Isn’t it ironic that the Republicans who have stripped away funding for the VA, the Republcans who sent our soldiers to war without the proper equipment and stated “As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want,” ……the Republicans who continue to support Bush’s failed policies in Iraq….this is the party who claims to support the troops and accuses Democrats of non’supportive behavior. It’s hard for me to believe anyone in this country buys into this shit anymore…..but they do. They all need to worry less about posturing and catch phrases and do the right thing. But we all know that won’t happen. Never. As long as there’s an election around the corner….and there’s always an election around the corner.

By Margaret Talev, McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - Support the troops.
Few phrases in American politics sound so innocuous but sting so much.
Republican backers of the Iraq war have revived a tactic from the Vietnam era, trying to put Democrats on the defensive by accusing critics of President Bush’s decision to send thousands more troops to Iraq of failing to “support the troops” there.
This line of attack could explode this week, when Congress returns from a short recess. The Democratic majority will shift tactics from seeking nonbinding antiwar resolutions to trying to limit troop deployments and curb funding for the Iraq war.
Historians, political strategists and linguists say that questioning Democrats’ loyalty to the troops is probably the best leverage supporters of the unpopular war have left.
“What that reflects is the aftermath of Vietnam and what happened to the Democrats,” said Stephen Hess, a George Washington University professor and Brookings Institution scholar who worked in the Eisenhower and Nixon administrations. Although polls show that solid public majorities oppose the war, Democrats still can be portrayed as undermining the troops.
The Bush administration and its congressional allies, however, are open to countercharges that they have overworked the Army and Marine Corps, failed to provide troops with adequate armor, and neglected serious problems in how the military and the Veterans Administration are caring for wounded warriors.
Democrats also can argue that the best way to support the troops is to bring them home, said Frank Luntz, the pollster and language consultant who shaped the Republicans’ 1994 “Contract With America.”
Democrats, however, still fear being branded anti-troop, experts say, for reasons as esoteric as the nation’s residual guilt over how Vietnam veterans were shunned and as practical as the memory of the 1972 presidential election, when Democratic antiwar nominee George McGovern lost in a 49’state landslide to Richard M. Nixon.
“If you’re seen as anti’soldier, you’re in trouble,” Luntz said. “We may have issues with the Pentagon, but as a nation our respect for the troops is back to where it was before Vietnam.”
Luntz said the best counterpunch for antiwar Democrats seeking to blunt attacks that they don’t support the troops is: ” ‘You support them by bringing them home.’ That’s probably the best line they have at this point.”

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