President Obama on Tuesday night told the American public that the threat of a military strike should stay on the table while the U.S. and its allies take more time to pursue a diplomatic resolution with Assad.
. . . Mr. Obama said that, given Syria's recent offer to give up its chemical weapons, he's asked the leaders of Congress to postpone their vote on the use of force. The administration will work with its allies in the United Nations, he said, to put forward a resolution requiring Assad to give up the weapons. The international community will also give U.N. inspectors an opportunity to report their findings on the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
In the meantime, Mr. Obama said, he's ordered the U.S. military to "be in a position to respond" in case diplomatic efforts fail.
The new order, signed Thursday by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, will open as many as 237,000 new jobs to women. Women comprise about 14% of the 1.4 million active military personnel.
Military officials who briefed reporters on background said occupations such as infantry and artillery have exacting physical requirements and appropriate standards will be maintained. The officials declined to be named because they are not authorized to speak publicly.
The military has different physical standards based on age and sex for the Army and Marines. In either service, the standards for both sexes would be the same for those trying to get into the infantry and other combat arms specialties.
"The department's goal in rescinding the rule is to ensure that the mission is met with the best qualified and most capable people, regardless of gender," Panetta said.
I struggled with this title for this post because "Military Women Now Permitted in Combat" or "Military Women Finally Allowed in Combat" would mislead the reader into thinking that these women have led sheltered lives up till now. Women have always been in the thick of the battle as medics, pilots, technicians, military policewomen - you name it. And when battle lines change in distant lands, bombs and firefights are their reality, as well as their male counterparts. So it's not accurate to say "Now, Suddenly, Women are in Combat" as if something is new and unusual.
The only "new" feature is that women will now receive combat pay equal to men, and they will be considered for promotions and honors based on their very real combat experience.
Goldie Taylor, MSNBC pundit who served in the military, explained it well on last night's Ed Show:
You know, women have been serving in our armed forces and in
military operations around the world for decades. The fact is we`re doing
the job. We`re helicopter pilots. We`re Marine Corps, you know, military
police officers. We`re military intelligence officers.
We just don`t get formally recognized for it. And we certainly don`t
get paid for it. There`s a differential pay for someone who is formally
recognized as being a part of infantry. That is a boost in pay and
benefits that women don`t have access to. Certainly, if you serve on the
front line, you have greater access to leadership positions. That
opportunity is cut off for women who, again, not formally recognized.
I don`t know how much recognition you need than to look at someone
like Tammy Duckworth who comes home missing her legs, or someone like a
Shoshana Johnson, who was a POW, or someone like a Jessica Lynch, who was
shot in the heels of her feet. So I don`t know how much more formal
recognition you need that women are doing the job today.
SCHULTZ: Women have to volunteer for combat duty and face the same
physical standards that men do. Is that an issue or not an issue at all?
TAYLOR: You know, I went through boot camp back in 1987. My former
husband attempted to go through boot camp that very same year. He did not
graduate from boot camp and was returned home not a Marine. I, on the
other hand, did complete boot camp and did rise to the challenge. I do
believe that the standards for infantry should be high. They should not be
relaxed.
But if a woman can meet the physical and mental challenges of serving
on the front line, then she darn well ought to be able to serve on the
front line, be recognized, be promoted, and be paid for it.
MORGAN: Right. The woman at the center of all this, this woman, Jill Kelley -- let's turn to you, Suzanne, on this. I want to play a tape. It's a 911 tape of Jill Kelley calling the Tampa police near her home to complain about people who were around the house, citing her status as apparently an honorary consul. Let's listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JILL KELLEY, FLORIDA SOCIAL LIAISON: You know, I don't know if by any chance -- because I'm an honorary consul general so I have inviolability so I shouldn't -- they should not be able to cross my property. I don't know if you want to get diplomatic protection involved as well, but now, because that's against the law to cross my property because this is not, like, you know, it's inviolable.
UNIDENTIFIED 911 DISPATCHER: All right. No problem. I will let the officers know.
KELLEY: Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MORGAN: Now, Suzanne, she seems to be laboring under some massive misapprehensions here. She's not entitled to any diplomatic immunity like this, right?
SUZANNE KELLY, CNN INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: No, she's not. I mean as an honorary, she's really not entitled to any of that. And -- but you know, I think we're such like -- we're looking for information into who she is and what we know about her and all of this, so this is really the first time we've heard from her in her voice and you can read into it what you want to. But no, she's not entitled to any of that.
