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Former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, D-Ga., has withdrawn from the board of directors of a beleaguered Johnstown-based charity founded by a former top aide of Rep. John Murtha. Cleland, a triple amputee and Vietnam veteran, said he has stepped down from the board of the Pennsylvania Association for Individuals with Disabilities. “I’m not associated with PAID,” Cleland said Tuesday. “I am not interested in pursuing that relationship at all.” Murtha spokesman Matthew Mazonkey said Murtha would not comment on the situation. The news comes barely a month after Cleland and Carmen V. Scialabba, PAID founder and a former Murtha aide,...

COULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED TO A BETTER PERSON! Well ... I won't even pretend that we at the Neal Boortz Show haven't enjoyed this story immensely. Every once in a while it seems that someone gets exactly what's coming to them, and this is what happened to Michael Duga. Who is Michael Duga? Perhaps you remember a few weeks ago when we did a Boortz Power Lunch to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project. We really did want former Georgia Senator and wounded Vietnam veteran Max Cleland on the air .. not to talk about politics, but to talk about our wounded...

Cindy Sheehan, Tom Hayden, and the Hate America Left meet with pro-Ba'athist members of the Iraqi parliament to discuss “peace.” TO FIND PEOPLE WHO HATE AMERICA AS MUCH AS THEY DO, the Fifth Column Left had to go halfway around the world to meet with Iraqi political leaders who call terrorism “honorable national resistance” and say foreign jihadists “are guaranteed Paradise” – and at least one of whom has ties to militia leader Muqtada al-Sadr. By the end of the trip, the American leftists would echo these sentiments. Somehow most of the media – occupied with interminable coverage of Hurricane...

One more high profile Democrat has gotten cozy with the anti-American group Code Pink. Max Cleland, former U.S. Senator from Georgia and a Vietnam veteran who was grieviously wounded in a grenade accident, met Code Pink leader and murderous Marxist dictator groupie Medea Benjamin at a Napa, California, benefit concert for the National Veterans Foundation headlined by Code Pink supporter Willie Nelson and the Doobie Brothers.A photo of Cleland posing with his arm around Benjamin's waist is posted at a Code Pink web site with the following description:Another big treat was to meet former Senator Max Cleland from Georgia, a...

Rep. Dan Lungren faced off with Democratic challenger Bill Durston in a spirited debate Thursday night that spanned the right and left and rarely reached the political center. On topics that ranged from the war in Iraq to Social Security, the incumbent Republican and Durston, an emergency room physician, jousted and sparred, often in unusually harsh terms. Opposition to the war in Iraq is what drew Durston into the 3rd Congressional District race in February, and he barely restrained his disdain for Lungren, who backs the Bush administration policies there. The Vietnam veteran noted that Lungren had never served in...

Former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, who lost both legs and an arm in the Vietnam War, on Saturday blasted the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq as immoral. "It is immoral to abuse the good nature of our young people, and send them back and back and back (into combat) ... with no strategy to win, and no strategy to end" the war, Cleland said. After Cleland's short speech, Clark - an Arkansas native who sought the Democratic Party's nomination for president in 2004 - returned to the microphone briefly, turning to cast his eyes on...

Democrats put their distinguished soldiers on stage at their state convention with messages of patriotism and a strong national defense. Four-star Gen. Wesley Clark and decorated Vietnam veteran Max Cleland, a former Georgia senator, told delegates Saturday that the administration has botched the war in Iraq and Democrats would be better at handling national security. "We're strong on defense. That's the message that I want people to hear," Clark said, during one of the few times he raised his voice during the keynote speech. "We've got to talk it up." Clark, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2004, said the...

THE ROOTS OF CINDY SHEEHAN (COURTESY JAMES TARANTO VIA RUSH LIMBAUGH) "If we get a crippled Nam Vet and take him down and chain him to the White House fence, will you cover it?" JOHN KERRY to desk editor in DC (1971)   (Response: "Oh yeah!") EXPLOITING MAX CLELAND by Mia T, 8.29.04       ax Cleland is remarkable. What a pity he allowed delusory left-wing flights of fancy and lust for power rob him of his nobility. The irony and the tragedy of Max Cleland overwhelms. Remarkably, Cleland did not become an embittered man when John Kerry's...

The Emperor Has No Clothes By: Brian Tracy John Kerry is neither a “war hero” nor a “patriot.” It is about time that someone pointed out that “the emperor has no clothes” and that Americans are being presented with a false choice. If you read the newspapers long enough, a series of facts emerge that appear undeniable and irrefutable. But no one seems to want to “connect the dots” for fear of offending the powers that be in the national media, such as CBS. Here is what we know. First of all, Kerry did not “volunteer” for service in Vietnam....

