Yesterday I wrote about the freeing of Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl and how there is no clear right or wrong answer to how it was accomplished or even how he became a prisoner of the Taliban: Bowe Bergdahl Is a Free Man. Now What Do We Do?
Today, Republicans are falling all over each other to talk about it.
what eye thynk: If the Republican response to his imprisonment and subsequent release were a mixed bag yesterday, they are just plain bizarre today.
1. Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) wants us to believe that the President decided to arrange a prisoner exchange and release of Sgt. Bergdahl only after the VA healthcare mess became front page news.
Mr. Perry talking to Sean Hannity on Fox News: "Here's the bigger concern for me, and I really would like for somebody to take a look at this and answer it--was this done to take the VA off the front page of the newspapers? An absolute debacle that we've seen this administration not taking care of the men and women of our military, and this kind of happened all of a sudden it seems like."
This exchange didn't happen overnight. It was in the works long before the VA problems became public--something anyone with a modicum of common sense would realize. Swaps like this aren't arranged between coffee breaks on a slow Monday.
2. Yesterday I predicted that the GOP would find a way to connect Bergdahl and Benghazi. U.S. Representative Buck McKeon (R-California), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, almost beat me to the punch. He is already planning on holding hearings connecting the two issues.
"It really is kind of ironic, because this is kind of playing out much like Benghazi where they kind of do or don't do something, and uh, and then kind of come up with a story afterward of why they did or didn't do something. This is really mind-boggling."
What boggles my mind is that this is what passes for intelligent discourse in the GOP.
3. And then we have U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter (R-California), whose comments, while not especially well thought out, are at least original. He came out swinging, not at the President, but at Secretary of State John Kerry. Mr. Kerry undoubtedly was a hands-on participant in the Bergdahl release negotiations, but his participation wasn't the focus of Mr. Hunter's ire. Instead, he decided to attack John Kerry's patriotism--the same John Kerry who earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts during his service in the Vietnam conflict.
"As John Kerry threw his medals over the White House fence and turned his back on all of his Vietnam brothers and sisters, that's what Bergdahl did. Bergdahl walked away from his men." He added that the Bergdahl exchange was "a botched foreign policy move."
While Mr. Hunter's comment pins the "deserter" appellation on Bowe Bergdahl, it is still unclear whether the Army considered him a deserter or not. (Does the Army promote deserters? He was a Private when he disappeared, a Sergeant when he was released.)
Mr. Hunter takes a leap and bases his comparison on the fact that, after being honorably discharged from the military, Mr. Kerry protested the war in which he had served bravely. Apparently, on Mr. Hunter's side of the political spectrum, publicly expressing an opinion equals desertion. (Did I miss the small print that says the First Amendment does not apply to military veterans?)
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The Bowe Bergdahl release is fresh news and, as I said yesterday, there are no easy answers.
In the partisan world that is modern American politics, we can expect the Republicans to squeeze as much negativity from the issue as possible; just don't expect their arguments to be particularly coherent or consistent with the positions they voiced just last week, at least not right away. Give the GOP message gurus a day or two and they'll all be on the same page. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy the Chimera.
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