James Wolcott nails it... there's a serious talking point in here.

[VolcanoJen]

Via Atrios, who says he's a little shrill, which is exactly what I think we need right now. Shrill.

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2004/09/baby_hooey.php

Crucial Excerpt:

They have no decency. Not a sliver, not a shred. Look at how Max Cleland has been treated, look at how George Soros has been smeared as some sort of Jewish intriguer who oozed his way out of Nazi Germany by Tony Blankley* and a drug kingpin by Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, look at--oh, we know what the examples are.

Ben Ferguson can snicker that if John Kerry had incurred real injuries he'd be in a nice wheelchair today and the middleaged white fools sitting in the bookstore don't even raise a peep, which makes you wonder if ten years from now it'll be open season on any American vet from the Iraq campaign who's missing limbs or carrying shrapnel and gets out of political line. There is a myth that the Left spat on returning Vietnam vets in the Seventies. Well, the Right spits on Vietnam vets every day with impunity, and will spit on future vets. Conservatives support the military only in the vague abstract; beneath their patriotic bluster and sentimentality, they basically think soldiers are chumps, risking their lives when they could be staying home, making money, and carving out a neat career, as Ben has done.

Do you really think that Rush and Newt and Dick Cheney and the rest of them regret that they didn't serve in Vietnam, that they didn't do their part for a war they supported and whose cause they still think was just? Do you really think Ben Ferguson wishes he was in uniform fighting for democracy in Iraq instead of plastering his Lumpy Rutherford face on TV?

They have no conscience, they have no decency, so let's stop fake-pretending that they do.

[The Traveler]

1. YES!

These are people of poor character, and downright anti-christian in terms of what they really value. The Dollar is their God. Our sons and daughters are the sacrifice.

[VolcanoJen]

2. I keep thinking about ten, twenty, thirty years from now.

One day in the semi-distant future, an Iraq War Veteran may choose to run for office. It's entirely unpredictable, what they'll be feeling then. But it's important to remember what's happening now to the politically-active veterans of America's last and most unpopular war, so that we don't repeat those mistakes again.

Isn't this supposed to be a classic right-wing talking point? Yes. And I'm fucking tired of it, their "ownership" of patriotism.

[Veggie Meathead]

3. In another thread, I have called it Bush's war on the soldiers,

belittling their sacrifice,not providing life saving vests for them,
preventing any TV or Press presence when they return in caskets,cutting back their benefits in civilian life and any number of cruel acts that makes them feel their sacrifice has been in vain.All the while the comfortable prigs on TV wrap themselves in the flag and dissect the fine points of a memo avoiding why Bush was AWOl during another war.