Why can’t Obama be brave and send other people’s children into the kill zone? Reminds me of a post I once wrote, a few years ago: The Masquerade Ball of the Grand Orwell Party The depths to which the GOP has sunk can not be understated. Hypocrisy rules the party, and it cuts across all facets of the faux conservative agenda. Republican representatives are in a constant state of “dress-up,” in a never-ending celebration of Halloween, where they switch costumes almost daily between variations of tough guy cowboys, extolling the virtues of heroism that they hadn’t actually earned in their daily lives, to the numerous faces of piety and religious purity, which has no founding in their personal experiences. Just look at the toughest of tough guys, according to their fawning followers, and you’ll find a cavalcade of draft-dodging, war avoiding, chicken-hawk cowards. Among the pantheon of these armchair heros can be found Rudy Giuliani, “America’s Mayor,” who avoided the draft in Vietnam by pulling favors from a high level New York judge, who laughably wrote a letter to the draft board on his behalf stating that the low level clerk was an “essential employee,” who was too important to fight for his country. Next, we can talk about the great hero, Ronald Reagan, who avoided fighting in the Great War, because of a claim of eyesight problems. He wasn’t alone, staunch pro-war hawk and big screen war hero John Wayne also avoided WWII, sighting the hardship his absence would cause his family. Instead, he spent the war years starring as a war hero on sound-stages in Hollywood. Dick Cheney? Numerous deferments. George W. Bush? Spent Vietnam “protecting” the U.S. southern border from the Mexican contingent of the Viet Cong. Rush Limbaugh? Avoided vietnam due to an anal boil (which suddenly became a “football injury” once he became a national figure). Mitt Romney of “We should expand Gaunatanamo” fame, spent Vietnam in Paris on a religious deferment, preaching Mormonism to uninterested Parisians. Joe Lieberman? More Vietnam-avoiding deferments. A review of the neo-con roster reveals a nearly endless list of these hypocrites. Meanwhile, they not only fancy themselves as great warriors and tough guys, based on nothing more than an extreme and unrelenting willingness to send other peoples children into the combat zone, but additionally have the audacity to attack the patriotism and “toughness” of their political opponents, many of whom actually served in the armed forces and faced combat in defense of their nation. John Kerry? A wimp. Al Gore, Vietnam veteran? A weakling. Jimmy Carter? A laughably limp “Commander-in-Chief,” who also happened to be a United States nuclear submarine commander. The list goes on. We all saw the depths these faux warriors can sink to in 2002, when another Vietnam combat-avoiding chicken-hawk, Saxby Chambliss, questioned the courage of three time amputee and genuine war hero Max Cleland in their Georgian Senatorial battle. When Jonah Goldberg, neo-con editor of the National Review and staunch pro-war hawk was asked why, despite being of prime fighting age, he never bothered to enlist during the Iraq war, he replied: “As for why my sorry ass isn’t in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give– I’m 35 years old, my family couldn’t afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter — ever seem to suffice” You think? Oh, but the unabashed hypocrisy doesn’t stop there; they find it just as easy to slip on the mask of piety and righteousness, regardless of how immoral and unethical their personal lives actually are. Newt Gingrich, hero to the “values voter” crowd, was actively having an affair on his wife, even as he was spear-heading the investigations and impeachment against Bill Clinton for his extramarital affair with Monica Lewinsky. Previously, he had cheated on his first wife and stooped so low as to ask her for a divorce at her hospital bedside, where she was recovering from cancer surgery. He followed that up by refusing to pay alimony and child support payments, which forced members of the First Baptist Church to take up a collection to support the family the supremely righteous Gingrich had abandoned. He’s joined by a veritable clown college of divorcees, adulterers, self-hating closeted homosexuals and convicted criminals who still manage to unblinkingly insist on judging the morals of their fellow citizens. The hypocritical stench emanating from a large portion of the anti-gay marriage crowd is so vile and overwhelming that it makes one almost vomit right onto the computer keyboard, while reading self-righteous quote after self-righteous quote extolling the “sanctity of marriage.” Are they kidding? Unfortunately, no they aren’t.

War by Committee | FrumForum