Think about how much time and effort they expend on convincing Americans that progressives and Democrats are "anti-military," "hate the troops," and even "hate America." So any progressive veteran who criticizes Bush administration policies represents a profound threat to all the arguments they have made. It becomes particularly thorny when nearly the entire current leadership of the conservative movement -- not only media figures like Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, but also political figures including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, and many others -- were of draft age during the Vietnam war but managed to stay out of harm's way.

Let's be clear: I'm not arguing that any particular individual on that list didn't have legitimate reasons to avoid serving in Vietnam -- some may have. Nor am I arguing that the opinions of veterans on matters of national security are necessarily more valid simply because they are veterans. The point is that accusations of troop-hating and insufficient patriotism are difficult to wield at veterans, particularly when thrown by those who were subject to the draft but managed to avoid it.

Unless, that is, they can argue that the veteran in question isn't a real veteran, that his service wasn't real service, that his sacrifice wasn't real sacrifice, and that his patriotism isn't real patriotism. So that's exactly what they do.

If this were the first, or second, or even third time this had happened, one might be able to come up with another plausible explanation. But what we heard this week with Rush Limbaugh was a replay of a record we've heard many times before: a war critic with a military record emerges, and the right responds by attacking his patriotism, arguing that his service wasn't real, or both.

We could go on to list the many Democrats who have had their patriotism assaulted -- like Air Force veteran Tom Daschle, who was accused of treason by Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) (Davis said that comments Daschle made in 2002 questioning the success of the war on terror had "the effect of giving aid and comfort to our enemies," language taken directly from the Constitution's definition of treason), and was the subject of a press release by since-disgraced Rep. Mark Foley (R-FL) titled "Foley Questions Daschle's Patriotism." But that would take far more space than we have at hand. One thing that all these cases have in common is that no one in the media even considered referring to these conservative attacks as "anti-military," while media figures routinely characterize progressives as "anti-military" if they take issue with policies like the Iraq war, not to mention the converse, that Iraq war supporters are by definition "pro-military" folks who "support the troops" (see here, here, here, here, or here).

So let's consider Limbaugh's comment about Hackett. As far as Limbaugh is concerned, a progressive can't possibly join the military out of a commitment to national service or simple patriotism; if a progressive joined the military, his or her motives must have been dishonorable, in this case to "pad the résumé." By the same token, if a soldier opposes the war, he must not be a real soldier. After making the "phony soldiers" statement, Limbaugh and his caller went on to discuss how real soldiers want to be in Iraq. "They joined to be in Iraq!" said Rush.

Yet you would have had trouble finding too many Republicans in Washington willing to step forward and condemn Limbaugh, or do what Democrats are asked to do whenever a progressive anywhere says something controversial, and "distance themselves" from his remarks. Why? Because Rush Limbaugh is one of the most important components of the conservative spin machine. After all, when Republicans scored their dramatic electoral victory in 1994, they named him an honorary member of the 104th Congress. He'll have to go a lot further than insulting soldiers to get them to turn on him.