That’s what the kids call ‘puttin’ the smack down’:

Republican Sen. George Allen (news, bio, voting record) attacked his Democratic challenger's opposition to a flag-burning amendment, and James Webb retaliated by calling Allen a coward who sat out the Vietnam War "playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada."

The statement by a senior adviser to Webb, a decorated veteran and former secretary of the Navy, went to extraordinary lengths to question Allen's fortitude, even repeatedly using the middle name the senator detests and never uses, Felix.

"While Jim Webb and others of George Felix Allen Jr.'s generation were fighting for our freedoms and for our symbols of freedom in Vietnam, George Felix Allen Jr. was playing cowboy at a dude ranch in Nevada," said Webb strategist Steve Jarding in the statement Tuesday.

I myself have never worn a uniform. I don’t know what it is our soldiers have to endure on the ground and, frankly, I never want to know. Maybe this is why I have not only the utmost respect for our soldiers, but am also completely cautious about disparaging the work they do. For draft dodgers and trust-fund deferrers to claim the moral high ground in situations of national defense is one thing. After all, we’re all entitled to our opinion as to how the country should be run and that is the whole point of civilian leadership. But to question the patriotism of those who served is the apex of hypocrisy. Fortunately, we’re starting to see some of these folks, Like Jack Murtha, fighting back.

In the runnup to the 2004 elections, Kerry put an awful lot of stock in cultivating his war-hero persona, something that should have been a clear winner against our AWOL frat-boy, only to have it blow up in his face against baseless swift-boating. If only Kerry had come forward forcefully with this kind of rhetoric, who knows where the country might be today.