Rangel's point (Double bag barf alert)

Pittsburgh Tribune-Review ^ | November 24, 2006 | Oren M. Spiegler

[Zakeet]

This clown has things exactly backwards. A conscripted army is less difficult and less expensive to raise and thus easier for politicians to "send off to die and be maimed."

Persons who would like to express their views to the newspaper's editorial staff can find contact information here, and the newspaper's main telephone number here.

[Nitro]

I think Rangel should just change his name to....

Rabble-Rouser.

[Brad from Tennessee]

The existence of the draft didn't keep us out of World War II, Korea or Vietnam. FDR started drafting people before Pearl Harbor and the draft continued until Nixon replaced it with an all-volunteer force in the early 1970's. The draft enabled LBJ to raise the troop level in Vietnam to more than 500,000.

The only point Rangel raises is that being a U.S. Congressman does not immunize him from gross ignorance.

[timstevens]

...our increasingly unpopular and hopeless Iraqi mission find it relatively easy to send other people's children off to die and be maimed...

Swap children with money
Swap Iraqi mission with war on poverty/terrorism/personal responsibility/rich/self sufficiency
Swap Bush/neocons/Republicans/administration for liberals/democrats/socialists/commies

reads like the future great-society Hillary-care fiasco

[maggief]

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_156859.html

Man of letters

Friday, September 26, 2003

Editor's note: Editors of newspapers and magazines across the land recognize the name of Oren M. Spiegler, surely one of America's most prolific and most polished writers of letters to the editor. His opinions on everything from smoking in restaurants to the overdue deaths of Saddam Hussein's two "barbarous" sons -- he reckons total at near 1,000 -- have appeared in the Trib, Newsday, the Wall Street Journal, MNBC.com, the Washington Times and the Jerusalem Post.

"Writing letters is in my blood," he said yesterday, adding that he's been writing them since he was 17. "It's my first love. I'm a political junkie. I eat, sleep and think news and public policy and current affairs. I think fast and write quickly and I can do it without upsetting my life too much -- and I have a very indulgent wife."

Spiegler, 47, lives in Upper St. Clair and makes his living as an unemployment compensation appeals referee for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. He said he gets a kick out of knowing that thousands of people might be reading his letters.

It's always a thrill to be published in a prestige national paper like The Wall Street Journal, he said. But he says his "greatest hit" was in July, 2002, when "I'll take the suburbs," his opinion piece explaining why he left the City of Pittsburgh after 45 years, ran on the front of the Trib's Sunday Opinion & Commentary pages.

(snip)

[bannie]

He's definitely a wrangler--"one who quarrels noisily or angrily; a bickerer."

If I were a photoshoppie-kinda'-person, I'd plant a visible chip on that wrangler's shoulder to go with the one that keeps getting knocked off.

[Nitro]

I am white and I feel that I am intelligent.....

I am also a Veteran of the United States Navy.

I am not rich, but I would encourage my children to join the service.

Actullay, I would encourage anything except the Army, I have heard that the crips and bloods are sending members into the service to learn new ways to kill.

[tiger-one]

Yea and likely the Navy Seals. I think you sir, were at sea too long.

[dakine]

You're funny...

[mirkwood]

[Dane]

Editor's note: Editors of newspapers and magazines across the land recognize the name of Oren M. Spiegler, surely one of America's most prolific and most polished writers of letters to the editor. His opinions on everything from smoking in restaurants to the overdue deaths of Saddam Hussein's two "barbarous" sons -- he reckons total at near 1,000 -- have appeared in the Trib, Newsday, the Wall Street Journal, MNBC.com, the Washington Times and the Jerusalem Post.

Looks like Mr. Spiegler is a blowhard with no core values, or a core value like Clinton's to put his finger up to the wind, and to hear the sound of his own voice.

He writes letters about saddam's barbarous sons and now writes a letter about what a mistake Iraq was. JMO, your usual blowhard hypocrite.

[dirtboy]

Reconcile this claim:

surely one of America's most prolific and most polished writers of letters to the editor

With this sentence:

Rangel argues persuasively that if there had been a draft in place in 2003, the administration would not have given any consideration to an occupation of Iraq based upon the flimsy evidence that was used to get us into this war, fearing that the children of prominent political figures might be required to go to war.

I would have flunked English 101 in college had I written a sentence like that.

[Nitro]

I am proud to be a Navy man..

I was not special...

I was excellent at my Navy job...

I was an OS2,

[Nitro]

Like I said I was Navy...

Navy SEAL's are extremely special...

ie.. Not like regular Navy guys. I am not and never have been a SEAL.

I was just a sea going Squid.

[Nitro]

Look around, think, and then laugh?

You will find that while I am not always right............


I am never wrong.

[leadpenny]

"I have heard that the crips and bloods . . . "

I've heard the Navy attracts homosexuals. Doesn't make it so.

[Hardastarboard]

Mr. Spiegler, and all those who hold such views, are idiots. EVERYONE knows that one of the hardest things for a commander to do is give an order which, when carried out, will inevitably result in the death of some of his men. I've never been in the military and I know that. Has this fool never read about Abraham Lincoln's agony over the soldiers' deaths in the Civil War?

To think that the Bush administration could do such a thing is to dehumanize Bush beyond recognition. All part of the Bushitler way of thinking, and completely untrue. Mr. Spiegler, for all his "celebrity" for being a "famous letter writer" is an empty head. Or an empty heart, a charge I suspect those of his ilk would take more seriously.

[Modok]

That is one funny post. You sure you're in the right place.

[Nitro]

I didn't make it up.

And I hope I am wrong, but I heard.

Deal with it, and/or ask about it. Actually, send a freedom of information act request to the FBI and they will back me up. Hells bells ask the US Army.

[Nitro]

When and where did you serve?