"Gaining subpoena power and following the trail of dirty money was the point."That may not have been possible. There's a ton of case law based on arguments pertaining to political speech, and from what I know of it, it doesn't give Kerry much room -- in which case a lawsuit would have probably backfired. The case would have been dismissed as quickly as possible, and there would have been no authority for further investigations. Without a case to pursue, the trail would have gone cold quickly -- as it did.
Incidentally, there was a Republican filmmaker who sued Kerry for defamation (a bogus, unsupported claim), and tried the same tactics, except that his case was dismissed just a few days ago after a long wait without support from his ratbag friends. Such is loyalty among vermin.
Yes, Kerry should have fought earlier.
And harder.
And WE should have done more.
Much more.
And ... and ... and this, that, and the other thing.
The fact is that we got sandbagged. I personally never suspected the oh-so-patriotic Republicans would try to tear down a decorated combat veteran in such a brazen, transparently bogus way, and I was wrong.
But, since they're typical bullies, we can count on the Republicans to try the same thing again and again and again, until we smack them down for it. And they ARE doing it again, this time to Jack Murtha.
THIS is our best chance to strike, and we should cut the head off the viper.
Jack Murtha shouldn't be required to swing the scythe alone,
all of us should participate in the effort. After all, it's not about John Kerry or Jack Murtha, but about the abuse of military veterans for political gain. It's high time we called these "parlor patriots" on their lies and treachery.
As much as I usually dislike quoting TV shows, there's one quote from
Battlestar Galactica that occasionally pops into my mind. As Tyrol, Cally, and Starbuck watch while the Cylons are invading New Caprica, Tyrol asks Starbuck, "what do we do now?" To which Starbuck replies, "we fight them until we can't." And roll credits -- that was the end of last year's episodes.
No, the Republicans aren't
quite as bad as the Cylons. The Cylons want to destroy all of humanity, and are fictional; the Republicans just want to destroy America, but they are
real, and are following their own script.
So we will have to fight until we can't.
Can we fight for Jack Murtha?
--p!