More hyperbole from VoteVets

VoteVets is tossing away more money this week on a radio ad that reminds me of the insidious ad they did in which they claimed Senator George Allen had voted against supplying the troops with modern body armor. FactCheck.org disputed the veracity of that ad, and now it’s my turn to dispute the veracity of their latest ad.

The ad targets Pennsylvania State legislator, Daryl Metcalfe who, they claim, called veterans traitors. Here’s the script of the ad from Vets Voice;

ANNCR: Traitors. That’s what State Representative Darryl Metcalfe called decorated Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Traitors. Pittsburgh resident and Iraq war veteran Chuck Tyler.

Chuck Tyler: Representative Metcalfe. A lot of my friends never made it home from Iraq. Dishonoring us dishonors their memory. We deserve better – and so does Pennsylvania.

ANNCR: Metcalfe was attacking members of Operation Free; veterans whose goal is to make America more secure with clean energy and cut the flow of oil dollars to those who would do us harm. It’s a goal the Department of Defense, the CIA, and the National Intelligence Council all share.

Chuck Tyler: I’m not a traitor sir. I’m just a veteran doing what’s right to protect my country.

ANNCR: Call Representative Darryl Metcalfe at 717-783-1707 and tell him to resign – because attacking America’s patriots is the most unpatriotic thing you can do. A message from Operation Free. Paid for by Vote Vets Action Fund.

I’d never heard of Operation Free, so I had to track them down. This is from their “Why We Care” page;

Here are our core motivational principles:

* We need to get America running on clean energy.
* Clean energy reduces our dependence on the foreign oil.
* Oil ties our hands in foreign policy, funds terrorists, and entangles America with hostile regimes.
* Our Federal government is considering legislation that promotes clean energy incentives, and people need to understand why this helps our security.
* Getting energy that is CLEAN, DOMESTIC, CHEAP, and SAFE is going to take some real work, so we need to start now.
* It’s our patriotic duty to do everything we can to keep our nation safe and secure: clean energy is one of those efforts.

I take away from the reading that they think we can run our country on unicorn urine starting next week if only we all wish real hard. Well, anyway, Operation Free is on a cross country tour to get us all to wish for people to start using unicorn urine – by the way, their cross-country tour is on a bus, which I don’t think runs on unicorn urine.

Operation Free contacted Mr. Metcalfe – a veteran himself – to meet them when they came to his area – Cranberry Township near Pittsburgh. Mr. Metcalfe fired off an email to them;

“Subject: Re: Veterans for American Power Bus Tour coming to your state

As a veteran,

I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took to defend the Constitution of our great nation!

Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda.

Drill Baby Drill!!!

For Liberty,
Daryl Metcalfe
State Representative
Veteran U.S. Army

The emphasis is mine.

So yeah, he called veterans who would lend their names to propaganda traitors to their oath.

I called Daryl Metcalfe to get his side without the hyperbole. What he told me was that he vehemently opposes the “cap and tax” program that Operation Free is promoting on their hypocritical bus tour. He told me that he opposes it for the same reasons that the rest of us oppose it – it will cause damage to our economy and bankrupt the nation.

Mr. Metcalfe says cap and trade is unconstitutional and because veterans swore to protect and defend the Constitution, veterans who trade on their service to support un-American legislation are traitors to their oath. Of course, the “to their oath” gets left out of the VoteVets commercial. It serves their purposes better to make it sound like Metcalfe called all veterans traitors to their country.

In response to the overblown hyperbole, Daily Koz called Representative Metcalfe a “loon” in order to elevate the debate;

What are the odds Metcalfe will have his own radio show, become a commentator for Fox News or have his own column at World Net Daily before the year is up? I tell you, it’s loons all the way down.

So, HuffPo got huffy, and numerous lefty blogs have their respective panties twisted; Think Progress joined in. So you just knew the MoveOn-monied VoteVets had to waste some cash on a pointless commercial.

But, ya know, there’s another Pennsylvania politician that meant what he said when he called Marines murderers who VoteVets should have got upset about – but instead they endorsed him for re-election.

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