Harkin also shot back at Cheney, who said in a visit to Iowa on Tuesday that presidential candidate John Kerry lacks a basic understanding of the war on terrorism and cannot make America safer.
He noted that Cheney had several student deferments that allowed him to skip serving in Vietnam.
“When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil,” Harkin said. “Those of us who served and those of us who went in the military don’t like it when someone like a Dick Cheney comes out and he wants to be tough. Yeah, he’ll be tough. He’ll be tough with somebody else’s blood, somebody else’s kids. But not when it was his turn to go.”
David James, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, dismissed Harkin’s attacks.
“His shrill negative attacks did nothing to get Howard Dean elected or get the nomination during the caucuses,” James said, referring to Harkin’s endorsement of the former Vermont governor before the Iowa caucuses.”
I hope the Democrats plan on running a veteran for every office in the future. Otherwise, there is going to be hell to pay after the way they have been employing the ‘chickenhawk’ meme.
Steverino
There the Dems go again, questioning the patriotism of their opponents.
Dean
I take it Tom voted for George HW Bush and Bob Dole over Bill Clinton?
?
I agree–the term “chickenhawk” is stupid and offensive.
But I do think Bush, Kerry and Cheney are the last Vietnam era nominees for national office. I also think that’s a shame–but they’re just too easy to bash.
Dean
?: ?
Kerry and Dubya are in their mid-60s, iirc. Ronnie Reagan ran when he was well into his seventies. The baby boomers are going to be w/ us for quite a while, for better or worse.
daniel
as i have noted elsewhere:
kerry applied for a deferrment and was REJECTED.
cheney applied and was accepted.
how does the fact that kerrys’ request was IN VALID and cheney’s was valid make kerry braver?
especially after considering that when kerry CHOSE to enter the Navy and specifically the swift boats there was virtually no chance he’d see ANY combat.
the swift assigment changed after kerry had commited already to it.
he has admitted all this in porint interviews in the 1970’s-1980’s.
so rather than a volunteer, kerry was a NUANCED EVADER who got mistakenly caught in a battlezone, and LIED to get out as fast as he could.
and once out: he lied and maligned the entire US military and the USA.
kerry lied AND MILLIONS DIED in Vietnam and Cambodia.
65 million Vietnamese syill live in poverty and under tyranny becuaxse of kerry.
NEED PROOF? HERE:
if we had stayed the course, then TODAY South Vietnam would be as free and as prosperous as South Korea. Instead: ALL OF VIETNAM is as poor and as enslaved as North Korea!
as they say in the mekong: Harkin you is a putz.
JKC
Any cites for those claims, daniel, or did you just eat some funny mushrooms?
daniel
HERE’S PROOF:
If you are intellectually hoinest you will check it out and adjust, and then asdmuit that kerry is scum.
1 – uk telegraph 7/1/04
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/03/07/wkerr07.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/03/07/ixnewstop.html
2 – from the uk teleg:
“The Harvard Crimson newspaper followed a youthful Mr Kerry in Boston as he campaigned for Congress for the first time in 1970. In the course of a lengthy article, “John Kerry: A Navy Dove Runs for Congress”, published on February 18, the paper reported: “When he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, the draft board refused and Kerry decided to enlist in the Navy.”
you can Google this and go to the Harvard Crimson’s own archives to verify.
3 – it has been blogged a lot. the whole “kerry volunteered” BS is a ONE BIG exaggeration – at best. In its heart: it is a lie, because the intent is too communicate something that is IN FACT NOT TRUE. Like the rest of kerry.
I think it is OKAY if people want to be pacifists; Kucinich is one – and he is HONEST about it.
Kerry is a big fat liar. a phony two-faced lying dog who’s lies besmirched the USA and our armed forces, and hurt the cause of freedom all over the world.
Only Reagan and Reaganism reversed that.
I don
punslinger
Why do John Edwards and Hillary Clinton get a free pass on the chickenhawk charge. Either one of them could have volunteered, yet they did not. Yet each one voted for the war in Iraq.
Harry in Atlanta
Forget Tom Harkin. Because if you think about it he really is a nobody with opinions of little or no consequence and the only people who do or should care about the absurd verbal inanities that fall out of Harkin’s stupid head are Iowans. Besides it should never take anyone very long listening to Tom Harkin that he applied for and received a liftime exemption from intelligence and common sense.
Bloggerhead
Wow, so you guys really don’t see any tension in one’s eagerness to send other people’s children to war and one’s prior reticence to go to war oneself. It’s this kind of contradiction (dare we call it, “flip-flop”–the eternal republican election tactic) that conservatives would wurlitzer up from hack job to talking point to conventional wisdom in matter of days.
That Dick Cheney, he’s so misunderstood.
JohnO
Bloggerhead,
Your use of the word “children” in describing the MEN and WOMEN of the Armed Forces is incredibly disingenuous. It reminds me of the Simpsons quote where “‘all of the money will go to children.’ ‘Really??’ ‘Well, we’re all SOMEBODY’S children.'”
daniel
blggerhead: Kerry himself tried and failed to get deferred.
kerry himself ONLY joined the navy to avoid combat.
jerry huimself signed up for the swiftboats becuase at the time the were FAR from combat.
so, appying your twisted-logic, kerry would be disqualified, too.
asd well as clinton, (bill n hill)
and FDR and edwrads.
so just give up this DUMB idea.
Adrian Spidle
WHY ARE THE MEDIA AND THE BUSH CAMPAIGN IGNORING THE SINGLE ISSUE THAT CAN SINK THE KERRY/EDWARDS CAMPAIGN?
The most salient fact about Kerry
HH
Our lefty brethren cheer this nonsense from Harkin on while at the same time calling for the “more sensitive war on terror.”
HH
John Edwards is a coward… where was he during Vietnam? He supported the Iraq war 100%. Chickenhawk.
JKC
HH- Edwards was too young for the draft, and therefore probably too young to have served in Nam.
But you probably already knew that. Thanks for yet another example of your shining intellectual honesty.
physics geek
“Otherwise, there is going to be hell to pay after the way they have been employing the ‘chickenhawk’ meme.”
John, I think that you underestimate the ability of the press to wear blinders when it suits their purposes. Us they can discount as foaming at the mouth, rightwing nutjobs. And they will.
RW
Edwards was 18 in 1971.
I do believe we were in VN after that date.
Dean
JKC (and Bloggerhead):
If Edwards was too young to have served, what happens to the members of the blogosphere who were ALSO too young to have served in Vietnam? Are we somehow to keep quiet on matters of war and peace, and leave the field to your compatriots?
Somehow, methinks that the need for military service to justify going to war wasn’t sounded very often when Bill Clinton (who, last I checked, didn’t serve) was running against genuine WWII heroes and when he was sending troops out to risk their lives in the skies over Iraq and Bosnia and Kosovo.
JKC
Dean-
It actually proves that all this blather about the Vietnam records of both Kerry AND Bush is a waste of time and energy. Unless one of the candidates was running drugs or committing war crimes, I don’t really care about what they did 30+ years ago: it’s what they’re doing NOW (or will do now if elected) that concerns me.
Dean
Well, JKC, that mebbe so.
But I have to wonder: Who raised Vietnam as a topic in this campaign?
I don’t recall the Bushies mentioning Vietnam—but I *know* that many Dems have been doing “chickenhawk” arguments about him. I don’t recall the Bushies making his TANG service a topic AT ALL—but BUSHAWOL was a web-site stood up quite a while ago.
I don’t recall too many Pubbies arguing about Vietnam, but it was Dems, or their supporters, who started cataloguing which GOPers had military service (and somehow, Rumsfeld’s service didn’t count b/c he wasn’t in an actual war).
