RNC Delegates Mock War Wounded

In obvious mockery of John Kerry, some GOP delegates in New York have taken to wearing bandaids marked with a purple heart, taking Bob Dole's anecdote about his own Purple Heart award to the offensive extreme:

As we approached the enemy, there was a brief exchange of gunfire. I took a grenade in hand, pulled the pin, and tossed it in the direction of the farmhouse. It wasn't a very good pitch (remember, I was used to catching passes, not throwing them). In the darkness, the grenade must have struck a tree and bounced off. It exploded nearby, sending a sliver of metal into my leg--the sort of injury the Army patched up ith Mercurochrome and a Purple Heart.

Apparently, "band-aid purple heart" is a derogatory term used in the military to describe someone who should not have received a Purple Heart citation, one of the claims that the Swift Boat Veterans have made about John Kerry. Clearly, however, this protest, or whatever they would call it, doesn't merely mock John Kerry's service and the wounds he received during war time, but, it trivializes that of all those who have been wounded in combat. As Terry McCauliffe pointed out earlier tonight:

Our service men and women put their lives on the line every day. If they are wounded in the line of duty it is because they are fighting on the frontlines for freedom. Anything but complete respect for their service is unacceptable. Mindful of the fact that over 3,700 purple hearts have been issued during the Iraq war so far and none of us know how high that number will climb, I call on John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, before they speak, to tell their delegates to disavow these tactics. I call on these two men to use the power of their positions to tell their delegates that service matters, sacrifice matters, and that no Republican delegate should ever mock the service of our soldiers.

See a picture of a delegate wearing one of these band-aids on her chin HERE:

Is this what they call "supporting the troops?" Can you imagine how up in arms they would be if the Democratic delegates had done something comparable?