MCCAIN SHOULD KNOW BETTER

With the return from Baghdad of Congressmen Bonior and McDermott, and the glare of publicity surrounding their comments both in Iraq and now in the United States, pundits have pervaded the radio and TV talk shows with their comments on the two politicians’ conduct.

A favored guest has been Senator John McCain. Putting aside the question of why his opinion about the two Congressmen is any more useful than anyone else’s, something Senator McCain has said at least twice on national television is of significance – both because of what it says about an important issue, and about him, and because of the message it’s sending about Americans who embrace the causes of our enemies.

Understandably, the Bonior/McDermott trip to Baghdad raises memories of the 1972 journey by Jane Fonda to Hanoi. While Americans were fighting and dying in Vietnam, Fonda went there to propagandize on behalf of the Communists, who later attested to the benefits they obtained from her efforts on their behalf. Fonda’s trip to Hanoi remains a very sore point with countless Americans, veterans and non-veterans alike. In light of the Bonior/McDermott journey to Iraq, it’s not surprising that TV talk show hosts like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity ask McCain about the comparison.

In what appears to be a canned answer, the Senator has answered that the two cases are not the same, essentially because Jane Fonda was, in McCain’s words, merely a "confused young actress."

John McCain’s characterization of Jane Fonda is dead wrong. She was neither "young," nor "confused."

Fonda was a thirty-five year old woman when she went to Hanoi – the daughter of a Hollywood legend and American icon, Henry Fonda – the product of privilege, and an international movie star (which is why the Communists wanted her to propagandize for them).

In her allegedly "confused" state, she: traveled incognito; made at least six pro-Communist, anti-American, radio broadcasts, tapes of which where played in the POW compounds; condemned our government and its leaders as criminals (President Nixon was a "Nazi"); charged our pilots with targeting hospitals and dropping germ bombs; harangued seven American prisoners, lied about their treatment and condition; harassed their families; met with senior North Vietnamese military and political figures. And more, including providing our enemy with "photo ops," the most notorious of which appears on the cover of the recently published "Aid and Comfort": Jane Fonda in North Vietnam – McCain’s "confused young actress" on the seat of an antiaircraft gun, surrounded by the gun crew and a gaggle of reporters, sighting on an imaginary American airplane.

In light of these unassailable facts, and since no one would call him naive, Senator John McCain either has a conveniently short memory, or he deems it politically correct and/or expedient to mischaracterize Jane Fonda’s propaganda trip to North Vietnam. He should stop apologizing on national television and elsewhere for a woman whose conduct, in the belly of our – and his – enemy, made her indictable and convictable for the crime of treason. Each time Senator McCain whitewashes Hanoi Jane, he not only sloughs off a grievous wrong and does a disservice to his many comrades who, with him, fought the good fight for our country, but he demeans himself as well.