Uh……
I’m hardly a person who believes that joining the military makes someone a hero. But Joe Walsh (R-IL) goes way, way over the line, not only in attacking his opponent Tammy Duckworth who only lost both legs in Iraq but in creating mythology about Republicans:
Republican Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), knocked his Democratic opponent Tammy Duckworth — a veteran who lost both of her legs as a helicopter pilot in Iraq — for talking about her military career too much. Discussing her accomplishments, Walsh suggested, meant that Duckworth was not a “true [hero].”
Walsh said at a town hall meeting on Sunday that unlike Duckworth, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) rarely spoke about his military service during the 2008 presidential election — a claim that ignores the thrust of McCain’s campaign and his entire political career.
“That’s what’s so noble about our heroes. Now I’m running against a woman who — I mean, my God, that’s all she talks about,” said Walsh, in video posted by Think Progress. “Our true heroes, it’s the last thing in the world they talk about. Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it’s the last thing in the world they talk about. That’s why we are so indebted and in awe of what they have done.”
John McCain was in the military? I had no idea. He never talked about it!
To be fair, McCain’s discussion of his time as a POW dwarfed his references to his undistinguished military career.
I think Wonkette managed to include the phrase FIVE AND A HALF YEARS in every post they wrote from June to November 2008.
McCain’s time as a POW was truly horrifying. It might be the only thing that ever made a dent in his ego.
(Actually, I think he was a war criminal, but that does nothing to justify how he was abused.)
Why is it that so many Republican presidential nominees are men driven to outdo their fathers?
+1
Adding, compare and contrast with Clinton and Obama.
Actually that’s interesting because Clinton and Obama have issues with their fathers, too. Clinton’s stepdad (his dad died before he was born; his real name is “Blythe”) was a drinker and gambler and beat everyone else in the family regularly. The son still legally changed his name to the abusive stepfather’s when he was a teenager. That’s the stuff of Faulkner.
Obama’s relationship with his father was complex, obviously, but at the very least the Mau Mau socialist neoanticolonialist stuff seems to have stuck.
The difference seems to be Republicans spend their lives trying to live up to expectations, while Democrats are trying to fix something that broke irrevocably in their childhoods.
Which isn’t really surprising; the personality traits needed to run, let alone win, a presidential campaign almost guarantee the people at the end of the process are going to be fucked up, and what better way to be fucked up than to have a fucked up relationship with your parents.
See also, Larkin, Philip.
Too good not to quote:
They fuck you up, your mum and dad
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
“at the very least the Mau Mau socialist neoanticolonialist stuff seems to have stuck”
What?
“Obama’s complex relationship with his father is so well-known it serves as a locus for some of the more imaginative wingnut fever dreams” isn’t as snappy
possibly because it’s the land of faulkner:
Yep. In this vain, he is much closer to the Founding Fathers than most other Americans. The Founding Fathers were also anticolonialist freedom fighters, like the Mau Mau. And they actually killed much more innocent people who were suspected to be loyalists.
God, I miss fafblog.
I’ve long admired Reagan for rarely talking about his role in the liberation of Auschwitz.
Such restraint is truly humbling. He is worth of the name Ronaldus Magnus.
Indeed it truly *is* humbug!
Reagan was Russian?
OMG, Reagan was a Soviet agent!!!
I am not sure if Manju was joking or just being his usual revisionist self.
Joking! It’s a famous Reagan gaffe:
actually, i think he was a roman senator, who owned a stable of gladiators.
or something like that.
There is some evil agreement between the Republicans, corporate press/media, and every well-established veterans organization that right-wingers can trash any veteran who is a Democrat without them saying a word, but if any Democrat says anything that can be twisted or exaggerated into a insult to Our Brave Troops, well they raise hell until somebody gets fired.
I don’t know the details of the agreement, but it’s what I have seen and heard for the last forty years.
Google “American Legion.” They seem like a nice organization where veterans can meet and have a few beers.
They’re fascists.
Shockingly enough, there’s not a word on either the American Legion or VFW’s websites. Today’s edition of IOKIYAR.
Largely true but American Legion posts were also segregated in much of the country so you frequently have 2 American Legion posts in the same town. I have gotten to know some of the African-American Legionnaires where I live and they are good people and not at all fascists and don’t deserve to be tarred with the same brush.
All this hate for the American Legion is misplaced.
The American Legion honored Ms. Duckworth 2 years ago
They even helped propose a statue of her with Molly Pitcher
The VFW on the other hand dissed her in the past
Disclosure my Dad has been a member of his local Legion chapter for several decades and was all but a red diaper baby. (The grands were Depression era kids)
I don’t think either the Legion or the VFW is a good example of what James said, at least in regard to Duckworth. The Legion honored her for her work in the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, at a time when she wasn’t running for office. The VFW’s “dis” consisted of endorsing her opponent Roskam during the 2006 campaign, but they made no statements at all about Duckworth as far as I know, nor did Roskam attack her in the way Walsh has done (just the usual “Democrats want to raise your taxes”, etc.).