MORGAN: I mean I'm getting the feeling watching her over the last two days, we've had the yellow dress, the pink dress, she's dressed to the nines, fully made up, looking very -- and I hate to say this, but looking like she's rather enjoying all the attention that she's receiving. We now believe, you know, if you believe what the people close to General Allen were saying, that she had contacts with all sorts of high ranking military officials.
Last night, while discussing the Petraeus scandal on CNN, the network played a 911 call from one of the four major figures in the scandal: Jill Kelley. The call is perfectly bizarre in which Kelley, a Florida socialite, claims “honorary diplomatic” status to get the police to stop people from walking across her lawn. The dispatcher takes listens patiently and appears to resist the temptation to tell her that he will be sending over some honorary police to protect their honorary diplomatic residence.
. . . Kelley has been described as invoking her diplomatic status previously. She was given the unpaid titled of “honorary ambassador” to CENTCOM, the Department of Defense Central Command. This gives her about the same diplomatic status as the hostess at an International House of Pancakes.
BobWoodward jokes at IFCJ dinner: "my next book will be called 50 Shades of Petraeus"
— Blake Hounshell (@blakehounshell) November 14, 2012
The Korean Embassy confirms Jill Kelley is actually an "honorary consul" of his country, as of August of this year.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) November 13, 2012
The South Korean official who confirmed Kelley's honorary status was quite surprised that she requested "diplomatic protection" from police.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) November 13, 2012
Here's a pic of her Mercedes // RT @londonoe: Jill Kelley's Mercedes plates: "Honorary CONSUL" bit.ly/W6glP1
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) November 13, 2012
Senior law enforcement officials said that a late-night seizure on Monday of boxes of material from the North Carolina home of Paula Broadwell, a Petraeus biographer whose affair with him led to his resignation last week, marks a renewed focus by investigators on sensitive material found in her possession.
“The issue of national security is still on the table,” one U.S. law enforcement official said. Both Petraeus and Broadwell have denied to investigators that he was the source of any classified information, officials said.
. . . “My immediate gut is like this is the National Enquirer,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, said in an interview on CNN. “I mean, every day there is something new.”
Feinstein added that she has “many questions about the nature of the FBI investigation, how it was instituted, and we’ll be asking those.”
. . . The Allen investigation focuses on his extensive correspondence with Jill Kelley, a Tampa resident who had carved out a role as an ad-hoc social ambassador to military personnel at MacDill Air Force Base.
Kelley, 37, a close friend of Petraeus and Allen, inadvertently triggered the investigation that led to Petraeus's resignation after Allen forwarded her an anonymous e-mails he had received from someone using the handle “kelleypatrol.” The messages warned Allen to stay away from Kelley, calling her a “seductress” and suggesting that Petraeus was having an intimate relationship with her, according to a source close to Kelley.
Kelley subsequently received additional e-mails in a similar vein, sent to the account she shared with her husband. The source close to Kelley said they were sent under four anonymous names, some apparently from Internet cafes. Kelley shared the initial e-mails forwarded from Allen with a friend who is an FBI agent, and eventually turned over all the missives to the bureau, which determined that Broadwell had sent them. The subsequent FBI inquiry exposed the Broadwell-Petraeus affair.
Close associates of Allen, who is married, said the general denied that he had an affair with Kelley or that he had committed any wrongdoing in his communications with her. One said that investigators may have misconstrued platonic references to her as a “sweetheart.”
Nevertheless, the bureau turned over a mountain of documents to Pentagon officials — an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 pages, based largely on communication between Allen and Kelley — prompting Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to order an inspector general inquiry.
My gut reaction to the affair between General Petraeus and Paula Broadwell, his fangirlish biographer, was to ignore it and move along because it was a personal matter, but over the course of today and tonight it is morphing and changing by the hour into a curiouser and curiouser tale including more and more people. It's starting to sound and feel like a cross between Fatal Attraction and All the President's Men. Or maybe an episode of NCIS.
In fact, this post is going to be a monster just to catch up with the news.
Petraeus’ romance with Broadwell began two months after he became the nation’s top spy in September 2011, though they met years earlier, Boylan said. The steamy romance ended four months ago, said Boylan, who served as Petraeus’ spokesman in Iraq and spoke with his old boss over the weekend.
Boylan said Petraeus, 60, is “devastated” that he hurt his wife and lost “one of the best jobs he ever had” by falling for Broadwell, a married Army Reserve officer with two young sons.
