The subject of Trudeau's attack on Dole's combat wounds came up only once in mainstream media reports, during an April 1995 interview with Dole on ABC's "Prime Time Live."

The network's Sam Donaldson showed the GOP candidate the cartoon, noting:

"Three weeks ago, Trudeau drew a cartoon in which a television viewer is watching Dole parade his war wound as a campaign prop.

"And you're supposed to be saying, 'Ladies and gentlemen, please give a warm welcome to my old war wound.' And the wound says, 'Thank you, Bob. Thank you. I'm proud to be a political asset.'"

Dole's reaction was extraordinarily mild by modern-day Democrat standards. Of Trudeau's outrageous stunt, the combat vet told Donaldson:

"Yeah, well I don't know that being wounded is a political asset. I'd be glad to - I mean I'd be glad to trade Gary Trudeau, but I think it was in poor taste - but, you know, everybody has to make a living."

Trudeau wasn't the only critic who questioned the severity of Dole's combat wounds.

"I concede that Dole was indeed badly wounded with the 10th Mountain Division in Italy in World War II," wrote Maj. Chuck Dodson (ret.), in a 1996 letter to a Tennessee paper.

"But, as a senator, isn't it quite possible, if not probable, that his pension is considerably more than that of other veterans with comparable disability?"

And as National Review Online notes today, the Nation Magazine predictably joined in to bash Dole's combat record, printing an account from Robert B. Ellis, who served with Dole in the 10th Mountain Division:

"Dole's first wound, in the night patrol, was self-inflicted (a story the candidate once told himself), but that fact does not appear in an extremely laudatory profile the G.O.P. distributes with a cover letter by Dole.

"And the factoid that Dole got two Bronze Stars for heroism is circulated without evidence of dates and citations. All this is not to suggest that Dole failed to perform his duties honorably, or that he does not deserve respect and sympathy for the terrible wounds he suffered and his courage in living a productive life in spite of the resultant damage.

"But as a veteran of the 10th Mountain Division and the 85th Mountain Infantry Regiment in which Dole served, I have grown increasingly uncomfortable with efforts to cast him as a wartime hero."

Editor's note: