Category: Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

I’m sorry. This started as a comment in TSO’s last post, but it took on a life of it’s own and became an entire post.

I found Paul Rieckhoff’s response to be one of the most condescending POS ever written. Especially the parts about TSO using an alias and how he can’t respond to every blog that writes about his little band of mental midgets. Is there anyone on the internet that doesn’t use an alias? Where has Riekhoff been the last 12 years or so? Since our contact information is prominently displayed on an entire page, he could have asked TSO for his creds.

And I understand that he can’t respond to EVERY BLOG that criticizes his organization, however, not EVERY BLOG was criticizing his organization yesterday. He could’ve even put our admin address in the same email he sent Blackfive in the cc’d box. How hard is that? It would seem courteous since B5 has generally just been linking to us and cut and pasting TSO’s posts. Would he write to Reader’s Digest to complain about facts in an article that the Digest republished from Atlantic Monthly?

It seems to me that Riekhoff didn’t address even a little bit of TSO’s criticisms of their scorecard. He qualified each of his defensive arguments with “our criteria” and “our legislative agenda”. Those are fairly subjective qualifiers.

So if IAVA decided every soldier should get a pint of chocolate ice cream with their MREs every day and some Congressman thought that was a waste of time and resources, they got a thumbs-down from IAVA and it’s not reflected in the scorecard. Nice.

As far as Riekhoff’s defense of his relationship with Democracy In Action, it’s reminiscent of the IVAW’s defense of their relationship with Warren Buffet, VFP and VVAW – condescending camoflage; You guys have no idea what it takes to run an organization like this so stop bitching about things you don’t understand. That right there tells me that there’s Soros money involved.

Someone made the comment somewhere that Paul Rieckhoff was just a nicer Jon Solz. I’m not sure I agree…they both seem like different degrees of the same type of asshole. They both make broad, sweeping, subjective judgements and they’re both unable to defend their judgements with any substantive facts.

Oh, and it’s real damn funny that both IAVA’s website and this one were difficult to get into last night after ten even though our traffic was about a tenth of what was at four and five o’clock. But, not to worry…I took screen shots of cached copies IAVA’s pages while trying to fix the jam in our own blog.

I don’t expect a response from Paul Rieckhoff to this post or any of the others because he’s above addressing legitimate criticisms on rinky-dink, fly-by-night blogs like this one that only gets 1800 visitors every day and gets around 16,000 hits on an average day. That’s too bad, because it makes him seem petty and as if he’s got something to hide.

Of course, he might change his mind when he sees what we have in store for them today.

[I AM HAVING PROBLEMS POSTING HERE, SO BEAR WITH ME. And yes, I know I have spelling, punctuation errors etc. Unfortunately, I am having trouble fixing them. CURSE you whoever is on the other end of this blog admin nonsense!]

Well, quite the little storm a brewing.

Paul Rieckhoff of IAVA responds to my posts over at Blackfive. I urge everyone to go read it.  I’m all about the sunshine/disinfectant thing, so, please, go read it.

I will go through it more tomorrow, but a few quick thoughts.  First, I post under a pseudonym because I am a blogger.  Everytime my name is attached to things, my personal musings are attributed to my employer, or I get lunatics setting up websites about me.  One time I even had a dude appropriate my name and start posting all over Yahoo about how I like small boys.  But, I am happy to disclose my identity to Paul, provided it doesn’t get spilled all over the intertubes and I have to go into cyber hiding again.

My parsing of the votes was me.  Not anyone else, so I am responsible for that.  With that as a base, read what Paul says, and look at what I wrote, then go look at the votes.  I think I laid out a strong case for how Senators Vitter, Coburn and DeMint voted against the bills cited by IAVA for reasons completely unrelated to the reasons for which IAVA used the votes.  Does being against a park in 90210 mean you oppose veterans?  Not in my book.

I am well aware of all the work that IAVA does on Capitol Hill.  I have met each and everyone of their lobbyists on MANY occasions.  I do not challenge that advocacy.

Paul states:

At IAVA, we’re proud of our work, and we don’t let misguided attacks on the integrity of our organization go without being challenged.

As well you should be proud, and as well you should not let it go unchallenged.  So, lets talk about that actual challenges I made, and not the ancillary discussions.  My post was DIRECTLY in relation to the Scorecard itself.  Not lobbying, not the absolutely admirable job on the GI Bill (which was to be addressed tomorrow) and not on how polite you are to those with questions.  I confined my discussion to your scorecard, the apparent conflict of interest in having your founder also being a beneficiary of the vote selection, and use of DIA.  So, let’s discuss those items.

This is the paragraph I take the most umbrage with:

Senators and Representatives are paid to go to Washington and represent the American people by sponsoring and voting on legislation. And that’s what we grade them on: actions, not rhetoric. Not their party or their status as a veteran, but their votes. Duncan Hunter (an example cited with outrage by TSO) received a C with good reason. Despite his honorable service, and that of his son, he was running for President and chose to miss 3 critical votes, one on protecting Iraqi interpreters, one on treating TBI and on one expanding veterans benefits. He also decided not to be a GI Bill co-sponsor, in contrast to several of his colleagues—including dozens of Republicans ranging from Representative Peter King (NY) to Senator Pete Domenici (NM). Let’s face it–you aren’t supportive of the troops just by virtue of being a veteran.

