Ever Hear Of ‘Ratfucking’?

Ratfucking was a tactic that defined the Nixon machine. In the 1972 election, Nixon aides enlisted the help of people who would create havoc in the campaigns of political opponents. Who knows if Nixon even needed to do it, but he did, and it worked in some pretty public displays that led to the downfall of candidates — Edmund Muskie most notably.

Well, is it still ratfucking when it is out in the open and being done by a news network? Joshua Sparling is a member of the 82nd Airborne who was wounded in Iraq. He came into the public view when he went public with a story of a nasty letter he received while recovering in the hospital from injuries sustained in Iraq. Read more after the jump…

Now Sparling is back on Fox News talking about how he was spat upon at a recent peace protest in Washington, D.C. Here is his first account on the January 29th edition of “Hannity & Colmes.” Hannity comes in around 2:30 and, like a good lawyer, coaches him on the stand.

Now, Josh, please tell us, why does this keep happening to you? Watch the clip of the second time he appeared on Fox News to the end and see one potential motivation.

There is an account from a reporter of the alleged incident. According to NY Times reporter Ian Urbina, a protester spit on the ground near Sparling, but Josh’s claims run counter to the Times account.

Here is the Times account:

There were a few tense moments, however, including an encounter involving Joshua Sparling, 25, who was on crutches and who said he was a corporal with the 82nd Airborne Division and lost his right leg below the knee in Ramadi, Iraq. Mr. Sparling spoke at a smaller rally held earlier in the day at the United States Navy Memorial, and voiced his support for the administration’s policies in Iraq.

Later, as antiwar protesters passed where he and his group were standing, words were exchanged and one of the antiwar protestors spit at the ground near Mr. Sparling; he spit back.

Capitol police made the antiwar protestors walk farther away from the counterprotesters.

”These are not Americans as far as I’m concerned,” Mr. Sparling said.

To set up the scene, we must see where Josh was and what he was doing during the alleged spitting incident. Here is the counter protest that was taking place during the peace rally.

The above video is quite ugly. I am not proud to be associated with some of the people shown who are in favor of peace. But, to be fair, there are always bad apples — right Rumsfeld et al.? Bad apples can make any group look bad, just like the bad apples in Abu Gharib. But it also raises some questions about what the counter-protest aimed to accomplish. To be fair, the veterans at the counter protest, including Sparling, looked like they knew exactly what was going to happen and were happy to exploit their position as veterans to get the reactions. How convenient they are now feeding the footage to Fox News.

The ultimate ratfuck, however, would be getting a spitting incident recorded and passed around as fact. Right now, the current spitting incident leaves a lot of questions unanswered because the account of the reporter and the account of Sparling differ — not to mention Sparling keeps embellishing the story each time he goes national. His account on Fox and Friends differs from an account he gave on “Hannity and Colmes” on Fox News.

This current spitting incident is significant given the historic lore that says Vietnam veterans were spat upon when returning stateside. Those reports are still circulated as fact today, even though the reports are even more sketchy than this modern-day one.

All I know is it would be very easy to plant people in the war protesters who would do everything they could to portray the protesters in a bad light so video footage of the incidents would be shown hourly on Fox News.