As his biographer, Broadwell didn't gloss over what is by all accounts a huge factor in Petraeus' success: his wife, Holly. All In: The Education Of General David Petraeus chronicles how the couple met and fell in love.
Holly's father was the superintendent of West Point, where Petraeus went to school, and a respected military academic. Petraeus found the status of Holly's family "intoxicating," because it was in stark contrast to his own parents, a humble librarian and sea captain, Broadwell wrote.
Holly has also reportedly moved 23 times since she married Petraeus. Today, she's a director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
. . . So far, Holly has been silent on her husband's affair.
An ex-CIA spokesperson said that his wife is so angry over the affair that "furious would be an understatement."
In a farewell letter last week to CIA staff members, Petraeus described his affair with Broadwell as behavior that is “unacceptable both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.” The statement and others from his allies in the days that followed created an impression that he had stepped down of his own volition, and out of a sense of moral obligation.
But some of his closest advisers who served with him during his last command in Iraq said Monday that Petraeus planned to stay in the job even after he acknowledged the affair to the FBI, hoping the episode would never become public. He resigned last week after being told to do so by Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. on the day President Obama was reelected.
As Washington was roiled by the scandal, new details about the affair and its aftermath emerged:
-- Petraeus and mistress Paula Broadwell used an email trick favored by terrorists and drug dealers to hide their messages to each other, storing them as drafts in an account they could both access, instead of sending traceable messages to each others’ inboxes.
-- After Broadwell was revealed to be the mystery correspondent who was sending menacing emails to comely Petraeus pal Jill Kelley, he told her to end the harassment campaign, The Washington Post reported.
-- Kelley, a social liaison for an Air Force base in Tampa, was in near-daily contact with Petraeus when he was overseeing the war in Afghanistan, though his ex-staffers say the frequent emails and instant messages were not romantic.
(From L to R) Natalie Khawam, Gen. David Petraeus, Dr. Scott Kelley, his wife Jill Kelley and Holly Petraeus, the wife of Gen. David Petraeus, watching the Gasparilla parade from the comfort of tent on the Kelleys front lawn on Jan. 30. 2010, in Tampa, Fla.
The messages were . . . what the source terms “kind of cat-fight stuff.”
“More like, ‘Who do you think you are? … You parade around the base … You need to take it down a notch,’” according to the source, who was until recently at the highest levels of the intelligence community and prefers not to be identified by name.
Kelley herself seemed mystified as to what was behind the emails, much less who sent them. “I don’t know who this person is and I don’t want to keep getting them,” she told the FBI, as recounted by the source.
When the FBI friend showed the emails to the cyber squad in the Tampa field office, her fellow agents noted that the absence of any overt threats.
. . . The squad was not even sure the case was worth pursuing, the source says.
. . . Some of the steamier messages made clear that it was an affair. The besotted Broadwell may have viewed the curvaceous Kelley as a threat. Broadwell may be able to run a six-minute mile with Petraeus, but Kelley looks like a woman who lets the guys do all the running—and in her direction.
The FBI agent who started the case was a friend of Jill Kelley, the Tampa woman who received harassing, anonymous emails that led to the probe, according to officials. Ms. Kelley, a volunteer who organizes social events for military personnel in the Tampa area, complained in May about the emails to a friend who is an FBI agent. That agent referred it to a cyber crimes unit, which opened an investigation.
However, supervisors soon became concerned that the initial agent might have grown obsessed with the matter, and prohibited him from any role in the investigation, according to the officials.
One official said the agent in question sent shirtless photos to Ms. Kelley well before the email investigation began, and FBI officials only became aware of them some time later. Eventually, supervisors told the agent he was to have nothing to do with the case, though he never had a formal role in the investigation, the official said.
The agent, after being barred from the case, contacted a member of Congress, Washington Republican David Reichert, because he was concerned senior FBI officials were going to sweep the matter under the rug, the officials said. That information was relayed to top congressional officials, who notified FBI headquarters in Washington.
On Saturday, Oct. 27, Cantor spoke by phone to an FBI employee who told him about an investigation, including the details about Petraeus’ affair, and said he was concerned that classified information had been compromised.
Cantor then asked his chief of staff, Steve Stombres, to inform FBI Director Robert Mueller. Because the federal government was closed Monday and Tuesday of that week because to Hurricane Sandy, Stombres did not connect with Mueller’s chief of staff until Wednesday, Oct. 31. Mueller took the information, but gave no indication whether there was an investigation, according to the aide.
