{"id":30629,"date":"2012-07-04T10:32:59","date_gmt":"2012-07-04T14:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=30629"},"modified":"2012-07-04T11:28:35","modified_gmt":"2012-07-04T15:28:35","slug":"walsh-duckworth-not-a-true-hero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=30629","title":{"rendered":"Walsh: Duckworth not a “true hero” (Updated)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several of you sent this link to us and, truthfully, I was hoping I could avoid writing about it. Not because it’s a (R) vs (D) issue, and it makes the (R) look bad, but because I really don’t like Tammy Duckworth, the veteran double-amputee running for the Congess in Illinois. Aside from the fact that folks from Illinois have told me that she was an incompetent boob while she was Director of Illinois’ Department of Veterans’ Affairs, but also because she was the VoteVets employment advocate when she went to be the Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs in DC. And then, while she was at the DVA, she “selflessly” and publicly<\/a> volunteered to go back to school while she was getting a full-time paycheck in order to straighten out the mess she and Shinseki had created with Veterans’ Education Benefits. And, oh, yeah, she doesn’t know how her own agency worked<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, now that I’ve established clearly why I dislike Tammy Duckworth greatly, apparently, her opponent in Illinois, Joe Walsh made a very stupid statement according to the Chicago Tribune<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Walsh began his criticism of Duckworth on Sunday by noting that heroes such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a former Vietnam prisoner of war, were uncomfortable talking about their service.<\/p>\n

He said political advisers for McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, “day after day had to take him and almost throw him against a wall and hit him against the head and say, ‘Senator, you have to let people know you served!'”<\/p>\n

“That’s what’s so noble about our heroes,” Walsh said. “Now I’m running against a woman who, I mean, my God, that’s all she talks about. Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it’s the last thing in the world they talk about.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, the implication here is that she’s not a “true hero”. Walsh, it should be noted, has no military service. While he may be correct, it was a very stupid thing to say out loud. If you look at Duckworth’s bio at her campaign website<\/a>, you’ll see what he means. Like I said, folks from Illinois tell me that almost all of her “accomplishments” at the IL DVA were things other people accomplished, but she took the credit. So, naturally, she leans heavily on the fact that she was in the military and wounded, because she can’t speak beyond platitudes of veterans’ issues.<\/p>\n

But none of Duckworth’s utter incompetence justifies Walsh’s implication that she doesn’t deserve credit for being shot down and losing her legs in combat. Apparently, Duckworth’s minions at VoteVets, hoping for another employment opportunity, are circulating another of their online petitions against Walsh. But I don’t pay attention to them anymore since they quit writing at VetVoice and turned amateur playing on Facebook these days. But Soltz writes that Walsh “swiftboats” Duckworth on Daily Kos<\/a>. I don’t think he knows that “swiftboat” means telling the truth about a candidate’s military service.<\/p>\n

You may have noticed that I can’t really bring myself to support Duckworth on this, but at least now you know the reasons.<\/p>\n

ADDED: On a second thought, not that we need more proof that Soltz and VoteVets are hypocrites, but here’s some thoughts that Soltz had when Wesley Clark criticized John McCain<\/a>‘s service;
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So, in short, General Clark respects John McCain’s service, calls him a hero to millions, but notes that experience doesn’t make him qualified to be Commander in Chief.<\/p>\n

Now, VoteVets.org isn’t getting into the presidential race, but I don’t see what is so wrong about what General Clark said. And yet, immediately and unsurprisingly, the McCain campaign let loose with a response that expressed shock and dismay. Almost right after that, all of the media was up in arms about how ‘wrong’ this was. Pretty disappointingly, even progressive surrogates couldn’t muster the strength to back up General Clark on TV.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

This wasn’t a swift boating, or any low politics. General Clark called McCain a hero to millions for his sacrifice. And, that’s a pretty big statement coming from a man who, himself, left Vietnam on a stretcher. But, facts are facts:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Senator McCain’s service and experience, both as a POW and as a Senator apparently hasn’t infused him with a dose of good judgment.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Senator McCain’s experience hasn’t led him to realize that the war in Iraq and it’s continuance has empowered and emboldened Iran, and destabilized the region.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Senator McCain’s experience hasn’t caused him to recognize that we’re losing ground in Afghanistan, and Osama bin Laden is still out there, plotting.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Senator McCain’s experience didn’t lead him to support the 21st Century GI Bill — he opposed it. It didn’t even make him feel the need to get back to Washington to vote on this — one of the most important veterans’ bills this Congress. He twice skipped votes on the GI Bill, to fundraise.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Senator McCain’s experience didn’t help him empathize with troops are overstretched and overdeployed, when he voted against the bipartisan Webb-Hagel “Dwell Time Amendment,” which would have given troops as much time at home as in the field.<\/p>\n

Senator McCain is running on his experience, saying it makes him ready to lead right away. By doing so, he is asking people to look at what that experience taught him. By looking at Senator McCain’s positions and votes (or lack of them), it seems that experience has not given him the right judgment on important issues of our time. And, while we should all honor Senator McCain’s service, that doesn’t mean we should necessarily honor it by putting him in the White House to take up George W. Bush’s third term.<\/p>\n

So, General Clark is 100 percent absolutely right, and he should not back down. I’d hope that some of the so-called progressives on television back him up on this, and not get intimidated by the media and McCain campaign press releases. These are important times, and deserve a blunt and honest debate.<\/p>\n

In some circles, that’s just called ‘straight talk.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Apparently, it’s only “straight talk” when a Democrat criticizes a Republican’s military service. And if you go to the link to HuffPo, you’ll see that VoteVets set up one of their useless petitions to support Clark for making those remarks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several of you sent this link to us and, truthfully, I was hoping I could avoid … Walsh: Duckworth not a “true hero” (Updated)<\/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":[186],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2012-election"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30629","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=30629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}