Friday, May 23, 2008

Why I Love America, Part VXLAGH^

Now this one I love: McCain lashing out at Obama for being FOR a bill to increase veteran's benefits. According to the Washington Post, McCain is against the bill (along with, of course, Dubya.) Obama never served in the military, so he I guess has no right to wonder why McCain, Mr. War Vet, Mr. Military, would be against such a bill. McCain is offended!!

Which is brilliant, cause I promise you Joe Public American out there will hear this and be furious someone is against McCain on, of all things, military spending. "He's an American hero!! A POW, how DARE you!!!" Meanwhile of course McCain is simply trying to reduce veteran's benefits for what, 8th, 9th time? Have we lost count? Boy, for a coupla guys (McCain & Bush) who pop their hammies to jump up and cry on and on about how brave the troops are, how they're all heroes, they sure like to fuck them in the back room, don't they? McCain in particular is like the father of a kid who gets offered a college scholarship and responds with "Who the fuck do you think you are, you don't know my kid!!" And then makes the kid stay at home and sweep floors for $5/hour. Thanks dad!! You're the best!!

You know, if McCain's gonna be our "Safety Daddy!!!" hard-ass protector president, he's gonna hafta do more for the military than repeatedly hammer on us about his stay at the Hanoi Hilton. Just because you were once a (brave, no doubt) prisoner of war does not mean I'm not allowed to wonder if you know how to actually run a war; being a prisoner of war makes you no more of a military expert than lying in a hospital bed makes me a surgeon. (Yes, I know I'm going to hell for saying that. But someone has to, no?)

My last sentiment was more eloquently written (surprise) in last weeks NYTimes mag here.
There is a feeling among some of McCain’s fellow veterans that his break with them on Iraq can be traced, at least partly, to his markedly different experience in Vietnam. McCain’s comrades in the Senate will not talk about this publicly. They are wary of seeming to denigrate McCain’s service, marked by his legendary endurance in a Hanoi prison camp, when in fact they remain, to this day, in awe of it. And yet in private discussions with friends and colleagues, some of them have pointed out that McCain, who was shot down and captured in 1967, spent the worst and most costly years of the war sealed away, both from the rice paddies of Indochina and from the outside world. During those years, McCain did not share the disillusioning and morally jarring experiences of soldiers like Kerry, Webb and Hagel, who found themselves unable to recognize their enemy in the confusion of the jungle; he never underwent the conversion that caused Kerry, for one, to toss away some of his war decorations during a protest at the Capitol. Whatever anger McCain felt remained focused on his captors, not on his own superiors back in Washington.

1 comment:

Nerdhappy said...

xmastime, you can see the big picture... is blogging enough? let's start fighting the real fight. let's throw down on these punks.