Posted on 05/26/2008 3:56:05 PM PDT by The_Republican
In the Des Moines Register, Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said that the worldview of Navy veteran Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who is the son and grandson of Admirals, has been shaped too much by the military.
"He has a hard time thinking beyond that," Harkin told reporters. "I think he's trapped in that. Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous."
"It's one thing to have been drafted and served, but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that's just how you're steeped, how you've learned, how you've grown up."
Harkin, like McCain, was a Navy flier, though unlike McCain Harkin never saw combat.
Harkin said "there's nothing wrong with a career in the military…but now McCain is running for a higher office. He's running for commander in chief, and our Constitution says that should be a civilian. And in some ways, I think it would be nice if that commander in chief had some military background, but I don't know if they need a whole lot."
Republicans have taken offense at Harkin's comments, saying they show how "out of touch" Democrats are.
Apparently Harkin has a Goldilocks view of military service, having heralded Sen. John Kerry's service in 2004 and having assailed Vice President Dick Cheney for not having done so.
"When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil," Harkin said then, after Cheney attacked Kerry for being weak on terrorism.
"Those of us who served and those of us who went in the military don't like it when someone like a Dick Cheney comes out and he wants to be tough. Yeah, he'll be tough. He'll be tough with somebody else's blood, somebody else's kids. But not when it was his turn to go."
This wasn't Harkin's first broadside against McCain. In April the Register reported that Harkin criticized McCain's temper, saying "it can be scary. Flying off the handle without discussing things with people, working things out … I’ve seen it a couple, three times here."
Last month, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, R-WV, a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, criticized McCain for being "insensitive to many human issues." Rockefeller said that this stemmed from the fact that "McCain was a fighter pilot, who dropped laser-guided missiles from 35,000 feet. He was long gone when they hit. What happened when they [the missiles] get to the ground? He doesn't know. You have to care about the lives of people. McCain never gets into those issues." He later apologized.
The Karl Rove style of politics is to go after your opponent where he is strongest -- Kerry's military service, for instance. Are the Democrats trying this against McCain?
Great analogy and great points! Funny to boot!
I STRONGLY DISAGREE. Those are facts, not opinion. ;-)
“I think that can be pretty dangerous.”
Military service can make you run for office as a phony war hero, like Mr. Harkin did.
I bow to your disagreement, Mr CommerceComet. I’ve also amended my Post#14, in Post #25, sir.
(;^O)
In fact, rather than doing his part to beat back global Communism, Harkin was actually an aider and abettor to Moscow’s cause.
Unnoted in today’s Journal report: In 1986 Harkin famously traveled to Managua, Nicaragua, to assure Fidel Castro’s proxy Daniel Ortega that Senate Democrats were working overtime to thwart President Reagan’s efforts to bring Democracy to the region.
With him on the mission - fellow peacenik Sen. John Kerry.
Nothing seems to have changed in 30 years....
He would’ve hated George Washington.
Or Grant, or Ike, or Teddy Roosevelt......
The lunatics really are running the asylum.
Would Adlai Stevenson have ever said that Dwight Eisenhower’s experience was shaped too much by the military to ever be elected President? I don’t think so. Even the left wasn’t that crazy back then.
Yet he is in the Senate. Does that tell you something about this government? Does it tell you something about the Senate? Does it tell you that you all have been bamboozled into voting in this CORRUPT "Two-Party Cartel'?
Harkin is a joke.Flew F-4s out of Japan not over Vietnam.
Without a doubt.
And the feeling would have been mutual.
Well I geuss the Treason Party cna’t prop up their chickenhawk lines this time around so they have to go back to the babykiller routine they reserve for military people. This line by Harkin is every bit as pathetic as Harkin himself.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.