The senior aide also said Cantor did not inform anyone else.
Indeed, House Speaker John Boehner did not find out about Cantor’s role in this until the story (of Cantor’s contact with the FBI) broke two days ago. Cantor believed the FBI agent was credible enough to pass on the information to Mueller, but, given that it was a single source whom he had never met, he did not believe there was a need to pass the information on to his fellow House leaders.
. . . a video has surfaced that adds fuel to the speculation about whether Petraeus shared classified information with Broadwell. While speaking on October 26 at the University of Denver, Broadwell said in response to a question about the 9/11 attack in Benghazi, “Now I don’t know if a lot of you heard this, but the CIA annex had actually — had taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner and they think that the attack on the consulate was an effort to try to get these prisoners back. So that’s still being vetted.” That sounds to some like Broadwell was referring to an unreported detail about the attack — though it's also possible that she just misunderstood something she heard on Fox News.
. . . The Washington Postreports, "Officers close to Petraeus grew concerned about her posts on Facebook, which they believed sometimes divulged sensitive operational details." According to the New York Times, when Broadwell was first interviewed by the FBI on October 21 she voluntarily turned over her computer. Agents found several classified documents during the search, but both Broadwell and Petraeus denied that he'd given her the files.
An angry Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein warned again Monday she would investigate why the FBI did not notify oversight committees about its probe into CIA Director David Petraeus after the bureau determined he was having a secret and risky extramarital affair.
"...A decision was made somewhere not to brief us, which is atypical," the California Democrat told NBC's Andrea Mitchell about how the top Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate intelligence committees are usually briefed on key developments.
"This is certainly an operationally sensitive matter. But we weren't briefed. I don't know who made that decision."
Section 501 of the National Security Act of 1947 spells out the requirements for the executive branch to inform the congressional intelligence committees of key intelligence related activities.
"The President shall ensure that the congressional intelligence committees are kept fully and currently informed on the intelligence activities of the United States, including any significant anticipated intelligence activity as required by this title," the statute reads. Feinstein described the unfolding scandal, which she learned first about only on Friday when Petraeus announced publicly his resignation, "like peeling an onion. Every day another peel comes off and you see a whole new dimension to this."
About eight to 10 agents brought cardboard boxes used for carrying papers and were on both floors of the home for the search, which began shortly before 9 p.m. About two dozen members of the local and national media gathered. It wasn’t immediately clear what the agents were focused on. The search ended at 1:09 a.m. Tuesday.
The agents appeared to start their search in the kitchen at the rear of the house, turning on lights as they moved into different rooms. Two hours into the search, lights appeared to be turned on in most rooms. After midnight, an agent walked out of the kitchen and retrieved boxes from a Chevy Malibu parked outside. She didn’t comment.
Just after 1 a.m., about eight FBI agents came out of the house with a half-dozen file boxes, a Dell PC, an iMac, a briefcase and a printer. The agents left at 1:09 a.m. The agents declined to comment on what they found.
ABOARD A U.S. MILITARY AIRCRAFT — The FBI probe into the sex scandal that led to the resignation of CIA director David Petraeus has expanded to ensnare Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, the Pentagon announced early Tuesday.
According to a senior U.S. defense official, the FBI has uncovered between 20,000 and 30,000 pages of “potentially inappropriate” e-mails between Allen and Jill Kelley, a 37-year-old Tampa woman whose close friendship with Petraeus ultimately led to his downfall. Allen, a Marine, succeeded Petraeus as the top allied commander in Afghanistan in July 2011.
. . . Petraeus’s fall from grace shocked the CIA but especially stunned his former colleagues in the Army, where he was considered one of the most brilliant and influential commanders of his generation. Allen, a Marine, was likewise seen as an intellectual, upstanding role model who first made his mark as a general in Iraq and later earned the professional and personal confidence of Obama.
Among the many odd, swirling facts surrounding the unfolding David Petraeus scandal: Jill Kelley, the longtime friend of the former CIA director who reportedly went to the FBI complaining of harassing emails from Petraeus' mistress Paula Broadwell, has reacted to the mess by bringing out the scandal equivalent of heavy artillery. She's hired DC superlawyer Abbe Lowell and crisis PR specialist Judy Smith—despite the fact that the FBI has concluded its investigation and there are no criminal allegations on the table.
