There is manly. And then there is Brian Williams Manly. You see, there are combat veterans and then there are “Combat Veterans.” “Combat Veterans” tend to be Republican. For example, Senator Joni Ernst. Huffpo-Rambo Andrew Reinbach flexed his gawdallmiddy Journo-Pecs and found himself a real veteran. Blatantly political character assassination follows below.

Real combat veterans I spoke to don’t think much of how the Senator talks up her combat duty. Larry Hanft, for instance, who earned the Combat Infantryman’s Badge fighting in Vietnam, says, “By her definition, everybody who stepped off the plan in Kuwait is a combat veteran. Joni Ernst is using her military experience to gain a political edge and pull the wool over the eyes of the American people. She’s a fraud…” Mr. Hanft is one of Sen. Ernst’s constituents.

So The Huffington Post, the fair-minded paragons of totally objective and decent journalism that they are, immediately castigated Larry Hanft for his partisan “Swiftboating” of the Noble and Honorable Senator Ernst. Oh, wait, sorry, just got sucked into an alternate universe where journalists had consistent standards of practice and actually existed to inform people. In the interest of being fair-minded and objective, Reinbach found another real veteran. He proceeded to deliberately distort the content of this woman’s remarks. Lt. Col Conway reacted in nausea and disgust when she read how her comments were framed in Reinbach’s article.

Senator Joni Ernst is a combat veteran. Period. Andrew Reinbach manipulated my words, and I am angry and embarrassed that a so-called journalist would deliberately take out of context a small portion of our 15 minute discussion.

And we just know Andrew Reinbach will provide context and remind us all of the proud tradition of stolen valor started by a prior senator that the people of Iowa sent to DC. Who other than MSNBC, CBS, NBC, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Huffpo could possibly forget this one*?

Iowa Democratic [mc_name name=’Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’H000206′ ] (search) is calling Vice President Dick Cheney a — “coward” for not serving in Vietnam. But Harkin himself didn’t serve in Vietnam, even though he has said otherwise. Many years ago, Harkin repeatedly said he was a Vietnam Veteran who flew “combat air patrols” for a year, but it turned out he was stationed in Japan at the time, flying aircraft to be repaired in the Philippines and missing combat altogether. Harkin, according to the Wall Street Journal at the time, was forced to call himself a, “Vietnam Era Vet” instead.

It was like Christmas in Cambodia, Man. It was seared onto the Brave and Mighty Senator Harkin’s memory. It was like all that time [mc_name name=’Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’B001277′ ] spent over there in the jungle, chased by Charlie, with dysentery and a broken leg. Then he came home, argued in front of SCOTUS and personally wrote the Roe v. Wade decision for Team Brain-Suck Abortion. It was awesome, man! Totally awesome!

And we know, given the high standards of personal integrity that define the very being of any Huffpo-Rambo, that they will be all over this Stolen Valor stuff. They’ll be publishing exposes! They’ll be on it like Kanye West at a Grammy Show any time a Caucasian wins instead of Beyoncé. The Huffington Post will henceforth establish the true and shining standard of military heroism. They have that impeccable personal integrity and honesty. Like that time Brian Williams covered The Last Supper and wrote up his account for The New and Improved Testament**….

(Image Credit: The Burning Platform)

*-Link from Fox News. All Liberals get to roll to disbelieve.

**-Which will be faxed in to Pope Francis from a Kinkos in Abilene any day now.