The nominees are:
1. Joe Klein: "The Senate ... did not pass the 'Dream Act,' which is a cold, cold abomination." Not just cold, but cold, cold. It's not just the exaggeration that wins Klein a nomination. It's the witless, unintentional ambiguity. He doesn't mean to say that the act was the abomination.
2. John McCain: "Today's a very sad day. The commandant of the United States Marine Corps says when your life hangs on the line, you don't want anything distracting. . . . I don't want to permit that opportunity to happen and I'll tell you why. You go up to Bethesda Naval Hospital, Marines are up there with no legs, none. You've got Marines at Walter Reed with no limbs." And that's it. The speech suddenly ends there, and — as Dana Milbank puts it in the Washington Post — he "turned and, without another word, walked into the cloakroom." (Note the irony that the staunch opponent of homosexuals is the one who enters the cloakroom/closet.) McCain's argument against gay people in the military is that there are Marines who have have lost limbs. Don't you get it? Perhaps now that DADT is dead, a Marine with no legs — none! — will speak up and with quiet dignity inform us that he is gay. What will John McCain say then? "I'm sorry"?
December 19, 2010
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O Joe Klein
O John McCain
O Chris Althouse Cohen
Klein is shilling for more votes for the Democrats.
McCain, like him or not, earned the right to his opinion the hard way.
And, even though I was never a fan of his, I don't regret voting for him.
And this is the least of the reasons.
I believe McCain was frustrated to the point that he lost his train of thought. Either that or he was about to tell the idiot Libs what he really thought about them insinuating their anti-military agenda INTO the military, but managed to hold his tongue.
As to the Left, they have exhausted their capacity to foment outrage by declaring conservatives to be cold, cold, heartless evil bastards. The hysterical hyperbole and feigned injuries go in one ear and out the other.
"Perhaps now that DADT is dead, a Marine with no legs — none! — will speak up and with quiet dignity inform us that he is gay. What will John McCain say then? "I'm sorry"?"
Why should he be be sorry? McCain has no problem with homosexuals serving in the Marine Corps. There is no problem with a legless Marine informing us he is gay since he will not be able to continue serving anyway due to lack of legs.
@edutcher...
I've decided not to cut you any slack today. McCain didn't earn any special rights to an opinion. He just has his.
mcCain blathers that he doesn't want to do anything "in time of war". We are perpetually at war.
Are the gay service persons who train to be marines given a second rate training now? do they get some sort of "weak sister" uniform because they are gay and can't cut the mustard? NO. they train to exactly the same and they are pronounced marines exactly the same as anyone else.
McCain can have any opinion he wants, right or wrong, no matter how dumbheaded, but this constant BS set of reasons is not the result of some special dispensation.
Lincolntf said...
I believe McCain was frustrated to the point that he lost his train of thought..."
ahhhh that train left the station a few years back..
HD
A stammering dolt who needs "idiot boards" to manage answering even the simplest questions is President of the U.S., and that's just hunky-dory with you.
But an elderly Senator can't have an occasional lapse? Maybe you're just an ageist hater?
Chris Althouse's neighbors said "Dude, New Year's is two weeks from now!" when they heard him banging pots & pans and shooting off fireworks.
"McCain can have any opinion he wants, right or wrong, no matter how dumbheaded"
Not anymore.
They're both drama queens, but at least Klein's remark made SOME kind of sense.
Althouse comes close to winning the "Drama Queen rhetoric of the week award" hereself by claiming McCain is a "staunch opponent of homosexuals."
Repeal of DADT is not about whether homosexuals can serve in the military, it's about the terms of that service.
I don't think McCain was arguing there is a direct causal connection between an openly gay service members anywhere and battlefield amputations.
I think the point of his rhetoric was that the stakes are pretty high in the combat ranks to be imposing feel-good, encounter group bullshit that might work just fine inside the Pentagon bureaucracy that gave its stamp of approval.
If Cindy Sheehan had absolute moral authority as conferred by libruls like Modo, what does McCain have?
They are both drama queens. I give it to Klein.
As for McCain, remember that Barry Goldwater said all he carred about was if gays could shoot straight.
McCain needn't wait. Eric Alva was a Marine who was wounded in Iraq -- he lost a leg. He was awarded a Purple Heart and since leaving the military has come out and fought against DADT.
Despite the fact that the DREAM Act is a closer policy call, I'll go with Klein because of McCain's military service. He's earned the right to get overwrought on military issues even if he is a crappy opportunist of a politician.
"...McCain is a "staunch opponent of homosexuals..."
Ugh, did Althouse actually write that?