. . . Even if Kelley simply found it prudent to keep a lawyer handy—why Lowell? It's like hiring David Boies because your friend got a speeding ticket. Lowell is the quintessential Washington power broker. He represented Clinton before the Senate during his impeachment trial. He specializes in disgraced political figures, including John Edwards. He's the kind of guy you hire when you're seriously f***ed.
Likewise, Judy Smith is one of those unique DC creatures one hires to make serious problems go away. Her clients have included Monica Lewinsky, Larry Craig, Wesley Snipes, Michael Vick, Kobe Bryant, and the family of Chandra Levy.
Colin Powell endorsed the President - for the second time - and shared some concerns about Mitt Romney's foreign policy flip-flops.
Charlie Rose: Will you endorse President Obama this race?
Colin Powell: Well, you know I voted for him in 2008 and I plan to stick with him in 2012, and I’ll be voting for he and for Vice President Joe Biden next month.
Rose: That's an endorsement for President Obama for re-election?
Powell: When he took over the country was in very, very difficult straits, we were in one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression. The fiscal system was collapsing. Wall Street was in chaos. We had 800,000 jobs lost in that first month of the Obama administration and unemployment would peak a few months later at 10%. So we were in real trouble. The auto industry was collapsing. The housing industry was starting to collapse, and we were in very difficult straits. And I saw over the next several years stabilization come back in the financial community, housing is now starting to pick up after four years, it's starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising. So I think generally we've come out of the dive and we’re starting to gain altitude. It doesn't mean we are... problem solved, there are lots of problems still out there. The unemployment rate is too high. People are still hurting in housing. But I see that we are starting to rise up.
I also saw the President get us out of one war, start to get us out of a second war and did not get us into any new wars. And finally, I think that the actions he's taken with respect to protecting us from terrorism have been very, very solid. And so I think we ought to keep on the track that we are on.
With respect to Governor Romney, I have the utmost respect to him but as I listen to what his proposals are especially with respect to dealing with our most significant issue, the economy, it's essentially let's cut taxes and compensate for that with other things. But that compensation does not cover all of the cuts intended or the new expenses associated with defense.
Charlie Rose: Have you talked to Gov. Romney about this? Did you to give him an early notice that you planned to endorse the President again?
Colin Powell: No, I didn't give anyone early notice. I have spoken to Gov. Romney. We had a very good conversation a few weeks back.
Norah O'Donnell: Did he ask you for an endorsement of him back then?
Colin Powell: No.
Norah: And have you spoken with President Obama?
Colin Powell: I speak to the President on a regular basis. And he didn't ask either. This is my decision based on my looking at it as a citizen. I think this is an exciting race between two very very capable men, and I signed on for a long patrol with President Obama, and I don't think this is the time to make such a sudden change. And not only am I not comfortable with what Gov. Romney is proposing for his economic plan, I have concerns about his views on foreign policy.
The governor who was speaking on Monday night at the debate was saying things that were quite different from what he said earlier. I'm not quite sure which Gov. Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy.
Norah: What concerns do you have about Mitt Romney's foreign policy?
Colin Powell: Well, it's hard to fix it. It's a moving target. One day he has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan but then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal, same thing in Iraq. On almost every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Governor Romney agreed with the President with some nuances. But this is quite a different set of foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign. And my concern ... is that sometimes I don't sense that he has thought through these issues as thoroughly as he should have. And he gets advice from his campaign staff that he then has to adjust or modify as he goes along.
And Rachel Maddow reminded us on her show last night that one reason this ceremony was so moving and remarkable was that during the Bush Administration, displaying the flag-draped coffins of the dead was prohibited. The Bushies didn't want anyone to think about how many soldiers were dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama rescinded that order within 6 months of beginning his first term.
Maddow also covered the latest violence going on in the Middle East.
"This has clearly moved beyond demonstrations against an offensive internet video. It's become an opportunity for radicals in many countries to express their anger with the United States. And they've learned from watching each other that U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas aren't as protected as they thought."
~ Richard Engel on MSNBC
I think something is seriously wrong with Eric Fehrnstrom, Mitt's senior adviser. Not only did he let his boss get upstaged by an empty chair on the most important night of his campaign, but he can't quite explain why Mitt avoided any mention of Afghanistan in his major speech at the Republican Convention.
