Leonard Pitts and the Politics of Moral Equivalence

It all started with Wesley Clark who essentially said that being a war hero did not qualify someone for the Presidency. This is absolutely true. And since Clark was acting as the unpaid, unofficial front man for Barack Obama, the appropriate response would have been that having no experience at all is less of a qualification for becoming President.

Of course in the age of the Internet, it was inevitable that the Left-wing blogosphere would chime in with comments that were not true and were shameful (if the Left had any shame). And this was picked up by Leonard Pitts, authentic Black & Leftist, whose column is reprinted (natch) in the Virginian Pilot, to take some below the belt shots at the Right.

Don't attack the patriotism of our patriots

He begins by taking the lefty blogger to task.

I have no idea when reverence fled these shores. That it did, however, seems obvious.

What else can you conclude when the service of military men becomes a routine object of mockery and misinformation in the name of politics? Ladies and gentlemen, I give you John McCain: traitor.

In most quarters, of course, the senator is regarded as anything but. In those quarters, he is a war hero, having survived over five years of beatings, solitary confinement and deprivation in a Vietnamese prison camp, even refusing an offer of early release because it meant leaving fellow prisoners behind.

But John Aravosis, who blogs on Americablog.com, has a different take. In a posting Sunday, he accused McCain of ''disloyalty'' because at one point, his captors tortured him into reading a propaganda statement.

I submit that John Aravosis would read a statement denouncing his own mother if you beat him long enough. Most of us would. We would trust Mom to understand that we acted under duress, that we did what we needed to survive. We would trust that 40 years later, no one would raise this as proof of ``disloyalty.''

So far, so good, but Pitts uses the rest of the column to lambaste the Right for doing what Aravosis did:

That Aravosis has done precisely that is bizarre, shameful and crude -- but not unprecedented.

He then uses three examples. First is John Kerry:

Indeed, if you were making a movie out of this, you'd call it Swift Boat II: The Revenge, after the equally bizarre, equally shameful and equally crude 2004 attacks on John Kerry, another senator who was regarded as a war hero. Kerry was awarded a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star for braving enemy fire while wounded to rescue a Special Forces officer. But that heroism was slimed (Kerry was never under fire, they claim) by people working for the re-election of a president who served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam war and a vice-president who dodged service altogether. Delegates at the GOP convention even mocked Kerry's wounds, sporting bandages bearing purple hearts.

Pitts would have a point if the Swift Boat Vets who came out against John Kerry had been feckless denizens of the Internet.

Need I remind Pitts that the Swift Boat Vets were Kerry’s fellow veterans? Many of whom served with him in Viet Nam. And their accusations against Kerry have more to do with his actions after his brief stint in Viet Nam than his actions while there.


There would not have been any Swift Boat Vets if John Kerry had not allied himself with the rabid Left in this country during the war and testified before Congress accusing his fellow soldiers of atrocities “ ...in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan.” If he had not held the sham “Winter Soldier” spectacle in which more atrocity stories were fabricated. In short, Kerry besmirched the honor of our soldiers and lied about his experience (his Christmas in Cambodia). That is what caused his fellow veterans to campaign against him. Kerry more closely resembles Aravosis than he does McCain.

One final point. If McCain’s fellow prisoners organize to campaign against him during this election, accusing him of lying about his experience, accusing him of smearing the troops after he came home, accusing him of making up stories about his wounds and his torture, then I would compare McCain with Kerry. Until then, Pitts has nothing except the MSM myth of “Kerry the Decorated Hero Lied About By Republican Operatives.” Bull shit.

His other two examples are Max Cleland and John Murtha:

…a nation where a Max Cleland can leave three limbs in Vietnam, yet have his patriotism questioned or a John Murtha can serve as a Marine for 37 years, yet be called a coward.

It’s impossible to create Internet links in a printed column, but I would like to find out where Max Cleland was called unpatriotic. He was elected largely because he touted his sacrifice for his country in the battlefield. He was defeated because he was too liberal for his constituency. The only articles I remember about Cleland were written by Ann Coulter who is not known for holding back. Here is an excerpt from one:

It is simply a fact that Max Cleland was not injured by enemy fire in Vietnam. He was not in combat, he was not — as Al Hunt claimed — on a reconnaissance mission, and he was not in the battle of Khe Sanh, as many others have implied. He picked up an American grenade on a routine noncombat mission and the grenade exploded.

In Cleland's own words: "I didn't see any heroism in all that. It wasn't an act of heroism. I didn't know the grenade was live. It was an act of fate." That is why Cleland didn't win a Purple Heart, which is given to those wounded in combat. Liberals are not angry because I "lied"; they're angry because I told the truth.

I wouldn't press the point except that Democrats have deliberately "sexed up" the circumstances of Cleland's accident in the service of slandering the people of Georgia, the National Guard and George Bush. Cleland has questioned Bush's fitness for office because he served in the National Guard but did not go to Vietnam.
And yet the poignant truth of Cleland's own accident demonstrates the commitment and bravery of all members of the military who come into contact with ordnance. Cleland's injury was of the routine variety that occurs whenever young men and weapons are put in close proximity — including in the National Guard.

But it is a vastly more glorious story to claim that Cleland was injured by enemy fire rather than in a freak accident. So after Saxby Chambliss beat Cleland in the 2002 Georgia Senate race, liberals set to work developing a carefully crafted myth about Cleland's accident. Among many other examples, last November, Eric Boehlert wrote in Salon: "(D)uring the siege of Khe Sanh, Cleland lost both his legs and his right hand to a Viet Cong grenade."
Sadly for them, dozens and dozens of newspapers have already printed the truth. Liberals simply can't grasp the problem Lexis-Nexis poses to their incessant lying. They ought to stick to their specialty — hysterical overreaction. The truth is not their forte.

I have provided a link to Ann's column where she cites the newspaper articles referring to Cleland's wounds.

So for the sake of truth, it seems that Pitts is relying on his memory of the myths spread by his fellow journalists like Eric Boehlert about Cleland. It’s not a surprise, we all prefer the myths that support our beliefs and this myth is supported by lots of newsprint, so Pitts decide to run with it. And by the way, Leonard, getting blown up in Viet Nam is not a lifetime ticket to Congress just like being made a prisoner and tortured is not a ticket to the Presidency.

The final reference was about John Murtha. True, a Marine for some 37 years. But also one who in his desire to see the US out of Iraq has managed to slime his fellow service members. His accusations against the Marines in Haditha have become notorious, and are now fully ripe as each of the Marines has had charges against him dismissed.

Murtha is revealed as someone similar to Kerry, a former soldier who is willing to slander his fellow soldiers to further his own political career.

Soldiers should be honored for their service, but reverence is reserved for those who act honorably on and off the battlefield.

And for people who write columns, a little fact checking wouldn’t hurt.