A controversy rages today over Donald Trump's insult of Senator John McCain's military service. Republicans are falling all over themselves to defend McCain against Trump. And justly so. Trump graduated college in 1968, at the height of the draft. Was he drafted? Did he enlist? Was he a supporter of the Viet Nam War, or, if not, did he work against it? Did he do some form of alternative service -- finding another way to act in the public interest in those turbulent times?
All we know about Trump in those years is that he went directly into his father's real estate business, and apparently had some sort of deferment.
But the controversy
du jour raises a larger point about the Republican political class: While they heap rage on fellow-Republican Trump for his insult of POW John McCain, where were they in 2004 when the Swift Boaters were lying about war hero John Kerry? At best, the Republican political class was silent while a brave patriot was being savaged. Do they have any moral standing to show outrage now, without first apologizing to Secretary of State Kerry?
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