Don't they realize how many young men and women are still in Afghanistan? Peopler are being hurt and maimed, mentally and physically, every single day. Don't they realize how many military families are involved in that effort? Stupidity doesn't even explain it - for instance, Sarah Palin mentioned the war and the veterans in nearly every speech she gave during the last election, and looking back that seems much more sensible than Romney's omission. I guess we have to assume he just didn't know what to say, so it's easier to slam China or Iran and talk about how Obama has "thrown Israel under the bus." Make up new threats to scare people instead of making them happy to have both Iraq and Afghanistan behind us.
Hey, Mitt - and you too, Eric - "Blessed are the peacemakers." Got that?
CROWLEY: Why didn't the president mention anything about there are troops as you know overseas still fighting in Afghanistan, but there was no mention of that in his speech. Was that deliberate, was it an oversight, what was that decision about?
FEHRNSTROM: Well, the day before the convention speech, Candy, Governor Romney traveled to Indianapolis on Wednesday and he gave a speech before the American Legion. Now that was an invitation that President Obama declined. Governor Romney thought it was a privilege to be speaking to people who had served so nobly. And in that speech, he talked about Afghanistan. He also talked about the $1 trillion in defense cuts that are going to be taking place under this president which his own defense secretary has said will be devastating to our national defense.
CROWLEY: Point taken. And I didn't mean the president, I meant the governor, He is your nominee, presidential nominee at this point. But it is not just the president and the Democrats, here is something that Bill Kristol, from the Weekly Standard, a conservative, a Republican, had to say, "what about the civic propriety of a presidential nominee failing to even mention in his acceptance speech, a war we're fighting and our young men and women who are fighting it? Has it ever happened that we've been at war and a presidential nominee has ignored in this kind of major and formal speech the war and our warriors? I doubt it. It has been since 1952, I read, where a Republican did not mention troops serving overseas."
Do you think it was an oversight -- in hindsight, should he have said something?
FEHRNSTROM: Well, again, he spoke to Afghanistan in a big speech before the American Legion the night before his convention speech, that was an invitation...
CROWLEY: Sure, but this is a huge, big audience.
FEHRNSTROM: President Obama declined. But Governor Romney's convention speech was an opportunity for him to introduce himself to millions of voters who were seeing him for the first time and in that speech he accomplished what he set to do, which is to talk about his better vision for America with more jobs and increasing wages, he talked about the failures of the Obama presidency over the last four years. And he talked a little bit about the personal side and what motivates him.
And we thought that speech was a home run.
Obama wondered why Romney would just overlook the role of President in the Afghan conflict:
"Gov. Romney had nothing to say about Afghanistan last week," Obama said at a campaign rally in Iowa on Saturday. "Didn't mention it. Didn't offer a plan in terms of how he might end the war or, if he's not going to end it, he's got to let people know."
What War?
The United States has some 68,000 troops fighting in Afghanistan. Over two thousand Americans have died in the more than ten years of that war, a war Mitt Romney has supported. Yet in his speech accepting his party's nomination to be commander in chief, Mitt Romney said not a word about the war in Afghanistan. Nor did he utter a word of appreciation to the troops fighting there, or to those who have fought there. Nor for that matter were there thanks for those who fought in Iraq, another conflict that went unmentioned.
Leave aside the question of the political wisdom of Romney's silence, and the opportunities it opens up for President Obama next week. What about the civic propriety of a presidential nominee failing even to mention, in his acceptance speech, a war we're fighting and our young men and women who are fighting it? Has it ever happened that we've been at war and a presidential nominee has ignored, in this kind of major and formal speech, the war and our warriors?
The man who went on a shooting spree at a Sikh Temple in Wisonsin was a military veteran and also a skinhead racist. I will never understand how someone can defend this big diverse country and serve with people of all races and religions, yet turn around and hate human beings enough to commit cold-blooded murder. It's Timothy McVeigh all over again, and this is what the "militia" culture has given us in this country.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Page was a member of two racist bands named End Apathy and Definite Hate, "a band whose album 'Violent Victory' featured a gruesome drawing of a disembodied white arm punching a black man in the face."
. . . The SPLC pointed to a 2010 interview with white supremacist website Label 56 in which Page said he had played in various bands since 2000, when he left his native Colorado on a motorcycle.
Two years earlier, in 1998, Page had been discharged from the Army for "patterns of misconduct," according to military sources. He had served for six years but was never posted overseas. He was a psychological operations specialist and missile repairman who was last stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the sources said.
In June 1998 he was disciplined for being drunk on duty and had his rank reduced to specialist from sergeant. He was not eligible to re-enlist.
