The NY Post cartoon has Kerry and Blumenthal in a bar tying "lying" and getting a purple heart

[karynnj]

It has Blumenthal saying "Lying about my Vietnam service hurt me" and Kerry responding " Look on the bright side, maybe you'll get a purple heart for it".

http://www.nypost.com/opinion/cartoons/delonas.htm

This is wrong on so many levels and it is not funny. I hate that Murdock, a right wing Australian creep controls a huge chunk of our media. (What is sad is that the country is so polarized that many normal Republicans don't see a problem with this.

[beachmom]

1. Ugh. I'm sorry I looked at that.

I am SO SICK of Vietnam being thrown into politics. It's a disease of the baby boomer generation, and I am really so over it.

[karynnj]

2. As one who lived through the Vietnam era, it is like having a very bad sinus headache

which seems never to end. As someone who graduated high school in 1968 and went to college, I didn't really know well people who went. But, there were many from my lower middle class/middle class high school who went - and some who died. At college, there were the "teach-ins" that shocked many of us who came in trusting our government.

With Blumenthal the issue is, I think, more about honesty and integrity. It does seem the story is far less clear cut than the NYT article which started this mess portrayed. What I hate is that, if the AP is correct, he said at the same event that he did not go to Vietnam. If so, this nothing is being given more weight than 3 decades of actions in public service.

Bringing Kerry in, here and in the WSJ, shows they still want to make his service suspect. It doesn't matter that the Navy gave him those medals - they don't like him, he protested, he's a liberal - so those medals don't count because -- he was only there 4 months (something always included in the timeline that Kerry's office had of his service since the 1980s) or because he really didn't want to be there.

[fedupinBushcountry]

3. The only ones who

throw it into politics to hurt people are repubs. Having lived through Vietnam and getting even closer to it then I would have thought as I was demonstrating against it along with my then to be husband in '68, '69. Those who criticize the most never served or thought up ways of never serving. My husband didn't have to serve he was in college but was so afraid of the draft that he wanted to choose what branch of service to be in not just to be thrown in the Army. He was against the war but wanted it over, the repubs would probably attack him too since he was on a big ship (destroyer)although his ship was attacked and 5 sailors died and many injured and many received purple hearts even those that did not have blood trickling (concussions, etc.) My husband was not injured, thank God. I will never ever forget the phone call though to inform me of the explosion and that he was not injured which came at the end of the call as I was on my knees thinking the worse. My husband no longer feels very patriotic thanks to those repubs.

One of the main reasons I got behind JK in '03 was because of his service and his dissent. He wasn't afraid to speak out and to go after the leaders who put us in that war. He never went after his fellow troops, never, just those who were giving the orders. The repubs are the only ones who support the troops if those troops are on their side which is despicable.

"It's a disease of the baby boomer generation, and I am really so over it." Sorry, Beachmom, but this baby boomer is tired of that remark. We didn't wish it upon us, it happened. My husband served for 20 years and Vietnam is part of that, not a disease but a mistake that he suffers for because he had the courage to serve as did JK.

[beachmom]

6. Thank you for telling your story of the era. I don't have a problem with

learning the history and stories of Vietnam. But I do have a problem with it being used as a political football, and it is not just Republicans. The GOP opponent may have done the oppo research, but the New York Times chose to not only run the story but basically DEMAND that Blumenthal drop out of the race. When the AP came out with contrary evidence to the NYT, they said it meant NOTHING.

I know it is perhaps "flamebait", but it really is a generational thing. I was too young to remember Vietnam, and I have never seen such a hullabaloo about everyone's "status" in the war. The reason why it keeps getting pushed is because baby boomer voters respond to this nonsense every single time. I completely agree that there were good people during that time who had an honest opinion and were decent. But all I ever hear from that generation is from two polarized crowds and the culture war. Agreed, that THAT comes largely from the Right, but I swear more baby boomers are right wing now than back then. For example, those from the baby boomer generation are much more likely to back the Arizona immigration law than younger people.

And just so you know, I'm not impressed with my own generation. The Gen Xers fell in love with Reagan and have voted more conservatively over the decades. They never were liberal, even in their 20s. I am definitely an odd woman out when it comes to people my own age. I think they are materialistic, selfish, and fairly apathetic. But at least we've gotten rid of the draft so now we have a professional army and those who don't join up are not tarred and feathered.

[fedupinBushcountry]

7. Sorry, Beachmom

but I respectfully disagree with some of your assumptions. BTW, I have a Gen Xer who wrote this song called http://soenyc.com/index.php?cpath=music">(A)Pathetic it is the 3rd song. I do however like you and my 2 Gen Xers. :hug:

My daughter misses out on the Gen X generation, waiting to see what her generation will be called maybe the WTF generation, who knows.:evilgrin:

Edited: can't count 3rd not 2nd.

[YvonneCa]

8. I agree the 'spinning' about VietNam gets tiresome...

...but I disagree that it's about boomers only. I think one reason it keeps coming up is because it was EXTREMEMLY divisive at the time...like having GWB for president was. Our country not only never really faced the lessons of VietNam but we REPEATED many of them. That has affected all of us, no matter our generational label.

Sadly, JK is a symbol of that time...that caricature we often talk about. It isn't who he really is. None of it is true. But using him as a symbol of that time is a 'shorthand' way of disrespecting a person's patriotism. Jane Fonda is a similar symbol, etc.

[BlueIris]

4. Wrong, indeed. That's enough to make me want to throw things. nt

[karynnj]

5. That is exactly how I felt, but I was on a commuter train, where that would have been been

met with disapproval. (I actually picked up the abandoned paper after my kindle batteries went low)

[JI7]

9. i can't say what i imagine doing to these people

[ObamaKerryDem]

10. Man, I hate the NY Post!

They were the ones who ran that racist monkey cartoon about Obama several months back too, I believe. Amazing how this trash passes for 'news'. This is one of the worst, most hurtful and discrediting things that could be said/implied about Senator Kerry...cuts even beyond the political, as I think a person's service and the sacrifice on their part (and their family/loved ones') it entails are a pretty personal thing, you know? Yeah it's true that this is far from the first time the RW types have said or done something like this in regards to him--it's essentially the Swift boat stuff all over again-- but it always angers me, whenever I see it, even now. One of the dirtiest campaign tricks ever pulled in American politics, I think. Plus the fact that the cartoonist made sure to make him look like a walking banana. True someone could say they always distort a person's features in these kind of things, but I don't recall the Post doing that--or at least not as badly or pronounced-- to their favorite candidates and politicians as they did here to JK. Stupid and childish.

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't even use the NY Post to line my cat's litter box...she deserves better than that! :)

[karynnj]

11. Not to mention - here they have Kerry

"saying" words that diminish something he never would diminish. I agree that your cat deserves better.