I have absolutely no use for shock columnist Ann Coulter who this week writes — among others — of Max Cleland,
Cleland lost three limbs in an accident during a routine noncombat mission where he was about to drink beer with friends. He saw a grenade on the ground and picked it up. He could have done that at Fort Dix. In fact, Cleland could have dropped a grenade on his foot as a National Guardsman – or what Cleland sneeringly calls “weekend warriors.” Luckily for Cleland’s political career and current pomposity about Bush, he happened to do it while in Vietnam.
Ugh. Completely inappropriate.
But so is the reaction of Dan Gillmor and the Center for American Progress. Gillmor writes that,
The Center for American Progress shreds her misrepresentations, and wonders why Bush has no problem with this kind of shameless behavior by big-time supporters.
But Dan hasn’t bothered to do any fact checking and, in fact, the Center for American Progress doesn’t appear to know what it’s talking about, at least when it comes to training for Vietnam. According to CAP’s “shredding” of Coulter,
SAYING CLELAND WAS “LUCKY” TO HAVE LIMBS BLOWN OFF: Coulter said, “Luckily for ClelandÂ…he happened to [lose his limbs] while in Vietnam” and said that had he been injured “at Fort Dix rather than in Vietnam, he would never have been a U.S. Senator.” Of course, Cleland probably would not have been dealing with live grenades and enemy fire in the save haven of Ft. Dix. But, then, many top conservatives might not know this because they do not have firsthand knowledge of a combat zone.
What are they smoking? Fort Dix was a major training area for soldiers headed for Vietnam. The military constructed a mock Vietnamese village there and trained American soldiers to assault it in live fire exercises featuring small arms and explosives. People can get killed during such exercises (in fact the military generally has an extremely high accidental death rate even during peace time precisely because training for combat is itself extremely dangerous). Does CAP think that soldiers train to use grenades by simply reading the manuals?
I also find it absurd to refer, as Gillmor does, to Coulter as a “thug.” Referring to writers as thugs crosses the line straight into Coulter territory, in my opinion. That sort of characterization is something I’d expect to see in Newsmax.
Sources:
Will President Bush Tolerate This? Press Release, Center for American Progress, February 13, 2004.
Cleland drops a political grenade. Ann Coulter, TownHall.Com, February 12, 2004