OK, 'rabid dogs' will work...

That's the way billmon described the gaggle of Republican Congresscritters that used their one-minute speeches to rip up the House rulebook on decorum and launch a slanderous personal attack on John Kerry from the House floor. In the interests of family-friendliness (it gets harder every day, folks), I'll go with that. As he says, "...they don't need any particular excuse to foam at the mouth." They don't need any particular facts, either.

Texas Republican Sam Johnson led the attack, apparently inspired by the 33rd anniversary of Kerry's US Senate testimony on behalf of Vietnam Veterans of America. Johnson claimed that Kerry "...blasted our nation, chastised our troops and hurt our morale. . . . What he did was nothing short of aiding and abetting the enemy." Now, that's a pretty serious charge. A false charge, but a serious one. In fact, Kerry blasted certain of our national leaders at the time, a time honored practice in America, and in fact, he accused them of conduct just as reprehensible and criminal as the charges Johnson now makes against Kerry. Kerry, of course, had the advantage of being right.

One thing he didn't do, and has never done, was 'chastise' the troops, and as regards morale, I was a GI in Vietnam in 1971, and will happily report that for me and those around me, the knowledge that people in the States were speaking up on our behalf and testifying about the insanity that surrounded us was one of the few bright spots on the morale front.

Johnson pulled out one of the standard slurs promulgated by Ted Sampley and his ilk, saying that "He's called Hanoi John," and in fact, he's been called that by a handful of partisan wingnuts, but it's an appalling comment from a Congressman on the floor of the people's House.

Johnson wasn't alone. Rep. John Kline (Minn.) chimed in with more lies, accusing Kerry of "...speaking ill of our troops or their service, then or now." Kerry, of course, didn't then and doesn't now. I'm kind of curious about Rep. Kline's vote on concurrent payments, though.

Randy Cunningham of California, who, like Johnson, was shot down over North Vietnam and served time as a POW, "said Kerry's 1971 remarks angered (him) and his comrades at the time," and invoked the Jane Fonda comparison. Of course, since the only access that Rep. Cunningham and his colleagues had to information came from their North Vietnamese captors, I'm left scratching my head about what exactly they heard and why exactly they chose to believe it. I was in-country, but had access to all kinds of media, from Stars & Stripes (then and now a more objective source than you might think) to hometown papers ranging from weekly shoppers to the New York Times. I just didn't notice anyone in despair over people at home exercising the rights that we were (at least in theory) serving to protect.

Of course, the Congessional D's didn't let the attacks stand without response. Noteworthy was the contribution of my own personal Congressman, Rep. Jim McDermott (who knows a thing or two about being politically slandered, trust me). McDermott, who was a Navy psychiatrist who treated many returnees during the war, defended the right of those who served to speak out. "But if you were in the National Guard and you didn't show up, you were AWOL for a whole year, you've got real nerve to start an attack on John Kerry's character," McDermott said. "Some people were simply not available; they never showed up for their flight physical."

Sic 'em, Jim!