Jane Fonda’s spit-and-run assailant clearly gutless

Michael Smith of Kansas City is a coward.

I’ve no doubt that some of the good old boys down at Smith’s favorite bar or at his VFW hall undoubtedly think he’s a big man. A hero, even.

And for what? Spitting a load of tobacco in the face of an unsuspecting 67-year-old woman for something she did nearly 40 years ago [“Man Spits on Jane Fonda,” April 21], and then running away as fast as his hero’s legs could carry him until he was tackled a short distance away by event security.

Big man! Brave man! What a hero! I’m sure his kids and the members of his church, if he attends, are all proud.

I’d bet the farm that this man among men never once considered performing an act of such jaw-dropping bravery on former U.S. attorney general and staunch anti-Vietnam War activist Ramsey Clark or Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, who escalated the war from 10,000 troops to more than 500,000 while harboring the knowledge that the war was both wrong and a losing effort, which he acknowledged only a couple of years ago in his book, “In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam.”

McNamara apologized for this, and I’ve no doubt that Smith and most other vets accepted it in their minds. Jane Fonda has also apologized. She did five years ago and again in her new autobiography, “My Life So Far,” and in countless interviews and public appearances. Smith obviously never gave forgiving Fonda a thought.

Why didn’t this “hero” spit a load of tobacco into the faces of Fonda’s fellow actors Donald Sutherland and Peter Boyle, who were with her every step of the way in their fight against that wrong war? Could it be because Sutherland won laughs and the hearts of a nation as the original Hawkeye in the film “MASH,” and because Boyle has become a lovable old guy on “Everybody Loves Raymond,” one of the highest-rated sitcoms of the last few years?

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot that Sutherland and Boyle also happen to be men, and a coward like Smith wouldn’t have anything close to the kind of guts it would take to approach men with the intent of doing what he did to Fonda.

The Vietnam War was called “McNamara’s War” because he has been credited as its main architect. As such, McNamara was responsible for tens of thousands of American deaths and perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions of Vietnamese deaths. Fonda is personally responsible for not a single American or Vietnamese death. But she is a woman, and bullies like Smith seemingly are fearless when it comes to the courageous act of spitting into the face of a 67-year-old woman.

McNamara was a coward for not speaking his heart and mind as Fonda has done, sending all those men to their deaths because of his gutlessness. Smith just proved himself to be a coward on par with McNamara.

Steve Smith is a public relations consultant in Temple City.