Can somebody debunk this anti-Dean article?

[TrogL]

(yes, I've been trolling Freeperville again)

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/richlowry/rl20031216.shtml

Dean has said of Bush routinely on the campaign trail: "One night, Friday night -- he hoped the media wouldn't notice -- he announced that combat pay was being cut because 'mission accomplished.' One day last January he went to a Veterans Administration hospital and said that veterans deserve the best pay, the best health care that money could buy. That was the day after he cut 164,000 veterans off their health-care benefits. This president doesn't get that the defense of the United States depends on the men and women he sent to Iraq and depends on the veterans who came home."

...

Dean's charge does have a wisp of a connection to reality. Because the VA system was overwhelmed by a flood of new patients -- many of them relatively well-off -- it established a new rule saying that veterans with no medical problems relating to their service and an income above a certain threshold are not eligible for VA care. The rule affects an estimated 164,000 people. These are Dean's 164,000 veterans "cut off" from benefits. But they can't be cut off from benefits, because they never received them. The VA grandfathered in everyone already receiving care to make sure no one would be cut off.

...

Dean's combat-pay charge is just as deceptive. The Pentagon earlier this year opposed extending recent Bush-instituted increases in "imminent-danger pay" and "family-separation allowances." It wanted to maintain the current pay of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but through different means. This was all rendered moot when Bush signed into law in November a bill preserving the imminent-danger and family-separation pay increases. So no cut in combat pay had been proposed or took place, but Dean goes his merry way, charging otherwise.

Please note that I am not anti-Dean but I do not want a repeat of the "Gore lies" fiasco.

[madfloridian]

1. Here are 5 articles found at google.

Apparently Bush was planning to cut various benefits to veterans. There are many more. I used the search terms bush,veterans,proposed, cuts.

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/il09_schakowsky/pr04_13_2003vets.html

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/bush_cuts_vet_benefits_041503.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/11/08/dems.radio.reut/

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2003/May/07/local/stories/03local.htm

http://www.prospect.org/print-friendly/webfeatures/2003/03/kuttner-r-03-27.html