In 2010, Page, then the leader of the band End Apathy, gave an interview to the white supremacist website Label 56. He said that when he started the band in 2005, its name reflected his wish to “figure out how to end people’s apathetic ways” and start “moving forward.” “I was willing to point out some of my faults on how I was holding myself back,” Page said. Later, he added, “The inspiration was based on frustration that we have the potential to accomplish so much more as individuals and a society in whole.” He did not discuss violence in the interview.
Page told the website that he had been a part of the white power music scene since 2000, when he left his native Colorado on a motorcycle. He attended white power concerts in Georgia, North Carolina, West Virginia and Colorado. At various times, he said, he also played in the hate rock bands Youngland (2001-2003), Celtic Warrior, Radikahl, Max Resist, Intimidation One, Aggressive Force and Blue Eyed Devils. End Apathy, he said, included “Brent” on bass and “Ozzie” on drums; the men were former members of Definite Hate and another band, 13 Knots.
As I wrote earlier, loud-mouth lout Joe Walsh of Illinois insulted his opponent, Tammy Duckworth, a paraplegic veteran, by saying she was "not a hero."
And he still thinks he can deflect this back on her by being defensive and rude on TV, as he was with Ashleigh Banfield in the video below. I really, really hope this guy loses big. Please, Illinois voters - vote the bum out!
Sometimes idealogy has less to do with politics than the fact that someone is just basically an insensitive loud-mouth lout. It's as if these people grew up watching Archie Bunker and thought he was the perfect role model. What they seem to have missed is that Archie was never a lovable guy, but a caricature of an all-American bigot and the essence of loutishness.
Did I mention he was also written as a stupid character with little understanding of other peoples' lives and experiences? I think some of these politicians should realize that.
Here's Congressman Bill Young of Florida insulting a constituent who is asking a perfectly legitimate question about raising the minimum wage:
Constituent: Jesse Jackson Jr.'s passing around a bill around to increase the minimum wage to 10 bucks an hour. Do you support that?
Young: Probably not.
Constituent: Ten bucks and hour to give us a living wage?
Young: How 'bout gettin' a job?
Constituent: I do have one.
Young: Then why do you want that benefit? Get a job!
Constituent: I have a job!
Uh, Congressman Young? The point isn't the job, it's making enough money. You fail at logic. I'm surprised you didn't just call this guy "Meathead." And why shouldn't we all care about the minimum wage? You fail at sympathy for the American people, too.
Or how about Chris Collins, running for Congress in New York District 27? He obviously lives in a world of his own where it's okay to oppose health care because he thinks no one dies from cancer anymore. How con-veeeen-ient! Now he can hate Obamacare without feeling guilty.
"People now don’t die from prostate cancer, breast cancer and some of the other things,” Collins said.
. . . In fact, over 28,000 men will die of prostate cancer this year. According to the American Cancer Society, “Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind only lung cancer. About 1 man in 36 will die of prostate cancer.”
Approximately 40,000 women will die from breast cancer in 2012. The American Cancer Society says it’s the “second leading cause of cancer death in women, after lung cancer.
Hey, get educated, bro.
The flip-side of that remark comes from the head of the New Hampshire Tea Party, who seems to understand that cancer kills, but he wants it to kill some specific people: the Supreme Court Justices who wrote the majority opinion ruling that gave the green light to Obama's Health Care program.
Merrimack, New Hampshire libertarian and Tea Party president Mike Malzone has gone further than others in his outrage, declaring in a Facebook post on the Merrimack Tea Party page, “I hope the (5 supremes) get colon cancer.”
When the post was met with outrage, Malzone backtracked a day later, while waxing lachrymose. “I didn’t wish for anyone to die, but I said I do wish for them to feel our pain,” he said. “No one cares about me, they all make their promises and then go do what they g**damn feel.”
Boo-hoo. Call a Wahhhmbulance! Another narcissistic insensitive lout whining because the Supreme Court upheld the law of the land. But he also manages to remind us that there are terrible illnesses like colon cancer, which does kill if untreated, and that's why we need health care for everyone. So thanks for reminding us.
Finally for your inspection, we have Congressman Joe Walsh (R-IL) who said his opponent, Tammy Duckworth, was not a "true hero" even though she is a double-amputee veteran of the War in Iraq. He compared her to John McCain, whom he says never talks about his military service, which just isn't true! Everyone knows all about John McCain's service in Vietnam and his time as a prisoner of war. McCain wrote a book about it, and talked about it the whole time he was running for president in 2008.
