Tired, My @$$
“An Army is a team; lives, sleeps, eats, fights as a team. This individual heroic stuff is a lot of crap.” - General George S. Patton
Barack Obama should really check his ego at the door. In recent days he has assumed regal airs and it isn’t very Presidential. The fat lady has yet to begin warming up, but Obama has already completed his victory lap. Although it appears he will –in all likelihood– get the Democratic nomination, there is no excuse for him to get cocky. His continuing problems connecting with white, middle-class voters expose a huge vulnerability, despite what the media and “superdelgates” (or the Democrat political leadership) say. The reasons he can’t connect in the primaries are the same reasons he’ll face trouble in the General Election; his inexperience, extreme liberal views and refusal to answer tough questions dealing with either of those two subjects.
Every single time anyone brings up an issue with Obama’s statements, associations or positions, he goes on the defensive, crying foul and claiming false attacks or “schoolyard taunts” by his opponents - Democrat and Republican alike. He constantly tries to deflect attention away from legitimate questions about his experience or views by calling them personal attacks and linking them to his liturgy of “change”. He has managed to stir up so much discontent among voters in his own party that significant percentages claim they’d rather vote for McCain should Obama become the Democrat nominee.
Listening to the mainstream media crow about Obama’s oratory, you’d think he’s the Messiah. When he dismissively told a reporter “Hang on, Sweetie” in response to a question the candidate obviously didn’t feel like answering, the media gave him a pass because he later apologized for the clearly sexist remark. Obama’s entire reputation rests on setting a different tone in Washington, yet he perpetuates one of the major problems in Washington - that you can say whatever you want as long as you’re a Democrat and you apologize.
When Obama claimed he’d been to 57 states with just one more to go, the media said he was tired. Remember back when Dan Quayle made any of his now famous verbal gaffes? The media zeroed in and focused on them incessantly. Quayle was the butt of jokes for years. Many essentially called him stupid for his verbal mistakes, yet Obama gets a free ride for his sexism and failure to grasp 4th grade geography because he is their anointed one. Tired, my @$$.
As a result of several bruising defeats in big states and his failure to connect with middle-America, candidate Obama has found it necessary to embark on an image makeover. His A.W.O.L. flag lapel pin suddenly reappeared when he gave a speech to veterans and he has begun airing commercials where he’s draped in American flags. He has also begun furiously injecting himself into the military policy arena in an attempt to appear more presidential, despite having absolutely no military experience or knowledge of military culture other than what he has managed to learn in the short time he has served on the Senate Veteran’s Affairs Committee.
He blindly threw his support behind a disastrous measure sponsored by an anti-war Democrat and a Republican who turned against the Iraq war to ensure his political survival –Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel– that would guarantee full college scholarships to essentially all veterans. As evidence of how truly oblivious Obama is to military matters, he publicly questioned how John McCain could possibly be against this crazy scheme. Initially, it sounds like a great idea to reward veterans for their service, but I too am vehemently against it, for numerous reasons.
- It would encourage veterans to leave the military after a single enlistment.
- Military college benefits are already quite generous. A young recruit can serve a full military career and retire at 40 with full or near-full college benefits and a bright future.
- There are already numerous deferred entry programs that allow enlistees to complete college in advance of their military career.
- It is simply not needed for recruiting or retention purposes. All branches of the service have recently reported meeting or exceeding quarterly recruiting goals, with the Marine Corps again meeting their goal for the year despite the wholehearted opposition of the city of Berkeley.
- Young men continue to enlist, despite the dangers and lack of benefits.
- The entire VA benefits rating system would need to be reworked in order to remain fair. Currently, benefits are awarded based on years of service and/or disability rating. If all veterans received the same education benefits, it would be unfair to retirees, disabled vets, and the families of fallen soldiers. There are millions of veterans like myself who were offered limited vocational rehabilitation benefits, despite actually bleeding for my country. Why should we be treated differently because we served prior to 9/11/01? It was still just as dangerous then.
- It perpetuates the stereotype of the average American military member as a poorly educated sap who turns to the military to fight their way into college because they’re too dumb to study their way in.
I cannot fathom how Barack Obama could possibly think this is good for the military. Good for the future of the individual veteran perhaps, but that isn’t what military service is about. Basic training is designed to destroy the individual and build the team member. Individuals in the military are frowned upon. Individuals wash out, get forced out or get killed. The focus of the military is the security and survival of the unit and by extension, the command, the service and the country. This legislation is simply so generous, that it threatens that survival.
As a final note, Barack Obama stood in for Ted Kennedy and gave a commencement speech to Wesleyan University graduates where a major theme of the speech was public service. He urged graduates to serve their country in the Peace Corps and in other liberal causes, but conspicuously absent from Obama’s call to serve was any mention of military service, the most honorable of all.
As Commander-In-Chief of the US military, it is your responsibility to ensure not simply the survival, but the continued growth, prosperity and success of the world’s most dominant force. We can possess the deadliest technology, the biggest bombs, most accurate rifles and fastest planes, but without the men to strap them on and bring them to bear against the enemy, they are quite useless. At this critical time in our nation’s history, we simply cannot afford to wait while Barack Obama graduates from his military diapers to a pair of skivees. We need a President who understands military service, culture and readiness, not someone who removes his flag pin to appease MoveOn.org, only to dust it off when he needs to ask America’s veterans for their support.
On this Memorial Day, let us keep the sacrifice of all of our nation’s veterans in our hearts. Without their continued acts of gallantry, we would just be another second-rate nation. Because of them, we are the envy of humanity.
