and love her writing ,this one is gonna come back and bite her. She should not have attacked Cleland on this unless 100% certain of the facts, which she seems to have missed in this case. Although Cleland is still a demagogue to attack Bush in this way. My God is this going to be an ugly campaign. I may have to go to Tibet or the South Pole until November.

[alloysteel]

To draw something of a parallel:

Larry Flynt (of "Hustler" fame) is confined to a wheelchair as well. Though he is not the object of nearly as much sympathy as Max Cleland, he is even more handicapped. The mere fact of being a paraplegic is by no means enough to avoid criticism for foolish, outlandish or totally unfounded prevarications. Max knew these charges about Bush not serving his full enlistment in the Air National Guard were meant to denigrate Bush's record, and was rightfully called to acccount for saying what he did about Bush.

And nobody was ever extracted an apology from Larry Flynt. At least, I do not remember any apologies.

But then Larry Flynt is not particularly honorable, and we do expect Max Cleland to be better than that.

[Fenris6]

"As much as I admire Ann, and love her writing ,this one is gonna come back and bite her."

Not really. I found it interesting that the "decorated hero" was the result of his own incompentence. I (ahem) was making a similar point re Purple Hearts in another thread. Sorry Max, but quit letting peeps parade your amputations around like you're some kinda hero - you had a misfire with a pal's grenade. Pretty stupid and irresponsible of you. And don't whine - your side started this "who's d*ck was bigger" bs.

Semper Fidelis