It was a banner month for chicken hawk bullshitting. First up came Senator Scott Brown's claims to have "served" in Afghanistan. As the Boston Globe pointed out "Yes, technically, Scott Brown is right. He is a longtime member of the Army National Guard, and as a United States senator, in the summer of 2011, he requested that his annual two weeks of guard training be done in Afghanistan, where he would be located 'in the rear with the gear,; according to one analyst at the time."
In other words, it was a phony PR stunt that he knew he'd be able to play as a political trump card at one point down the line.
Brown, you may not remember, actually sponsored a bill making it a crime to exaggerate one's military service. Don't believe me, just ask the man who was the inspiration behind it. "I thought it was seriously misleading," said Sterner, whose website outing heroes was the basis for Brown's "Stolen Valor" bill. HP.
Then earlier this week Ann Romney compared her husband's "service" as a missionary to his contemporaries who were in Vietnam at the time.
Gotcha, said most of the liberals like me. Look at these self-inflating egotists stunting like they hard. But wait a minute, is that actually intellectually honest of us to play that sort of game? I don't remember many of us acting like military service is actually a quality that we look for in our own political candidates, is it? Remind me again what Obama's military career was like? Unless you count bombing mad pussy in Harvard Square I don't think he had one. And despite that lack of "service" Obama certainly turned out to be a brutally efficient killing machine anyway didn't he?
Brown's response to the criticism levied at him after the debate was to point to this passage from his book:
While it's certainly fair game to call these charlatans out on trumped up resumes of manliness, and if I were an actual soldier whose life was in danger I would be even more offended, it's something we as liberals should tread carefully on, because isn't that like admitting that we think a resume of killing people is a quality we're actually looking for in a leader that we want to shape national policy?
I do happen to like the idea of a veteran as president, but only, like, the cliched war movie guy with a beard and a bottle of whiskey who was so fucked up by the horror of killing and being killed that he actually takes the idea of murdering human beings seriously enough to try to avoid it whenever possible. I don't happen to see anyone in the national political field like that, someone that doesn't see war as either a photo opp like Brown, a burden to be be born by other, less important people, like Romney, or a video game like Obama.
In fact, not only did Mitt Romney’s father arrange for him to go to France to serve as a Mormon missionary rather than serve in the U.S. military, he protested during his college years against those protesting the war — advocating that others serve their country, while he stayed in school.She's got a point there, although not the one I think she was trying to make; most of our wars are on some religious missionary global branding shit anyway.
Gotcha, said most of the liberals like me. Look at these self-inflating egotists stunting like they hard. But wait a minute, is that actually intellectually honest of us to play that sort of game? I don't remember many of us acting like military service is actually a quality that we look for in our own political candidates, is it? Remind me again what Obama's military career was like? Unless you count bombing mad pussy in Harvard Square I don't think he had one. And despite that lack of "service" Obama certainly turned out to be a brutally efficient killing machine anyway didn't he?
Brown's response to the criticism levied at him after the debate was to point to this passage from his book:
When I returned, it was not as a U.S. Senator but as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army National Guard, sent to complete my annual training at a military base near Kandahar. I dressed in fatigues and battle armor, carried a side arm in my holster, and lived, worked, ate, and slept alongside fellow U.S. soldiers and Guard members.As PoliticusUSA points out, "Brown’s rebuttal is almost more offensive than the original claim, for he sounds like someone playing dress up troop. Dressing in fatigues and donning battle gear for training is not the same thing as being in combat. Nor is eating or working side by side with our troops remotely similar to 'serving'. I should know, I’ve done that while they were training."
While it's certainly fair game to call these charlatans out on trumped up resumes of manliness, and if I were an actual soldier whose life was in danger I would be even more offended, it's something we as liberals should tread carefully on, because isn't that like admitting that we think a resume of killing people is a quality we're actually looking for in a leader that we want to shape national policy?
I do happen to like the idea of a veteran as president, but only, like, the cliched war movie guy with a beard and a bottle of whiskey who was so fucked up by the horror of killing and being killed that he actually takes the idea of murdering human beings seriously enough to try to avoid it whenever possible. I don't happen to see anyone in the national political field like that, someone that doesn't see war as either a photo opp like Brown, a burden to be be born by other, less important people, like Romney, or a video game like Obama.
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3 comments:
"Unless you count bombing mad pussy in Harvard Square"
Spit out my drink. Never change, Luke.
pedator drone in my pants.
It doesn't matter how important service is to leading, what matters is how important it is to the candidates to lie about/exaggerate it.
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