March 11, 2016 4:44 AM

When chicken hawks attack

WASHINGTON — A GOP effort to jab Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who is currently running for Senate, backfired spectacularly on Tuesday when the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out a tweet accusing the combat veteran and double amputee of “not standing up for our veterans.”…. The posting caused an uproar on Twitter immediately, and the NRSC removed the tweet within 10 minutes. The website it linked to remains up, and criticizes Duckworth for her former role as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs. Duckworth campaign spokesman Matt McGrath condemned the tweet and said its tone was typical of Duckworth’s likely opponent, current Sen. Mark Kirk (R)…. “Tasteless and dishonest, just like everything else to do with Mark Kirk’s flailing campaign,” McGrath told HuffPost in a statement. “Tammy has made fighting for Veterans her life’s work, and will continue to so in the Senate.”

I’m not a student of Illinois politics, so I can’t hope to address the charges being lobbed at Duckworth by Republicans, particular the campaign of Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL), Duckworth’s opponent. The things Duckworth stands accused of by Republicans may or may not have merit, but my purpose here is not to debate accusations in a case I don’t understand well enough to intelligently offer comment on.

The reason for my reaction is the truly vile and disgusting manner in which Republicans chose to go after Duckworth. Perhaps they lack the common decency to recognize how patently offensive accusing a woman who lost both her legs while serving in Iraq of “not standing up for veterans” truly is. Perhaps they honestly believe all’s fair in love and war and that politics is just another metaphor for war. Not that most Republicans understand what it’s like to be in combat. Most of those attacking Duckworth have come no closer to combat than spending time in a crowded Starbucks on their way to work.

To call the attacks on Duckworth tasteless and offensive doesn’t begin to do justice to the amoral, underhanded methods being employed by Sen. Kirk’s campaign. Again, I have no idea if the charges directed at Duckworth have any basis in truth; that will be borne out in due time. I do find it absolutely stunning and distressingly tone-deaf that Republicans would go after Duckworth, whose legs are somewhere in Iraq, and employ the phrase “not standing up for veterans.”

If I was an Illinois voter, this thoughtless and insensitive line of attacks directed at Duckworth would be enough to make me vote for her. After all, it’s not exactly a stretch to believe that Illinois deserves a Senator willing to act in a manner worthy of the dignity of the office. If the race has been reduced to an “anything goes” political version of monkeys flinging feces…well, it would be hard not to argue that Illinois- and America- deserves better.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on March 11, 2016 4:44 AM.

You can't spell "hypocrisy" without "NRA" was the previous entry in this blog.

If you have to resort to the "I'm not a racist...." argument, you're probably a racist is the next entry in this blog.

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