U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman
It doesn’t take a political genius to figure out that Democratic Party hackery was behind the latest smear attempt on U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, in what appears to be a never-ending battle with the VA.
The combat veteran fired a direct hit at the Obama administration a few weeks ago when he questioned VA Chief Robert McDonald about continued mismanagement at the agency.
McDonald got his boxers in a knot and shouted: “I ran a large company, sir, what have you done?”
Then the Obama White House launched one of its signature name-calling campaigns, sending press secretary Josh Earnest forth to call Coffman an “aggressive antagonist of the Obama administration.”
“That may be good politics, but that’s certainly not going to solve problems for our veterans,” Earnest told 9News.
Failing to practice what they preach, again, the White House dispatched McDonald to Washington’s Sunday news talk show circuit to launch another political attack, this one chock full of lies – 900 VA employees had been fired, McDonald claimed.
It was so ludicrous, even the liberal-loving Washington Post challenged McDonald on the facts and proved him wrong, awarding him “four Pinocchios” for telling a whopper of a tale.
That really fired up the liberal attack machine, which tried, and failed miserably to persuade the Post that Coffman was not really a brave Marine who fought valiantly in combat.
It’s a Washington tactic known as “swiftboating,” first used against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential campaign to challenge his war record in Vietnam where he fought alongside Brian Williams, or something like that.
Once again, the Post was dispatched on a fact-finding mission, this time to determine if a whisper-campaign against Coffman was true – is he really and truly and for certain a “combat veteran?”
One thousand exhaustive words later, the Post awarded Coffman the elusive “Geppetto Checkmark” for truth-telling, a rare occurrence because they don’t hear that a lot in D.C.
The Post said that a Democratic Party hack reader who identified himself as a veteran challenged Coffman’s credentials, piquing their interest, then the paper reported:
Coffman was deployed twice — in 1990 as an infantry officer in the first Gulf War, and in 2005 as a civil affairs officer working in support of the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq.
For his first deployment, Coffman earned the Combat Action Ribbon, awarded to Navy, Marine Corps or Coast Guard members who participated in ground or surface combat and “rendered satisfactory performance under enemy fire.” In short, people who receive this award have been shot at and had the opportunity to fire back.
But when it comes to Coffman’s record, he is a combat veteran in the most literal and widely-understood use of the term. The criteria for the Combat Action Ribbon that Coffman received requires proof he was in actual combat operations. Without having been there with him, this is the best measure to confirm his experience. We award Coffman the elusive Geppetto Checkmark.
NOW can we please focus on reforming the agency tasked with helping vets, instead of using it as a political tool to destroy their character?