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.

But facts, as always, get too much in the way of a good story – and of a good expression of hatred. Therefore, Ms. Brooks simply can’t be expected to abide by them.

Though she and her employers at the Times doubtless published this column with the belief that none would question their yeomen’s work on the part of the anti-war Left, they actually accomplished just the opposite. As Jason so aptly puts it:

"In the process of disparaging a panel entitled "The Left's Repeated Campaign Against the American Soldier" [Rosa Brooks] manages to serve up – drumroll, please – an ignorant smear campaign against America's most decorated living serviceman. (emphasis added)

If the Times has an ounce of conscience, they will disavow Ms. Brooks's comments immediately, if they do not go further (as they should) and remove her from the payroll. Furthermore, Senator Kerry and Representative Murtha need to repudiate this slander of a fellow Vietnam veteran – as does every other Democrat politician who claims to care about America and her troops (and for whom Ms. Brooks attempts to speak).

The clock is ticking. We are waiting. Surely the Left will defend a veteran and a real hero (who does not share their political views) as quickly, and with as much gusto, as they have a less-distinguished one of their own in the past. Surely they will repudiate this hackish attempt to marginalize non-Liberal servicemen and to ridicule the idea that the Left would ever slander the troops, which consisted (in typical lefty fashion) of a slandering of the most highly-decorated living American serviceman.

Surely they will do the right thing in this situation.

Won't they?