COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

An ignorant hack.

That's all I can think of to say about the author of this Los Angeles Times column, The Lunatic Right Returns, excoriating conservatives for adhering to "discredited swift-boaters" like George "Bud" Day.

Remember Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the right-wing goon squad whose defamatory insinuations helped sink John Kerry's presidential campaign? They're back! This afternoon, key Swift boaters George "Bud" Day, Mary Jane McManus and Carlton Sherwood are holding a little reunion, in the guise of a panel discussion at the American Conservative Union's annual Conservative Political Action Conference. The panel topic? "The Left's Repeated Campaign Against the American Soldier."

Amazing. Here's the Los Angeles Times' vaunted layers of vetting and fact-checking at work for you: Bud Day's not even a swift boater*

Of course, the Los Angeles Times can't be bothered to tell the reader who Bud Day is, and what he's actually done.

So I will.

Via the U.S. Air Force:

George E. "Bud" Day is the nation’s most highly decorated soldier since General Douglas MacArthur. In a military career spanning 34 years and 3 wars, Day received nearly 70 decorations and awards of which more than 50 are for combat. Most notable of his decorations is our nation’s highest military honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor, presented to him by President Gerald Ford.

Day was born 24 February 1925 in Sioux City, Iowa, enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1942, and served 30 months in the South Pacific during World War II. Returning home, he entered law school and passed the Bar exam in 1949. The following year he was commissioned in the Iowa National Guard. In 1951 he was called to active duty to enter pilot training from which he served two tours as a fighter-bomber pilot during the Korean War flying the Republic F-84 Thunderjet.

Day entered the Vietnam War when he was assigned to the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing at Tuy Hoa Air Base, Republic of Vietnam, in April 1967. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Phu Cat Air Base where he organized and became the commander of the 416th Tactical Fighter Squadron, the first "Misty Super FAC" unit flying the North American F-100 Super Sabre. On 26 August 1967, Day’s accumulation of over 5000 flying hours came to an abrupt halt when he was shot down over North Vietnam and immediately captured by the North Vietnamese following his ejection. Despite serious injury, he managed to escape and evade across the Demilitarized Zone back into South Vietnam, earning the distinction of being the only prisoner to escape from North Vietnam.

Within two miles of freedom and after two weeks of evading, he was re-captured by the Viet Cong. Thus began his 67-month imprisonment that would end only upon his release on 14 March 1973. Three days later Day was reunited with his wife and four children at March AFB, California. After a short recuperative period, Day was returned to active flying status. Colonel Day retired from active duty in 1977.

Following his retirement, Day wrote an autobiography, Return with Honor, detailing his suffering as a captive in Vietnam.

Day graduated the University of South Dakota Law School in 1949 and currently has a thriving law firm in Fort Walton Beach. On 14 March 1997, the new Survival School Building at Fairchild AFB was named in his honor. Day’s most recent accomplishment came in February 2001 when he won a major victory for World War II and Korean retirees in the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. The court acknowledged the government had breached its contract to provide retirees and their spouses free lifetime medical care. Day lives with his wife Doris in Shalimar, Florida.

This is the man who LA Times columnist Rosa Brooks calls an "unprincipled, right-wing extremist."

The willful blindness, the failure to conduct due diligence, or the sheer ignorance required to write this entire article without once mentioning Bud Day's military record is nothing short of astounding.

Is this the level of reporting chops it takes to get hired on as a columnist at the LA Times, these days?

More:

It's not hard to visualize the right-wing talking points that will emerge from this. The Swift boaters will be dusting off their 2004 scripts and reaching back still further to dredge up their Vietnam-era notes. Expect to see all the old myths revived: The antiwar left spits on returning troops and gives aid and comfort to the enemy. Oh, John Murtha, why do you hate our brave troops?

Again, this lazy-assed nonthinker doesn't bother to buttress her reckless assertions with facts. For example, the attempt by the left to cover up spitting incidents and dismiss them as 'urban legend' has already been quite handily dispatched.

But hey, kids...don't worry if you flunk out of freshman composition class - you can just get hired as a columnist by the LA Times!!!

Oh, and I can't say that John Murtha hates our troops. He just wants them to lose, by stripping them of needed funding in the heat of battle - funding which translates to such minor items as equipment, ammunition, reinforcements, reserves, and food.

Rosa Brooks is nothing but a small-minded runt of a writer, who, in the process of disparaging a panel entitled "The Left's Repeated Campaign Against the American Soldier" manages to serve up - drumroll, please - an ignorant smear campaign against America's most decorated living serviceman.

And shame on the editorial page directors who let this tripe slip by.

The Los Angeles Times should publish a retraction and apology to Bud Day.

Splash, out

Jason

*This is not a huge factual error, as Day DID appear in a Swift Boat ad during the 2004 election. Day also heads an organization called The Vietnam Veterans Legacy Foundation that a lot of the swiftboaters joined. They didn't join because not because Day was a lunatic, though. They joined because he's Bud Day.

You won't find anyone more respected among veterans - real veterans - and advocates for veterans, than Bud Day. Anywhere.

Labels: Los Angeles Times, Media, spitting, veterans