{"id":17078,"date":"2010-01-29T06:55:35","date_gmt":"2010-01-29T11:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=17078"},"modified":"2010-01-29T07:00:02","modified_gmt":"2010-01-29T12:00:02","slug":"rob-diamond-is-his-own-prop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=17078","title":{"rendered":"Rob Diamond is his own prop"},"content":{"rendered":"

I found an article on Huffington Post<\/a> about Republicans using the troops as props most disingenuous written by some illiterate buffoon named Rob Diamond. In the article he complains about all of the times that Republicans have included veterans in some of their events. Mostly, Diamond was upset that a Staff Sergeant sat behind Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell during his Republican response to the State of the Union Address Wednesday night;<\/p>\n

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Slight problem, you see. That is probably against the law.<\/p>\n

Look it up for yourself right here in the Department of Defense (DoD) Directive entitled “Political Activities by Members of the Armed Forces.” The purpose of this DoD Directive is to mirror the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from engaging in partisan political activity in an official capacity. Since a DoD Directive is considered to be in the same category as an order or regulation, and military personnel violating its provisions can be considered in violation of Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, our Republican friends may have just caused this brave young soldier to break the law. Thank you for that, Governor McDonnell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ya know what I’d do before I laid out a legal case against this Staff Sergeant? I’d check to see if he’s in the Virginia National Guard and therefore not subject to DoD policy – and under the command of his governor. But that’s just me – my readers hold me to a higher standard for accuracy than Diamond’s readers, apparently. <\/p>\n

Diamond goes on to point out all of the times Republicans have used the troops for props;<\/p>\n

“Mission Accomplished?” Remember that one! Or just consider Sarah Palin’s latest attempt to hold a rally (aka “book tour”) on Fort Bragg this past November. Well, you can now add “Republican Response 2010” to what is a rather endless list, actually.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

An endless list? And those are two that Diamond came up with first? Really? When I was stationed at Fort Bragg, back when books were popular and pretty much had a corner on the reading media market, every author worth his salt who wanted to sell books went to Fort Bragg. According to the 2000 Census, it has a population of 29,000 soldiers and their families who all have jobs and money. It spreads across four North Carolina counties, and there were probably some locals in that line to buy books. <\/p>\n

Our friend Greyhawk at Mudville Gazette<\/a> provides some examples of Democrats using troops for “props”, but I submit that Rob Diamond, the self-proclaimed arbiter of what qualifies as using troops for props, uses his own career in the Navy as a prop<\/a> for Democrats;<\/p>\n

Robert Diamond is an investment banker focused on the commercial real estate industry. Before his career in finance, Robert served for seven years as an officer in the United States Navy. A Surface Warfare Officer by training, he was stationed onboard the guided missile destroyer USS BULKELEY (DDG-84) and completed deployments in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. Robert served as the aide to the Navy’s Chief of Legislative Affairs in the Pentagon, and as a Navy liaison officer to the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a Security Fellow with the Truman National Security Project and a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. He speaks and publishes regularly on issues related to national security, the military and veterans affairs. Robert lives and works in NYC.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I swear, every news story leading up to the State of the Union Address mentioned some military member who was invited to attend by some member of Congress. Like this one who was invited to sit next to the First Lady<\/a>. But I guess that doesn’t rise to level of a prop at HuffPo.<\/p>\n

If you want a real giggle, read this paragraph from the HuffPo piece;<\/p>\n

It has taken a Democratic President and a Democratic-led Congress to end the war in Iraq as well as finally commit the troops, resources and strategy necessary to win in Afghanistan. And yes, it has been President Obama and a Democratic Congress that has given the VA the largest budget increase in its history ($15 billion dollars in 2010) and is working tirelessly to create a 21st Century VA to care for our newest generation of Veterans.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yep, the Democrats are claiming they ended the war in Iraq. All the while, Republicans are using the troops as props.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found an article on Huffington Post about Republicans using the troops as props most disingenuous … Rob Diamond is his own prop<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,28,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-barack-obama","category-bloggers-and-stuff","category-military-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}