The principles underlying McCain's stand go over the heads of those who never served. And the way he expressed it was too nuanced for the simple-minded.
"Could I just say that the intensity of this getting pretty scary...and dangerous?"
As a result of the repeal of don't ask don't tell, the ordinary Afghans, who are used to warlords making war partly to forcibly sodomize inhabitants or to glorify their corrupt bachabaze traditions, will now be more suspicious of the American military and more likely to view them as part of the problem. So I don't see why McCain's comments were overly dramatic. It seems terribly naive to think that.
"...McCain is a "staunch opponent of homosexuals..."
Ugh, did Althouse actually write that?
Yep. And during the last presidential election he was a racist who hated blacks. Really, he was, I heard it over and over again. And Ann voted along with those who said it. She's principled in that way.
Here's his concession speech on election night, can't you hear his hatred for blacks dripping from his tongue?
I'm sure it's as real as his long-standing reputation as a "staunch opponent of homosexuals..."
BTW, I predict that repeal of DADT will lead to more beatings of gay soldiers, since straights know there is no recourse anymore. So ironically, DADT helped to PROTECT gays.
I think Mr. McCain had to stop. His eyelids where about to flood.
Write-in vote: "Don't worry, America. Vaginas!"
wv: "ortight." [::shoots coffee through nose::]
So ironically, DADT helped to PROTECT gays.
I agree, and no good will come to those who do identify as gay. There will be a higher rate of "accidents" among those that do identify.
Note the irony that the staunch opponent of homosexuals is the one who enters the cloakroom/closet.)
A) McCain is not a "staunch opponent of homosexuals" by any objective measure.
B) You obviously don't understand what the Senate Cloakroom is. Hint: it is not a "closet"
@edh
"I don't think McCain was arguing there is a direct causal connection between an openly gay service members anywhere and battlefield amputations.
I think the point of his rhetoric was that the stakes are pretty high in the combat ranks to be imposing feel-good, encounter group bullshit that might work just fine inside the Pentagon bureaucracy that gave its stamp of approval".
I think that's right.
Winner winner chicken dinner.
Here's the reason why most who have served in the military resent the repeal of DADT: the prime military mission is about closing and subduing our country's designated enemy with a minimal loss of life... the desire to merge the agenda of popular culture is perhaps completely bereft of the prime agenda.
When the question of women in combat arose several years ago, one issue was one of performance, the other is about management of sexual harassment on the job. So far, things seem to be working out with women in the military, and no doubt openly gay service people will work out as well.
Gays and women have always served in the military since time immemorial. Military service people are no different from the population at large in terms of thinking and attitude. So what happened? Popular culture merged and scrambled gender and sexuality. Gender can be managed, sexuality cannot... It should not. Government has no business, no right to manage sexuality. DADT deftly addressed this issue, it was elegant despite it's popular image.
Add to this, the well known contempt of the military that pop culture and those of us who are products of university culture have long harbored in the most ugly way. I believe that this contempt masks an admiration, an envy for command and control culture: you can change a society simply by fiat. Personally, I find this disgusting.
Moreover, while there might be a desire to alter the military, I wouldn't be surprised to see popular culture itself changed. As it was when Obama came to office, the antiwar position evaporated and BHO seamlessly continued Bush policy... Perhaps pop culture will come to understand the military mission, and that's not all that bad.
But now DADT is gone... And the military will survive. By command and a strict application of the UCMJ, the military will overcome the new management obstacles that will surely arise, better than its counterparts in the civilian world. There will be casualties in terms of careers. The remaining question is that after we distractedly ratchet up the pop culture agenda within the military... will there be casualties in battlespace as well?
Proposal for a new "Don't ask, don't tell":
No one can ask you what your religion is. But if it happens to come out that you aren't a Christian, you are out of the military.
After all, we don't want our good Christian soldiers distracted by the thought of whether God is going to forsake their squads because of all those dirty Pagans, atheists and Jews. Our good Christian soldiers might lose limbs because of that distraction!
But all those dirty atheists, Pagans, and Jews can still join the military. They just can't let their religious beliefs become known to anyone else! Perfect solution!
HDHouse said...
@edutcher...
I've decided not to cut you any slack today. McCain didn't earn any special rights to an opinion. He just has his.
The only slack is in HD's mind.
He and the other Lefties want people to believe that a homosexual in the military goes through worse than McCain did at the Hanoi Hilton.
Well, I can see how HD and his friends would feel that way. The people who ran the Hanoi Hilton were and are his kind of people
I voted for McCain... again.
And I'm losing... again.
Hell has indeed frozen over...I agree with HD that McCain has overplayed his Vietnam card.
I'm just as sick of the right using the military to flog their pet views as the left.
