I am tired of listening to the political peril angle on same sex marriage and I have never understood why every idiot in the world gets to weigh in on The Black Church and President Obama while Mormons and Mitt Romney are off-limits, so here’s Wonkette:
Get out your Purple Heart bandages, because it is once again time to remind the American people thatThe Troops are a bunch of lazy, cowardly, treasonous, unpatriotic, un-American, Kenyan-Socialist-Communist whiners.
If the election were held today, Obama would win the veteran vote by as much as seven points over Romney, higher than his margin in the general population.
The fuck you say! It is almost like soldiers are expressing anger at the toll of a decade of war, questioning the legitimacy of George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion, and worrying that the surge in Afghanistan won’t make a difference in the long run! (And also: don’t really have a hard-on for #WARRING with Iran!)
Also, open thread
Q. Q. Moar
I can safely say that Rick Santorum is the only GOP candidate I would have up my ass. ~”Grand Old Party” is a data visualization project. It is also a set of butt plugs.~
JGabriel
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I just watched a pot boil.
Another cherished belief sacrificed on the altar of that bitch, experience.
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JGabriel
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It was a small pot.
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gaz
I’m compiling a collection of Cary Grant flicks for my mother.
He played in so many movies that I don’t even know how he managed to have time to go to the bathroom.
84 titles in 34 years? Samuel L. Jackson weeps. Sheesh
fuzz
I’ll admit this really shocked me, my experience with veterans and active duty military is that all of them with one exception are very, very right wing, in some cases even more so than many Republicans.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Easy to see why, Mittens whole plan once elected seems to be invade Iran for what ever and start Cold War2: Hunt for the Red Capitalist with Russia. That isn’t a policy, it’s a plot to a Tom Clancy novel.
gaz
@fuzz: I’m not shocked at all. Most of the veterans I know remember the Bush wars. Not fondly, I might add.
rlrr
Didn’t Kerry win the military vote?
TenguPhule
There are no hawk conservatives in a foxhole being shot at.
JGabriel
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fuzz:
I think that was true in the 80s & 90s. Then the Iraq War changed a lot of minds.
Even so, I’d still expect military types to lean right, say 55-45 or so. Obama is probably getting the benefit of the successful hit on Bin Laden, while Romney may be losing military voters due to his record of avoiding the draft to proselytize in France.
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peach flavored shampoo
@fuzz: I’m guessing the results are heavily skewed between the branches. Such as, 90% are Rombots in the AF and Marines, while 97% Obots in the Army and Navy.
I’ve never in my life met a Marine that wasn’t a hard-core Republican, although I haven’t met that many.
Kay
@rlrr:
I don’t know if Kerry won the military vote, but this was a poll of veterans, if that matters.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us? (formerly MarkJ)
May also be because Obama has actually cared about funding and improving the VA and other Veteran’s benefits programs. After the neglect of W, it’s pretty clear at this point who has their back when they get home.
Chris
@JGabriel:
I’d heard that, but I’d heard that it had changed a lot of those minds in the Ron Paul isolationist direction, rather than the Democrats. Glad to be, at least for now, wrong. Would be nice to have a military that leaned Democratic.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Hmm what did this Republican General have to say about war?
beltane
This is because veterans and active duty military are moochers who suck on the government teat while real patriots like Mitt Romney do more important things during wartime, things like travelling around France trying to seduce people away from Christianity.
fuzz
The vets I know are all relatively young, meaning 25-30, and bombard my facebook with posts about how the left is ruining the country, are big fans of Hannity and Limbaugh and while they may not have liked being in Iraq, they think that one of the main problems is that liberals didn’t support them enough. Its a small sampling size, maybe a dozen of them and most are not close friends (and only 1 officer) but it just really surprised me. I had a guy tell me, without me asking, that his worst day in Iraq was when Harry reid said the war was lost in april 07, and this from a guy whose unit was in “the triangle of death” in Babil province and whose sister unit had a DUSWUN incident that left 3 soldiers dead.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@fuzz: You must be hanging with officers. Enlisted is a whole different ball of wax. My last duty station (not stateside and a very, very hot place), everyone in the office was a Dem save for the one Paultard. Who got transferred out the week I was there because he was a mouthy son-of-a-bitch who everyone hated.
Raven
@peach flavored shampoo: Ever hear of Ron Kovic, Bobby Mueller or Scott Camile?
jl
@peach flavored shampoo:
” I’ve never in my life met a Marine that wasn’t a hard-core Republican ”
In grad school I knew a several officers who were liberal Democrats. One was a Marine officer. Of course, they were in grad school, so maybe exceptions.
The Marine told me about the questions his troops would ask about the philosophy books they would see him reading out in the field. As in:
“‘Being and Nothingness’? What is that about, anyway?”
“Well, exactly what it says: being… and nothingness”
“OK, I guess that covers a lot of ground, then, doesn’t it?”
