As John Amato discussed here yesterday, the Republicans are supposedly outraged over Donald Trump's remarks about John McCain, with the 2016 GOP clown car occupants rushing to condemn Trump and demand an apology for disparaging those who have served our country honorably.
So now they want us to believe their party cares about attacking veterans?
As Sarah Jones over at PoliticusUSA asked, where's the apology for how their party treated John Kerry and Max Cleland?
Hypocrite Republicans Demand Trump Apologize to McCain, But They Won’t Apologize to John Kerry:
To wit, ABC News did a recap of all of the puffed up Republicans climbing onto their moral high ground to praise veterans and demand an apology:
The Republican National Committee said in a statement condemning Trump, “Senator McCain is an American hero because he served his country and sacrificed more than most can imagine. Period. There is no place in our party or our country for comments that disparage those who have served honorably.”
No place in our country? Attacking veterans is what Republicans do. They taught Donald Trump everything he knows on this matter.
Republicans have not explained why it was okay when they Swiftboated now Secretary John Kerry — something 2016 hopeful Jeb Bush thanked the conservative group behind the attacks for doing. Or how about John McCain himself helping Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) after the Republican dishonestly attacked triple amputee Max Cleland (D-GA), linking the war hero and recipient of the Silver Star and the Bronze Star to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
What do these instances of no Republican demands for apologies have in common? Both John Kerry and Max Cleland are Democrats. Read on...
Here are a few more reminders of how Republicans treat Democrats when they're veterans:
Ann Coulter attacking Max Cleland: Vile Ann Coulter Smears a War Hero:
Inevitably, Mr. Kerry’s war record will be compared unflatteringly with that of the man who calls himself the “war President.” By publicly demanding answers about Mr. Bush’s spotty Guard record, Mr. Cleland attracted the malignant attention of Ms. Coulter.
“Max Cleland should stop allowing Democrats to portray him as a war hero who lost his limbs taking enemy fire on the battlefields of Vietnam,” she writes, claiming that he “lost three limbs in an accident during a routine non-combat 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 …. Luckily for Cleland’s political career and current pomposity about Bush, he happened to do it while in Vietnam.”
Saxby Chambliss going after Cleland on Hannity's show: Saxby Chambliss: Attacks On Cleland Were Fair, Regrets Not Getting Enough Of "Our Folks" Out To Vote:
COLMES: You came under fire of course for that ad against Max Cleland and people have talked about that ever since, the one where there was an image of Osama bin Laden. If you had it to do all over again would you still have run that ad?
CHAMBLISS: You know that ad is a myth, it just hangs around. If people had seen the ads that were run against me by my then opponent they would think that was a light-weight ad, but you know politics is a contact sport. It's a game in where you have to define your opponent and we're going to continue to work hard to address the issues that are important to Georgians. We did then and we're going to do it again.
COLMES: So you would have run it, that, knowing what you know now you would have done the same thing and run the same ad?
CHAMBLISS: Listen that ad was very fair and it pointed out defficiencies in the voting record of my opponent.
Allen West attacking Iraq war vet Tammy Duckworth: Allen West Doubts 'Legless' Tammy Duckworth's 'Loyalty' To America:
West especially raised doubts about Duckworth, a veteran who lost both of her legs and the use of her right arm in the Iraq War, raising suspicions about her loyalty to the country.
"Tammy Duckworth, you know I just don’t know where her loyalties lie, for her to have been a veteran and a wounded warrior for the United States Army, she should know that this is not the right thing and hopefully she will remember the oath of office that she took as an Army officer and not the allegiance I guess she believes she has to the liberal progressives of the Democrat [sic] party,” West said.
I could go on and on, but I'll stop there. I'm sure our commenters can come up with a lot more examples, since Republicans have been attacking Democrats who actually served in the military for decades now. They can spare me the feigned outrage over Trump's remarks until they own up to their party's own record of disparaging veterans any time it's politically convenient for them.