1) I cited Duncan Hunter as an example, and you point out he missed 3 “critical votes.”  I contend that the Interpreter Bill, while very important, and which I do not downplay was anything but critical.  It passed with only one vote against it.  He could have thrown a backyard BBQ for 200 of his closest Congressional friends and it would have passed.  Wouldn’t “critical” seem to indicate that his absence could have doomed the bill?  The bill “treating TBI”, your vote #3 was passed unanimously, do you really believe that had Hunter been there he would have voted contrary to everyone else? Or do you think his absence was due to a well thought out plan to avoid voting on such a contentious issue that it got the votes of both Kucinich and Ron Paul, 2 guys who (outside War on Terror issues) likely could fight about whether water is wet?

2) I don’t recall every saying you had to be a veteran to be supportive of the troops, nor do I for one second believe it.  Chairman Bob Filner of the Veterans’ Affairs committee was a draft dodger by his own admission, and he has arguably been the best Chairman that committee has ever had in terms of advocating for veterans.  Ascribing such a position to me is farcical.

Paul further states:

We at IAVA understand how Washington works. Our folks are working on the hill every day. They don’t just air drop in a few times a year for press conferences.

I don’t know if that is meant to imply I do, that I claimed you did, or some oblique reference to someone else.  Further, he states that

And we get the complexities of being an elected official and dealing with competing demands. In some cases, the bills we included in the Report Card had other provisions that might have led a Representative or Senator to vote against the larger bill. We know that lawmakers have to make compromises. We get this. That is why we are so thorough in our descriptions of the votes, so that people can understand the politics behind the votes. That’s why, for instance, we state unequivocally when legislation was a part of a continuing resolution, or a part of the Defense Authorization bill.

So you get that they might vote against the interest of IAVA based on a COMPLETELY different reason that what the vote is purported to be by you, and yet you mark them down?  So, if a Congressman voted against the VA budget and said “It is absurd that we spend more on ___ than we do for our veterans” then IAVA would understand his vote, but nonetheless he would receive a lower grade?  That’s absurd.  And to assume that 99% of the voting public, unlike IAVA understands what in the hell a continuing resolution is absurd.

This is exactly why scorecards like this one based on huge omnibus bills are unfair.  If IAVA had put out a scorecard that just covered the GI Bill, or rather, the version they supported, I would have had no argument.  But when you start giving guys like DeMint an “F” on “Veterans Issues” for failing to vote for pork laden bills funding things like parks in Beverly Hills, I think you do faithful public servants and anyone reading the scorecard a grave injustice.

I can’t even argue with the stuff about everything else you do.  I absolute laud all of it.  It is the scorecard, the use of DIA (which is not even a little analogous to a phone company) and the fact that the beneficiary of your scorecard is a founder and it is not acknowledged in either the press release or in any media sources that I have a problem with.

OK, in part I, I parsed the House Scorecard votes for IAVA and Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!, the Senate Part is equally useless and flawed.

This one had 9 votes, 4 of which I am punting on for now since they deal with the GI Bill that I will cover in part III. Additionally, once again we see the two extra points (Casey Kasem: Two???) awarded for supporting the Webb GI Bill, and no other versions. That leaves us with 5, one of which was unanimous.

Of the four remaining votes
• The “Enhanced Veterans’ Benefits” vote was 96-1;
• The “Expanded Veterans’ Benefits” vote was 92-3;
• The “Funding Veterans’ Health Care, 2008” vote was 92-1; and
• The “Funding Veterans’ Health Care, 2007” vote, like the one in the House was actually a continuing resolution.

So, I took the liberty of looking up the first three, even though they were nearly unanimous, and just as with the House votes, scoring these is entirely deceptive. Taking the “Funding Veterans’ Health Care, 2008” vote first, I looked it up and found that the sole vote against it was cast by Senator DeMint. Now, I have a buddy on DeMint’s staff, so I looked it up.
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I’ve always been a little leery of IAVA, right from the start. I personally like Paul Rieckhoff, and have friends who speak highly of him. I like the fact they stayed neutral on the war, instead advocating on behalf of veterans regardless of their position on the war. Well, today I’ve come to realize they are another hack organization masquerading as non-partisan.

A couple of months ago I met one of the IAVA reps, spoke with him and gave him my business card. About a week later I got a full package in the mail explaining the benefits of my having joined IAVA. I was shocked, since I never said I wanted to join, and had no interest in joining. But, hey, a veterans group looking out for the troops, I can stomach the fact I disagree on several issues and figured I wouldn’t raise a stink by demanding they remove me from the rolls immediately.

And I maintained that position right up until today when I got this absolutely absurd, biased and factually inaccurate “Congressional Report Card” email. My BS detector got off to a rip roaring start when I hovered over the link and found that it went to IAVA through “Democracy in Action.” For those not aware of this craptastic organization:

DemocracyInAction.org believes technology can be a decisive force for social change. We exist to empower those who share our values of ecological and social justice to advance the progressive agenda.

Great. So, while I paid no dues, as a Member in good standing of IAVA, I apparently support ecological and social justice initiatives in line with my progressive agenda. That sounds like me, doesn’t it?

My first look over the report card had me screaming “EPIC FAIL!!!” in my office.
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