As a mamber of Firefighters Union IAFF for 40 years I can only say I am ashamed that these Firefighters have fallen for Kerry's lies. I blame it mostly on union Presidnet Shitberger.
How is what O'Neill wrote a flaw. Kerry made a groundless accusation against basically the entirety of our armed forces in Vietnam, while O'Neill has made a specific accusation against Kerry regarding what he did in a specific village, which allegation is buttressed by eyewitness testimony. Apparently the author of this piece can't understand the difference between a general attack based on no evidence versus a specific attack based on well-founded evidence.
This "dubious premise," that Americans should judge candidates on their military service has in fact governed American elections since George Washington.
We had "Tippacanoe and Tyler too." After the war of Northern Aggression we four presidents elected on their war experience. In the South, after the Yankee occupation, no politician could be elected without honorable war service to point to.
Recall how liberal darling Ken Burns revived the iconography of Joshua Chamberlain for the twentieth century of a man who was four times elected Governor of Maine in his own post bellum era.
For a time it was not chic to admit that military service is a good and valid standard against which to measure a candidate's worth. Starting with Eisenhower and culminating with Clinton in my living memory, only red necks and reactionaries were benighted enough to care about service. But the generations of Americans who did not know how unenlightened they were continued to judge candidates on their military service.
After the civil war, in North or South, a man who aspired to have power over other men, that is to be a politician, had to demonstrate his worthiness in the cauldron of war. Phonies had a hard time finessing the memory of those who saw them fail to stand to their posts during the withering fire by columns which was the way of war then.
I for one do not think it such a bad standard. If one has not served, why not? Did he avoid or evade? If he did serve, did he serve honorably? Did the stress of combat reveal something outstanding in his character like Nathan Bedford Forrest or Joshua Chamberlain? Did the candidate distort his service and troll for medals like Lyndon Johnson who gamed a Silver Star? Johnson's shameful self promotion should have told us all we needed to know about the character of that man. Robert E. Lees service tells us what we need to know about the service of the noblest and sublimest American ever. It tells us how he would behave after the war.
Stress tears away contrivance and reveals character. There is no stress like combat. War service is a perfectly rational and valuable means of judging candidates who seek power over us.
PING!!
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