No, the VFW and the American Legion are exactly the type of organizations I am talking about. I think back to the attacks on Kerry, the purple band-aids. A couple of phone calls would have shut that shit down in a heartbeat. But those organizations have agendas that are not really aligned with the interests of veterans, as human beings.
Both the American Legion and the VFW are incredibly reactionary organizations. In fact if memory serves the American Legion was used to help break strikes and fight unions after WWI.
They haven’t changed all that much. On the other had the VFW sells incredibly cheep drinks at there bars.
I’m a major fan of fish Fridays… though maybe that’s just my local VFW.
Are we trying to say in this thread the VFW isn’t just a restaurant/bar, because if that’s true then I’ve been heavily misled at lunch time!
Walsh has a point. When was the last time you heard him speaking about his own financial acumen, or his role as a father to 5 children.
He likes to keep the focus on others.
Okay, that is funny.
And Max Cleland hates America and loves Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
I have this vivid vision of some tea partiers somewhere nodding vapidly along with this thinking, ‘That McCain fellow didn’t talk about his time as a POW, he just… was it, right?’
Funny that – nary a mention of his service in the military in his wikipedia entry – those damned Democrats must have edited it out while no one was looking!
Perhaps Walsh can break out those purple heart bandaids.
… and put the band-aids all over his knees.
To the conservative mind, it is self-evident that only Republicans can be heroes and all heroes are Republicans. If you lose your legs in service to your country but then remain a Democrat, it proves only that you were wounded as part of a long term plot to destroy the nation.
It is much like the conservative belief that it is self-evident that only Republicans are fit to rule. If a Democrat wins an election, the only explanation is electoral fraud. Only conservatives are just, righteous, and good.
There is nothing inherently heroic about serving in the military or even getting your lower legs blown off. The US Army recognized this since it was Chief Warrant Officer Milberg, who landed the helicopter and got Duckworth to a rescue crew, who was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.* However, overcoming grievous injuries and then working to improve the lives of other veterans with disabilities while continuing to serve in the Guard is certainly valiant.
Most candidates talk about themselves when they run for office and Duckworth has been in the National Guard for her entire adult life and her highest profile jobs were in Veteran’s affairs.
Her bio is almost all military related.
LTC Duckworth also supported this interpretation stating many times that her copilot was the real hero. Guess Walsh missed those interviews.
Maybe I’m jaded, but Walsh stories no longer shock or surprise me. This guy has already made abundantly clear what a loathsome POS he is. If 50.1% of his constituents still want more of him, then they deserve to get him, good and hard.
When this asshole first came into public view, with “you lie,” I didn’t pay much attention. I just assumed he was some backwoods redneck asshole from a Southern Red State. Silly me. He’s just another version of Granny-Starver Ryan, or Shiv ‘em Cantor, but without any manners.
Losing the election would be nice (Go Tammy!) but not enough. I want to see this piece of shit sitting on the courthouse steps, in rags, with a tin cup. Or maybe, like yesterday’s post, in private debtor’s prison for failure to pay child support.
“You Lie” was Joe Wilson of South Carolina (First to commit Treason in defense of Slavery), not Joe Walsh of Illinois (Seriously, this Asshat is from the same state and party as Abe Lincoln?).
Joe W., asshole edition.
Part of Walsh’s bottom-feeding approach has to do with the likelihood that he won’t even come close to 50.1%. He defeated a three-term incumbent Blue Dog Democrat in a historically Republican district by a whopping 291 votes (after no-hoper perennial candidate Bill Scheurer siphoned off 6,494 votes by running on the Green Party ticket).
He’s gotten attention and support from the Tea Party for being a loudmouth bomb-thrower who never saw a TV camera that he didn’t like, but in one of the few states that had its district boundaries redrawn post-census by a Democratic state legislature, he’s probably going down. (The redistricting actually put him in a new district, where he would have had to face another Republican.) I wouldn’t worry about him, though; given that his pre-Congress career consisted mostly of “advancing market-based solutions to education reform and urban poverty”, so I’m sure he’ll still be drinking from the Koch firehose one way or another.
you people speak of Walsh supporters like they’re some kinda teabagger freaks.
but lefties of all people should understand. fact is, while one may be repulsed at first, its not uncommon to develop an attachment to the grateful dead beat.
does anyone have a Manju to English dictionary available?
Possible oblique Eagles reference (“This is not the Joe Walsh you are looking for”)?
“He doesn’t give interviews! He’s an Eagle now!”
–Irving Azoff
Grateful Dead. Beat. Kinda clever.
Does this praise make Walsh a Manjurian Candidate?
grateful dead beat.
Sometimes the lights are shining on me
other times I can barely see
lately it occurs to me
what a long, strange trip it’s been
Yeah, but what does this have to do with Joe Walsh?
its not uncommon to develop an attachment to the grateful deadbeat.
‘Pro-Family’ Award From Family Research Council
Life’s been good to him so far.