Really James? Religion equals sexuality?
How about we just house people according to their religion instead of sex?
All the female and male Jews can shower and live together, the female and male Mormons can be all together with their own facilities, and so can the Christians. Athiests can have their own facilities, too.
Or how about by race instead of by sex?
All the black girls can shower and bunk with the black guys, and all the white girls can shower and bunk with the white guys, and all the Hispanic guys can bunk and shower with the Hispanic girls...
Oh, why not? Can we think of any reason why this would be entirely ignorant to equate religion (or race) to sex or sexual attraction?
Wait a minute. I thought we had finished with the fanooks and we are on to bashing the beaners?
How come I never get the freakin memo?
Dennis - Gays and women have always served in the military since time immemorial.
Bullshit.
Particularly the "women part". Amazon fantasies and Keira Knightley throwing her 105 lbs around in Warrior Princess fantasies non-withstanding...The Russians threw women in the military for 4 years and suffered a partial demographic collapse. The Israelis are hardly the gold standard of military effectiveness (Artificially high reputation from them fighting at the time poor dysfunctional Arab militaries. It was like throwing heavy Conquistador calvary against Incas. Then Hezbollah dismantled the myth of the Zionist supersoldier.)
Yes, nowadays a female Fobbit can "man" a radar as well as a guy and a female pilot can push a button over Afghanistan.
But it is generally not a good idea to throw your prime breeding age females into harms way. The Israelis wound up with more females with better confidence and self-esteem from being drafted..but the Palestinians would up with more people.
As for gays in the military, you had some very effective gay corps before the Prussian example of gay favortism led "modern militaries" from the 18th Century to the 1970s to not welcome gays save in times of dire straights when they were also emptying out the prisons, conscripting boys and old men in the search for fresh cannon fodder.
And ancient examples "The Greeks did it!!" are selective. If we want to be like the Greeks, they also marched with sheep to fuck give milk and kill the most unattractive ones for meat. The Greeks also raped and pillaged - any Persian that caught their fancy, from young girl to old lady to young boy was good enough to rape. Back then armies were on very long campaigns and their women were left behind...so socially, it was like prison...no females handy to rape, no sheep behind bars? Cons like Greeks settled on "improvisational homosexuality". And while many Greeks had steady gay lovers, they tended to be hairless boy toys the chickenhawk Hoplite or so took a real shining to and like a good pederast, mentored the young lad.
I doubt anyone wants us to emulate the Greeks, with the sheep and pederasty and license to rape...so perhaps it is time to quit saying how wonderful and open the Greek military was to homos. All part of a "package".
I would have to vote Joe Klein as just about the worst peron in America.
He makes Margaret Cho look like Mother Teresa.
Trooper York said...
Wait a minute. I thought we had finished with the fanooks and we are on to bashing the beaners?
How come I never get the freakin memo?
Too busy fitting women's underwear on women, I guess.
The illegals are out of contention, right now. The military has surpassed them as something to be fixed ASAP.
Social conservatives are the biggest, moistest, blubberiest drama queens in the world. Jesus, and you guys have the nerve to call gay men histrionic?
Did that Boehner guy sob when DADT bit the dust?
Most liberals are completely bigoted against the military. You see this in ROTC bans. You see it in articles about some military guy committing a crime. It's statistically irrelevant whether a criminal served in the military or not. And yet his military service is always commented on, as if military life makes you violent and dangerous. Contrast the way liberals often do not identify the race or the religion of a criminal. That would be offensive. But bigotry against the military is acceptable in liberal circles. It's common.
The DADT debate, put in this context, is another way liberals can demonize the military as bad people who need to be liberalized. And that is what McCain is responding to. He likes the military and he admires the sacrifices that they do for our country.
I agree, and no good will come to those who do identify as gay. There will be a higher rate of "accidents" among those that do identify.
BTW, I predict that repeal of DADT will lead to more beatings of gay soldiers, since straights know there is no recourse anymore. So ironically, DADT helped to PROTECT gays.
Wow, just wow. So the military is full of thugs and murders. And how has the lowest opinion of the military ?
@edutcher
McCain, like him or not, earned the right to his opinion the hard way.
No, McCain is entitled to his opinion just as are the rest of us. He's earned our respect by his service and American's have honored him by giving his opinion gravitas on military matters.
Apart from the military medals and honors he earned, he has been elected to office since 1982, received his party's presidential nomination and the votes of half of us. McCain has been well honored and repaid by the American people for his time in the Hanoi Hilton. His fellow POW's haven't sought or received even a small measure of such gratitude, as is military tradition.