Duckworth lost both her legs after Iraqi insurgents hit her helicopter with a rocket propelled grenade in 2004. She is now challenging incumbent Walsh in Illinois' re-drawn 8th Congressional district. "Now I'm running against a woman who, my God, that's all she talks about," said Walsh, a Tea Party freshman. "Our true heroes, it's the last thing in the world they talk about."
Did that stop him? Of course not - louts will never shut up. Here merely repeated himself: Story Here
“Of course Tammy Duckworth is a hero. I have called her a hero hundreds of times in the past four months. Just like every man and woman who has worn the uniform, her service demands -- demands -- our utmost respect. That’s why I recognize our veterans at the beginning of every one of my public town halls. However, unlike most veterans I have had the honor to meet since my election to Congress, who rarely if ever talk about their service or the combat they’ve seen, that is darn near all of what Tammy Duckworth talks about.
Duckworth responded on the Martin Bashir show:
Yet another irresponsible comment from someone who's supposed to be a sitting Congressman. He's irresponsible in his words and he's irresponsible in his votes. Time and time again he votes against the people of this district, and he really disrespected 23 million veterans across this nation with those comments....
. . . He's lived up to his words that his district is not going to get squat from him, and he's in Washington to be a poster child for the Tea Party. He's lived up to that. I hope to win in November and I will be a servant to the people of the district. I've served this nation my entire life, lived up to my responsibilities, and I hope that I'll get the chance to continue to serve.
Later on Duckworth told Ed Schultz:
He's just trying to shift the focus away from the fact that he's done nothing in his two years in Congress other than be an extremist loud-mouth for the Tea Party....
The picture above is from Chattanooga National Cemetery, where my father and mother are buried. My father was a WWII disabled veteran who served in France, Italy, Germany and Austria. He had shrapnel in his leg for which he received a purple heart, but he also contracted multiple sclerosis while training for Pacific duty at Fort Lewis. None of that made life easy for him, but if not for the military my parents would never have met.
Daddy was from Tennessee, Mama was from Kansas. They met when my father was stationed at Fort Dix and ended up on a weekend pass in Abilene. My mother, who had just graduated from high school, worked for the telephone company and it just happened to be their turn to serve coffee and doughnuts for the USO. She was a shy introvert and unsure what to do, so someone pointed to my father who was sitting looking very homesick, sunburned and sad. To her surprise, when she offered him some coffee, he looked up and gave her a dazzling smile and started talking like the extrovert he was. My mother told me she had never met anyone like him. When they got married, the Abilene newspaper called him a "hometown boy" - that's how my father could win people over. After the War, they made a life together in Tennessee, with six children and many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I miss them both every day, but especially on Memorial Day.
My father was a lifelong Roosevelt Democrat, and so was my mother. I once asked my mother if she voted for Eisenhower in the 50s since he was from the same hometown, and she shook her head adamently - "No," she said, "We voted for Adelaide Stevenson, who was a great man." My father never thought Eisenhower did enough for the military veterans who fought under him, and knew it wasn't an accident that suddenly his military medical pension went through as soon as Kennedy was elected into office. Both my parents despised Nixon and Reagan and saw them as power-hungry because they ran for office so many times. I can only imagine what they would say about Mitt Romney! I think they would be amazed that Obama ever got elected, and I know they would be ready to vote for him again in November.
Their influence on my life is immeasurable. They were survivors of the Great Depression, World War II, and years of raising a large family on the shoestring of Veteran's benefits. But they knew what really mattered, and I like to think they would approve of this blog and the message I'm trying to send to the world. Like them, I don't intend to give up on anything I believe in to please anyone else.
This weekend we have an incredible gift - the speech of Vice President Joe Biden to the 18th Annual TAPPS National Military Survivor Seminar. I think this speech is one of the most moving testaments to the American people and to the American military we will ever have, because he made his own grief personal and shared it with the country. God Bless Him! Did I mention that my father's name was also Joe?
During a surprise visit Tuesday to Afghanistan, where he signed an agreement outlining the U.S. role there after most NATO forces leave in 2014, President Barack Obama said he knew many Americans are tired of the war, but underscored a need to "finish the job."
"Our goal is to destroy al-Qaida, and we are on a path to do exactly that," Mr. Obama said. The election-year speech aired live in the U.S. during prime-time hours.
