It's always cool when those who get peripherally smeared by Rove's little band of bothers stand at your side when you fire back at 'em...
Democrats' war room fires backThey figured it out all by themselves: the ploy was an insult to troops who spilled blood, plain and simple.
No sooner had Band-Aids decorated with mock Purple Hearts appeared Monday afternoon on the floor of the Republican National Convention than the opposition sprang into action.
From a war room on the 15th floor of a Garment District building, the Democratic National Committee's "Convention Response Team" began firing off e-mails to political reporters, calling their attention to what it said was a slight of Purple Heart recipients (chief among them the Democratic nominee, John F. Kerry). Then the team lined up speakers to defend the honor of Purple Heart recipients on television and radio.
About 250 of the Band-Aids, reading "It was just a self-inflicted scratch, but you see I got a Purple Heart for it," had been distributed by Morton Blackwell, a delegate from Arlington, Va.
Representative Charles Rangel, Democrat of New York, led the charge, denouncing the distribution in media interviews conducted inside the convention hall and at a media briefing in the team's headquarters.
"They insulted the United States of America, even though the president belatedly supported the combat record of John Kerry," Rangel, an Army veteran who won a Purple Heart and Bronze Star in Korea, said yesterday at the daily briefing.
At the same time, the leader of an organization of Purple Heart winners objected to the GOP tactic. Robert Lichtenberger, national commander of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, said members were outraged by the display. Lichtenberger told the Associated Press he was not making a political statement or supporting a particular candidate. Democratic spokesman Jay Carson said Democrats did not solicit the group's protest.