Why did the Max Cleland connection fall out of the forged document story? Cleland admitted that he is the one who directed Burkett to the Kerry campaign, and talk to him while he was in Texas trying to deliver a letter to Bush. It seems he might have been the “impeachable source” either him or the Kerry campaign. CBS’s Mapes called Lockhardt not to pass Burkett’s phone number, but to thank them for the forged documents, in my opinion. Why don’t we hear Max Cleland’s name in this story anymore? Holtz JeffersonRepublic.com

As expected, Dan Rather has released a statement on the forged documents. This apparently follows his belated interview with Bill Burkett in Texas over the weekend. Here is the key language: Now, after extensive additional interviews, I no longer have the confidence in these documents that would allow us to continue vouching for them journalistically. I find we have been misled on the key question of how our source for the documents came into possession of these papers. That, combined with some of the questions that have been raised in public and in the press, leads me to a point...

Rather and 60 Minutes stay resolutely behind the curve. The significant part of the statement--"I no longer have...confidence in these documents"--could and should have been said on September 9. They still can't bring themselves to admit what everyone knows, that the documents are fakes. And Rather's statement studiously avoids the only question that remains open: where did CBS get the forged documents? Specifically, did they come from the Kerry campaign? As we've noted, an email from Bill Burkett indicates that he gave materials to Max Cleland for use in the campaign. Those materials are presumably the forged documents. So Rather...

It's fairly clear to me that the media is about ready to name former Army National Guard Lieutenant Colonel Bill Burkett as the source of the forged memos in the "Danron Affair" and hope that things end there. CBS is, I'm quite sure, ready to pounce upon this line. They probably won't fire Dan Rather. Instead, they'll fire producer Mary Mapes (the apparent driving force behind the story) and then plead they were duped by a man who, it just happens, has spent time in mental institutions and can therefore be depicted as a crazy fraudster. However, it is equally...

AUSTIN, Texas - A retired Texas National Guard official mentioned as a possible source for disputed documents about President Bush (news - web sites)'s service in the Guard said he passed along information to a former senator working with John Kerry (news - web sites)'s campaign. Also Saturday, a White House official said Bush has reviewed disputed documents that purport to show he refused orders to take a physical examination in 1972 and did not recall having seen them previously. The long-running story on Bush's Texas Air National Guard service took an unusual twist when CBS broadcast a report on...

When I was in New York for the big protest before this year's Republican National Convention, I was confused by some of the professionally printed signs that the protestors were carrying. The signs said "No Draft No Way". The organization that, I assume, had the signs printed have a web site here. Their "Draft Threat Advisory", by the way, is set at "Yellow, Significant Risk of Conscription." Here is a still from some of the video I took of the protest, so you can see one of the signs from this organization in evidence: The old draft was abolished in...

RNC RESPONDS: "Bill Burkett, Democrat activist and Kerry campaign supporter, passes information to the DNC; Kerry campaign surrogate Max Cleland discusses "valuable" information with Bill Burkett; Bill Burkett talks to "senior" Kerry campaign officials; an apparently unsuspecting news organization uses faked forged memos and an interview with Ben Barnes at the same time the Democratic National Committee launched Operation Fortunate Son; and Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill was among the first to call Ben Barnes and congratulate him after his interview. The trail of connections is becoming increasingly clear," RNC communications director Jim Dyke says in a paper statement.

Sorry for all of the sirens, but I think they're all pretty much deserved. Mark tips me to a not-so-shadowy link: In an Aug. 21 posting, Burkett referred to a conversation with former senator Max Cleland (D-Ga.) about the need to counteract Republican tactics: "I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. He said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with. But none of them have called me back." Cleland confirmed that he had a two- or three-minute conversation by cellphone with a Texan named...

  RATHERGATE IS ANOTHER WATERGATE: The NexusSo where are the grand juries, special prosecutors + indictments, anyway? (HEY! Where are the calls for them?) by Mia T, 9.18.04 Bill Burkett, the former Texas National Guard officer who has been caught up in the mystery of how CBS News acquired memos that seem to question President Bush's Vietnam-era National Guard service, unsuccessfully offered information and advice to help the Kerry campaign attack Mr. Bush, according to a posting Mr. Burkett wrote in an e-mail newsletter. "I spent some time on the phone with the Kerry campaign seniors yesterday," Mr. Burkett...

EXPLOITING MAX CLELAND by Mia T, 8.29.04   ax Cleland is remarkable. What a pity he allowed delusory left-wing flights of fancy and lust for power rob him of his nobility. The irony and the tragedy of Max Cleland overwhelms. Remarkably, Cleland did not become an embittered man when John Kerry's self-inflicted, bacitracin+bandaid-treated, tickets-out-of-Vietnam scratches were deemed worthy of three purple hearts while his three missing limbs were deemed worthy of none; this, even after insult was added to injury and he was dispatched to Texas to lend his phantom limbs to Kerry's self-serving cause. Cleland became embittered, rather, because...

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