I *do* find it surprising, still, that it was John Kerry who made his Vietnam experience a huge piece of his acceptance speech, incl. that nice movie.
So, if you have someone to critique, I think it might be among the Dems (or their supporters) who have decided to make this an issue for much of the past 12-18 months.
And as for war crimes, well, you might want to take a look at the candidate’s testimony before Congress thirty years ago.
But at least, JKC, you and I might agree that this is not necessarily appropriate to have started down this path. I am more curious about Bloggerhead, and his apparent conclusion that only those who’ve served (and been shot at?) have a right to call for war. Or something…
JKC
Dean-
I can’t answer for the Kerry campaign, but I think the idea was to portray Kerry as having some national security chops. As you know, that’s been a weak spot for Dems in most polls. Whether or not it was a good idea will be known on 3 November.
As I said: I’d rather discuss or debate the current policy proposals of the candidates, as opposed to what they did 30+ years ago.
kelly
All well and good, JKC. I’m much more interested in the future than what happened 30 years ago.
But let me ask you something. Who started down that old memory lane as to whcih candidate was where in the late sixties, early seventies in this election cycle? Huh? ANY idea?
BTW, I had to register for the draft and I’m only 46. Edwards is 53.
pubby pussies
Dean, John, physics geek and the rest of you right-wing nutjob puss-bags:
However JK signed up for ‘Nam, at least he ended up in the sh*t for awhile. Go ahead, link away to nutty conspiricy sites that act like they privy to kerry’s thoughts 30 yrs ago re:his service and why he spoke out agaist the war later on. Facts are facts – kerry server in combat and cheney found 5 weasley ways to get out of serving. I knew the guy was an evil hunchbacked coward but it’s nice to hear someone with some cajones say it out loud to the press.
Paul in AZ
To the likes of bloggerhead et al.,
The whole notion of ‘sacrificing’ children would actually be a valid question but for the fact that every single person in the US Armed Forces in Iraq,Afghanistan, Europe, Asia and every base in the continental US is a VOLUNTEER.
furious_a
JKC and other lefty thumbwits:
There you go, again, invoking Heinlein’s Law. Fine by me if you want to exclude anyone but active duty troops or veterans from responsibility for defense, diplomatic, or intel policy. I mean, no hippies, peace-creeps or Deaniacs need apply, and is there any doubt how the Olive Drab vote would break?
HINT: Al Gore tried to have all Florida military absentee ballots invalidated in 2000, that is, until his vile little scam was exposed and he backed down.
Besides, by what passes for your, umm, “logic”, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and FDR were “chickenhawks”, too.
–furious
furious_a
Pubby:
You seem like a what-passes-for-wannabe-macho liberal tough guy…
…maybe you can help the Kerry Campaign get their various “Christmas in Cambodia” narratives straight. Any thread one tugs at the whole story unravels.
–furious
pubby pussies
Hey furious,
I am a macho *progressive* tough guy who is sick of you wanna-be macho conservative right-wing nutjobs telling me what i can and can’t do in the privacy of my own home. kerry wouldn’t have been my 1st choice for a dem candidate (or even 2nd) and i’m from freakin mass, but i am a charter member in the anybody-but-bush camp.
i wish kerry would shut his yap on all the vietnam stuff and talk about today’s issues. of course his more nuanced views go way over the heads of most bush supporters who like to hear sound bites and rah-rah speaches.
i am not a liberal fanatic. i don’t disagree with all the current administrations econmic policies, but it’s his foreign policy and catering the the extreme right wing on social issues that drives me nuts. Bush knows his base and he could give a rat’s ass about the rest of the country who hold more moderate views. oh there will be pleny of showbiz during the RNC that tries to cast a more moderate, inclusive light on this administration. Sadly I’m sure some undecided voters will buy that BS.
Chris Arndt
You agree with the present Administration’s economic policies? You lefty creep!