However, like John Murtha also a staunch supporter of the troops who visited Walter Reed and Bethesda weekly, McCain's excesses are becoming a sideshow. A detriment to the military causes he's so passionate about in that he gives the left and the media an opening to ridicule him and demean the military.
The media and the moonbat left doesn't give a damn about a limbless Marine unless they can use him as a poster child to bash the GOP, military and the war.
I don't recall seeing an article or news story about MoDo ankling her Laboutin's down to Walter Reed, or Joe Klein, perhaps I missed it.
McCain should have stood on his laurels and retired gracefully from the Senate in the last election cycle. He could have backed a successor to carry the baton (not that weasel Hayworth) and spent his remaining days and popularity supporting Vets and wounded warriors.
Job well done Sir, thank you, now please stand down.
BJM said...
@edutcher
McCain, like him or not, earned the right to his opinion the hard way.
No, McCain is entitled to his opinion just as are the rest of us. He's earned our respect by his service and American's have honored him by giving his opinion gravitas on military matters.
Apart from the military medals and honors he earned, he has been elected to office since 1982, received his party's presidential nomination and the votes of half of us. McCain has been well honored and repaid by the American people for his time in the Hanoi Hilton. His fellow POW's haven't sought or received even a small measure of such gratitude, as is military tradition.
However, like John Murtha also a staunch supporter of the troops who visited Walter Reed and Bethesda weekly, McCain's excesses are becoming a sideshow. A detriment to the military causes he's so passionate about in that he gives the left and the media an opening to ridicule him and demean the military.
McCain got extra attention because Dad was CINCPAC, so that puts him on another level than most of the guests at the Hanoi Hilton.
But comparing him to Murtha, porkmeister extraordinaire, Abscam conspirator, and traitor is way off the mark. McCain always stood by the troops, never bad-mouthed them, and has been one of the best people in the Senate in fighting for procurement reform.
He's not the first to use his military career as an entry into politics - the names Washington, Jackson, Pierce, Harrison (both), Grant, Roosevelt (Teddy), and Eisenhower all come to mind. And, yes, I'd listen to his opinion over that of the former Serial Rapist In Chief or the current Zero.
It's Vengeance that is best served cold. Abomination should be hot & steaming.
Then again, one could just say "hyperbole" rather than "drama queen rhetoric".
Interesting that essentially all of the comments in this thread are bout DADT/McCain and almost none are about the DREAM Act.
In the '60s, while everyone wore flowers in their hair I was a teenaged member of the military. It was hard to go on liberty stateside. The chickenhawks made it almost impossible to wait at a bus stop. I know it doesn't happen, the left tells me so. I reckon that it was just that short period in my life when I did get as purty as Mama wanted me to be.
I believe the repeal of DADT will be looked on as a terrible mistake when historians write a hundred years from now.
@edutcher
My point was that Murtha was one of the few Dems who actually knew what was happening in the VA hospitals, he also got a lot of weaponery into the hands of our military that would not have been funded, not that he wasn't a political opportunist and trough feeding scumbag.
I'd listen to his opinion over that of the former Serial Rapist In Chief or the current Zero.
No argument there.
He did a lot of bad for whatever good he may have accomplished, sir.
I don't worry too much about DADT being repealed as long as the military keeps strict and appropriate sexual activity regulations in place for everybody. There's been gays in the military forever I'm sure.
In combat, I'd think women would be more of a distraction and a greater risk. I'd rather fight along side a strapping gay guy than a hetero woman who has half or less the strength of a typical male soldier.
The DADT debate, put in this context, is another way liberals can demonize the military as bad people who need to be liberalized.
A solid majority of Americans support letting gays openly serve in the military. But if it makes you feel better to believe it is all a nasty liberal plot to demonize the military, go right on ahead.
Interestingly, the people I've mostly seen demonizing the military in regards to this have been supporters of DADT. You've got "madAsHell" predicting our troops will murder homosexuals, "Alex" predicting our troops will beat the shit out of homosexuals, others suggesting that so many troops will quit in disgust that it will hurt our ability to fight... in short, that our troops are a bunch of emotionally unstable homophobes and psychopaths.
Whereas people like me, who favored the repeal, think that the military will rise to the occasion, that few of our troops are the sort of scum who would exhibit that kind of behavior, and that it will all work out fine in the end. Yet we're supposedly anti-military! Funny stuff.
that it will all work out fine in the end.
So, lube up, guys!
I think McCain was probably overcome and did not want to have a "Boehner moment."
Lincolntf wrote in reply to HDHouse: But an elderly Senator can't have an occasional lapse? Maybe you're just an ageist hater?
Correction, a self- loathing ageist hater.
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