By Peter Galuszka
Memorial Day is typically a time for remembrance of the sacrifice of military veterans, cook-outs and the unofficial beginning of the summer season.
As always, the media is filled with photos, video and stories of crippled vets, salutes and the like, but one opinion piece stands out: that of Republican stalwart Bob Dole, the former senator from Kansas who has always had a special kind of moral authority. Badly wounded in Italy during World War II, Dole can be taken seriously when he talks about things such as Memorial Day.
And speak out he has. In this morning’s Washington Post op-ed, he trashes the bogus groups that use the sacrifice of veterans to cheat the unsuspecting out of donations, supposedly in the name of veterans. Some pay perhaps one percent of their take to veterans who face any number of issues from recovering from wounds to finding a job.
But one group stands out. As Dole writes: “Earlier this month a trial date was set for the purported mastermind behind the U.S. Navy Veterans Association, a bogus charity with a nonexistent board of directors and a post office box for a headquarters that is reported to have bilked unsuspecting donors of more than $100 million.”
The man going on trial is John Donald Cody, a.k.a. “Bobby Thompson.” The mysterious individual is also known for getting Atty. Gen. and GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli in hot water.
Back in 2009-2010, Cuccinelli received $55,000 in campaign donations from “Bobby Thompson,” whose group was the target of a major investigation by The St. Petersburg Times newspaper. Cuccinelli held on to the money for months before finally agreeing to give it away, denouncing the vet group in the process.
Coming as it does after Cuccinelli has been implicated in the current Giftgate scandal for having accepted $13,000 in “gifts” from Star Scientific, the reminder of the veterans’ mess adds more of a foul odor to Cuccinelli’s candidacy. To be sure, others including GOP politicians Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and House Speaker William Howell, along with Democratic State Sen. Patsy Ticer, got funds from the Navy vets group. McDonnell has been badly snared in Giftgate, too.
But what’s curious is the indirect slap by Dole at Cuccinelli by bringing up the Navy vet mess. Dole got his opinion piece published the day after he said the Republican Party is in such disarray that “it should be closed for repairs.”
I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but it would follow that the Virginia GOP’s slate would likely be anathema to Dole, a conservative moderate who can operate in a bipartisan way. Besides the ultra-divisive Cuccinelli, the GOP is running socially hard-right candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general. Neither man has a reputation for dealing with the state’s many problems other than uttering issues that drive wedges – such as comments that Planned Parenthood has been more fatal to African-Americans than the Ku Klux Klan and pitching a bill that would require women to report to the police if they suffer from miscarriages.
The trio assumes the moral high ground, but how can they when you have such venal stuff as Giftgate and VetGate taking bows on either side of the stage?
