With the characteristic keenness of speech insight and bluntness that has earned him nearly unanimous respect in both parties and the press, Virginia Republican congressman Tom Davis assessed President George W. Bush's impact on the GOP: “The Republican brand is in the trash can … if we were a dog food, they would take us off the shelf.”

We all know that probably sooner rather than later — and thanks, at least in part, to the Democrats' politically screwing up — the Republicans will recover and once again win a national election. But the Bush political legacy — which will almost certainly include his party having lost more than 20 House seats in two consecutive elections (GOP lost 31 in 2006 and is on schedule to lose another 20 or more on Nov. 4) for the first time since 1930 to 1932 — is an insignificant blemish compared to the Bush political machine's vicious and systematic smearing, if not libeling, of oftentimes heroic military service by Bush's political opponents.

Let's look at the record and the evidence of character assassination. In the 2000 South Carolina Republican primary, Arizona Sen. John McCain, who had dared to upset the heavily favored George W. Bush in the New Hampshire primary, was accused by Bush-backers of being emotionally and mentally unstable because of the 5.5 years of abuse and torture as a prisoner-of-war in North Vietnam. The Bush campaign used discredited veterans to charge that McCain had committed treason by collaborating with the enemy to save himself.

In 1969, Democrat Al Gore had done what no other 21-year-old graduate of St. Albans prep school and Harvard College did that year: He enlisted in the U.S. Army, not as an officer but as a private. In 1971, the Army sent Gore to Vietnam. This was not helpful for Bush and the GOP in the 2000 presidential campaign; Bush had relied upon his father's political clout to jump ahead of many others on the Texas Air National Guard's waiting list and somehow received an officer's commission without ever attending Officer Candidate School. In Vietnam, the U.S. Marine Corps sustained more casualties than the Corps had in all of World War II; however, Bush forfeited his flight status by failing to show up for his annual physical.

So the Bush campaign accused Al Gore of getting “preferential treatment” in Vietnam in 1971 because his father was a Democratic senator from Tennessee. This conveniently ignored the fact that Gore Sr. had lost his Senate seat in 1970. The Bushies disparaged Gore for serving as an Army journalist in Vietnam (while Bush was not serving as a Texas National Guardsman in the legendary Battle of Amarillo).

In 2002, the Bush organization in the Georgia U.S. Senate race defamed and helped defeat Democrat Max Cleland who had lost both legs and an arm serving in the Army in Vietnam; Cleland opposed the Bush version of the Homeland Security Act. Cleland's opponent Saxby Chambliss claimed “ a bad knee” prevented him from fighting the Commies in ‘Nam, so you had the “bad knee” non-combatant questioning the patriotism of the legless combat veteran.

Again in 2004, Bush faced Democrat John Kerry, another decorated Vietnam combat veteran who had earned the Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart medals. When anti-Kerry ads appeared accusing the Democrat of lying about his war record and betraying his comrades, Republican John McCain branded the anti-Kerry commercials “dishonest and dishonorable.” McCain added: “It was the same kind of deal that was pulled on me,” in comparing the attacks to those used against him by the Bush forces in South Carolina. Ignoring McCain's urging, President Bush and his campaign refused to condemn the slurs on Kerry.

The Bush motive is clear: A political adversary's military service, regardless how heroic, must be disparaged, denigrated and demeaned at all costs. That shameful pattern constitutes and reveals ultimate disdain for all those who serve our country in uniform.

To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

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