JIM McDERMOTT, GET A LIFE!
YOU ARE NOT A “VIETNAM VETERAN”
LONG BEACH, CALIF. IS A CLOSE AS
YOU GOT TO THE FIGHTING, SO KNOCK
OFF THE INFERENCES, OK? REAL NAM
VETS DON’T APPRECIATE “WANNABES”

Washington State’s obnoxious Congressman Jim McDermott has come dangerously close to crossing the line in his efforts to “imply” that he is a bad-ass combat vet who served during the Vietnam war.

In reality, the leftist Democrat was a Navy officer stationed in Long Beach, California while thousands of his contemporaries were fighting and dying across the Pacific during the worst years of the war in Vietnam.

Leave it to a “politician” to infer or imply he is something he is not.

When “Baghdad Jim” and his fellow “lame-duck” lefty, Rep. David Bonier recently traveled to Iraq to denounce George Bush (ironically, we at MilitaryCorruption.com have our own bone to pick with GW on this issue), he sure wanted the news media to write and report that he “served” during “the Vietnam War” – wink, wink – IN-country!

Of course, he knows he didn’t leave the States, but what does the media know anyway? Some of them wouldn’t be caught dead in a military uniform and would be more than happy to “misquote” or “misinterpret” what the Congressman “really said,” if it could be used against the Republicans.

A case in point is when former CNN and now-FOX NEWS reporter “Major Garrett” reported that he had just talked with Bonier and McDermott, and noted that both of them had “fought in the Vietnam War.”

Garrett is a sharp guy, so we don’t think for a moment he deliberately made a mistake. Maybe the sleazy McDermott really wanted him and his media colleagues to get it wrong without the words having to come out of the congressman’s own mouth.

That’s not the only example of “fuzzy facts.” On ABC, while standing beside Bonier, the self-righteous Democrat from Seattle spouted, “David and I were in that war.” Oh, really? How did you get “IN” Vietnam from three thousands miles away, congressman?

In another effort at parsing words and blowing smoke, McDermott declared that those who support Bush’s war plans for Iraq “never served in Vietnam.” He might as well have beaten his chest with a club labeled “macho man.” The inference was clear - that McDermott DID serve. Where? Why in Vietnam! “Get it? Yeah, that’s the ticket.”

Hey pal, what YOU are is a “Vietnam-era veteran.” There’s a BIG difference. And don’t you ever forget it!

MilitaryCorruption.com always tries to be FAIR, even to idiots. So we contacted McDermott's chief-of-staff, Jan Shinpoch.

She was about as nervous as a cat tossed in the dog pound when she tried to “tap dance” around our tough questions.
“He (Congressman McDermott) has never made a STATEMENT he is a Vietnam COMBAT veteran. He is a Vietnam-era veteran who served in San Diego.” (Correction, lady. It was a Naval hospital in Long Beach.)

Let’s analyze that “Clinton-like” sentence for a second. Of course McDermott is not dumb enough to stand on the steps of the capital and declare in an official STATEMENT – “I am a Vietnam veteran.” Hell, no! Why should he, when there’s so many opportunities to IMPLY that to the battalions of media that follow him around and report his every word?

Now, look at Sinpoch’s insertion of the word COMBAT in between Vietnam and veteran. So typical of Bill Clinton, McDermott’s hero. You can still call yourself a Vietnam veteran without having to insert the word “combat.” So what, if the crafty McDermott never uttered it exactly that way with the word “combat” in the middle? All he has to do is say “Vietnam veteran” and the public – and VOTERS - conjure up images of RAMBO “fighting the Cong,” not some Navy “shrink” safely riding a desk in California.

Shinpoch continued to “spin,” especially when we quoted to her an Associated Press story from 2001 that reported McDermott “served in Vietnam.”

“Where did they get THAT idea?” we asked. “And did you immediately contact AP to correct the error?”

Shinpoch allowed she’d “only been on the job a few months” and wasn’t around when the AP story ran.

“If there was an error made a year ago, I regret it,” she said. “But it wasn’t brought to our attention.”

“Jim McDermott has stated that he was a Vietnam-era veteran,” Shinpoch emphasized. “Look it up in his official biography on our web site.”

All we can say is this: “Baghdad Jim” - get a life! STOP inferring, implying or winking, that you had ANYTHING to do with setting foot in Vietnam or serving over there, because when you do that for political gain, you dishonor the memories of those who fought and died there.

And we don’t exactly remember YOU climbing up on your soapbox and pontificating when the draft-dodger, Bill “I loathe the military” Clinton decided to lob a few cruise missiles in the Afghan desert and blast a Sudan pill factory (the claim it was manufacturing “poison gas” was later disproved) just to knock his ex-girlfriend Monica Lewinsky off the front pages during the height of his sex scandal in mid-August 1998.

Where were you then, Jim-boy?

If you want to question Bush’s propensity to be hell-bent for war with Saddam, we can respect that. We have our own reservations. BUT, you sir, are a hypocrite. And a politician. And you surely are NOT a “Vietnam veteran.”

(EDITOR’s NOTE: If “Baghdad Jim” would like to express his reaction to our article on these pages, we grant him equal space. Why, if he is willing to issue an APOLOGY to “real” Vietnam veterans everywhere, we’ll even give him a headline and top-billing!)