PURPLE HEART FOR BUSH: A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION?

Today Crooks & Liars linked this appalling story, which appeared last Monday in a small Texas newspaper:

History will be made today when Copperas Cove resident Bill Thomas and his wife, Georgia, present President George W. Bush with a Purple Heart at the Oval Office.

Thomas said he and his wife came up with the unprecedented idea to present the president with the Purple Heart over breakfast one morning a few months ago as they discussed the verbal attacks, both foreign and domestic, the commander in chief has withstood during his time in office.

"We feel like emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds," Thomas said.

The medal was awarded to Thomas on Dec. 18, 1965, following injuries he sustained while serving in heavy combat with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam....

(I don't know if this actually happened -- it was scheduled for the day of the Virginia Tech shootings, so it may not have. There's no mention of it on the White House Web site.)

Now, I'm not a veteran (though my father and two uncles fought in World War II), but it strikes me as appalling that even a competent president, even a president who didn't take great pains to avoid combat as a young man, would consider accepting a Purple Heart for sitting at a desk while others were shedding real blood overseas. But this is Bush we're talking about.

I was wondering what might have motivated Bill Thomas to do this, and then I ran across the Web site of Cove News, for which Bill is managing editor and his wife is publisher. At the site I spotted a "news" item, apparently written by Bill, entitled "American Soldiers Once Again Disrespected by Congress: Democrats Strike Old Glory and Show White Flag to Terrorists." And I read this:

Let there be no question that the Bush administration has made mistakes in the War on Terror. The major difference in our current Commander in Chief and his predecessors who have all made mistakes in every war effort in the history of America is that George Bush in man enough to admit his mistakes.

Now I get it -- Bill Thomas has Bush confused with somebody else! Someone who actually admits when he's wrong!

I knew there had to be a rational explanation.

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(By the way, if you're clicking around at the Cove News site, just hit "Cancel" when asked for a password. You can read everything anyway -- at least I could.)

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UPDATE: Last link fixed.