Obama compete for veterans? Shouldn't that be an oxymoron!
Posted on 09/12/2008 10:39:20 PM PDT by neverdem
The White House race between Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain came back to Colorado this week as Democratic veterans credited Obama with supporting broad increases in veteran benefits while Republicans countered that McCain was the best man on gun-owner rights and Western issues.
Colorado is viewed as one of the key "swing" states in the November election, which is why the television channels are full of Obama and McCain advertising. Obama's campaign pulled together a conference call of veterans backing the Illinois senator Wednesday, while the GOP got Colorado Sen. Wayne Allard and Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., to tell reporters about McCain's and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's record on gun rights and the West.
Retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Jim Smith, and reserve Army Col. Joe Rice, were joined by former Army Capts. Jason Crowe and Phil Carter in spelling out their support for Obama. They credited Obama with consistently voting for veterans programs, and unlike McCain, backed the new GI Bill which Congress passed this summer over objections from the White House. It gives new veterans much greater financial aid for college tuition.
McCain, a former Navy fighter pilot, had criticized the legislation as too generous, arguing that it would entice U.S. service personnel to leave active duty in a time of war.
Crowe, who served two tours in Afghanistan, insisted that was the wrong stance.
"Younger veterans, like myself, are seeing that there is a difference between what was promised and real life," he said. "If someone fails to vote for veterans, we remember that. We're not going to let the Republican Party claim to be the party for veterans."
For his part, McCain has been emphasizing his long support for the Iraq war, his early call for more troops, and the success of last year's "surge" of an additional 30,000 troops in bringing about more calm in Iraq. President Bush highlighted that fact this week in announcing he will bring an additional 8,000 troops home this year.
Carter insisted that voters are looking past the political debate over Iraq to the deeper issues of veterans and their care.
"You can't just be commander-in-chief for Iraq. The job also includes taking care of all our military personnel and the public understands the Bush administration has ground down our military in Iraq and left us less safe," he said.
Republicans got their jabs in later in the day when Allard and Wilson said that Obama and his running mate, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden, were regular supporters of anti-gun legislation. Both said they were delighted with McCain's choice of Palin - a moose hunter who also supports developing Alaskan oil reserves.
"The Obama-Biden ticket is probably as hostile to (gun-owner rights) as possible and that's going to resonate with voters here in Colorado and in the Midwest," Allard said. "When the public finds out that Governor Palin is a member of (the National Rifle Association), that will have great appeal."
Wilson argued that Obama and Biden have little understanding of Western issues of land and water management.
"I wonder whether the guy from Illinois or Delaware even knows what a grazing right is," she quipped. "With Senator McCain and Governor Palin, we have a strong ticket that understands Western issues and values."
Of course, McCain stumbled several weeks ago in telling The Chieftain he wanted to reopen the Colorado River Compact to adjust how the river is appropriated - a position that Colorado Democrats were quick to jump on as an effort to give Arizona and down-river states more water.
Allard patched that over Thursday, saying McCain's comments were a "misunderstanding." That certainly was true when it came to the impact of his comments in Colorado.
"Senator McCain favors letting the Colorado River Commission settle any disputes and knows that if there was any effort to reopen the compact, myself and Senator (Ken) Salazar would certainly veto it."
These anti-war vets are now pro-Obama vets.
as Democratic veterans credited Obama with supporting broad increases in veteran benefits
Obama compete for veterans? Shouldn't that be an oxymoron!
If you couldn’t tell it from the way this article was constructed (began and ended with attacks on McCain), a brief scan of articles by Peter Roper of THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN (including one that was included in a “My Obama” blog) will serve to show where this objective journalist’s sympathies lie.
What about gun owning vets?
Some Vets are too dumb to walk, some were subversives when they became members of the military. If O. Hussein Obama wins, these Vets will get their just deserts.
The whole veteran thing is going to explode in Messiah’s face once the McCain campaign runs an ad showing Bozo was ridiculing McCain for being unable to use a keyboard, when that inability was caused by the torture McCain received from the VC.
It's a minor correction, but let's get it straight. The VC, the Viet Cong, were useful idiots from South Viet Nam. Militarily, they were a spent force after the Tet Offensive in 1968. Politically, they remained as useful puppets of the North Vietnamese Communists until the North overran the South in 1975.
McCain was shot down over Hanoi, North Viet Nam in 1967. McCain was held captive and tortured by those North Vietnamese Communists, while Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist fellow travelers and BHO's friendly benefactors, were committing acts of terrorism in the U.S.A.
''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.''
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