“That’s why its so thick”
Anyway, if the troops are in favor of Obama, I don’t think that is all due to Obama though probably a lot it. A lot of GOPpers can take credit too. Like, when they blew off concerns about the troops welfare and their families’ welfare during Bush II years, and basically said, well, look these
losers,dupes,suckers, fine brave troops and intrepid warriors volunteered and made a commitment, so we can exploit them, and they can eff off.I think that kind of revealing insult leaves a mark when you, and those you personally know, are at risk of getting blown up or shot to pieces in one stupid war, and one probably justifiable war that is being botched by the same people calling you suckers back home.
Raven
@peach flavored shampoo: In the midst of the “I was mistreated” flavor of this clip about the Wall at 1:45 is a buddy of mine who was a Marine who was wounded at Khe Sahn. He and I were in the VVAW together and have remained friends all these years.
rikryah
@gaz:
remember The Philadelphia Story.
oh C.K. Dexter HAAAAVENNN….
Villago Delenda Est
@fuzz:
Then you’re hanging around the wrong group of vets.
The members of the military are drawn from the general population, and thus have a wide variety of political views. The officers tend to be more conservative in the traditional sense of that word, but most of them understand that “movement conservatism” is a crock of shit.
Brachiator
@fuzz:
I don’t know. This just doesn’t resonate with me.
I know that the Tea Party and many conservatives believe theat the US military consists soley of straight white heterosexual Republican men.
They seem to hold this view even when shown pictures of the military. Even when they see video of members of the military warmly embracing Obama.
Democrats should know better. But that’s OK. Just understand that the reality is more complex and diverse.
My day will not be complete until I hear that noted expert on black life, Ann Coulter, weigh in on what “authentic black people” think about Obama now that he has come out in favor of gay marriage.
patrick II
Not to inject race into every issue, but a larger percentage of army enlisted are black than the general population. I would guess that the polling numbers for black enlisted are not that different than their friends and relatives at home, which go pretty strongly — like 96% — for Obama.
Raven
@Villago Delenda Est: That’s correct. It’s no just geographical but the vast majority on Nam vets I know here in Georgia are right-wingers but when I go back up to Illinois by buddies are way left.
Kay
@Brachiator:
I love the arrogance of it. Would you ever? “I think I’ll just go out here and pull this opinion on ‘The Black Church’ out of my ass”.
They wouldn’t get away with it if they were opining on any other “church”, that’s for damn sure.
Chris
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Okay, that does fit my anecdotal experience, actually.
I also wonder if having been in combat affects that at all. I’ve got two uncles who served in the military: one was an enlisted Marine who fought in Korea, the other was a peacetime officer in 1980s West Germany. Guess which one of them’s the straight-ticket party-line teabagger, and which one’s more radical than I am.
trollhattan
A recipe for success and profit.
Investor-owned utility+aged nuclear plant+Bush-era NRC=Victory!
latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/edison-san-onofre-design-changes.html
Villago Delenda Est
@patrick II:
The fact of the matter is, the enlisted ranks tend to be from the lower percentiles of the socio-econmic spectrum, regardless of race. Officers are pretty much all college graduates, with a handful of exceptions who are very strongly encouraged to become college graduates by correspondence if that’s what it takes.
trollhattan
@Kay:
It’s not a stretch to think Ann Coulter supports Teh Black Churches because every hour the worshippers are worshipping is an hour they’re not stealing her Lexus, also, too.
In a Coulter-Malkin vileoff, Coulter manages to take the prize every time, and I can’t quite suss out how she does it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chris: Approximately one third of the officers in my FA battalion in Germany in the late 80s-early 90s were Democrats. We kept comparatively quiet about politics, but affiliations and sympathies were known. Don’t assume too much.
handsmile
While still shaking off the doldrums brought on by reading the New Yorker article from Kay’s “Dirty Laundry” thread, there’s no shortage of good, great and perplexing news today. [Thanks for this OT, Kay!]
Rebekah Brooks, former News International CEO and editor of News of the World and a predator just below Rupert and James in the Murdoch food chain, has been criminally charged with “perverting the course of justice” in the British phone-hacking investigations!
guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/15/rebekah-brooks-charged-perverting-course-justice
Greek president Papoulias has announced that new elections must be held after the final collapse of multi-party talks to establish a coalition government. This vote will likely occur in mid-June. More Eurozone instability! More ECB funds to be withheld from Greece to “coax” voters!
But for what will almost certainly be my favorite story of the day: “Italian mafia boss’s tomb opened in search for missing girl.”
Investigators on Monday opened the three-layered sarcophagus of a notorious Roman mafioso, searching for the remains of the teenage daughter of a Vatican banker. The mobster’s well-preserved body was found along with “dozens of boxes containing unidentified human bones.”
guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/14/italian-mafia-boss-tomb-exhumed
jl
@Chris:
” Guess which one of them’s the straight-ticket party-line teabagger, and which one’s more radical than I am ”
I cannot guess.
There ones I knew saw combat in the first gulf war. None of them were reactionary teabagger or reactionary GOP style conservative.
I think they could all be classified as ‘conservative’ in a vague old school cultural sort of way. They liked approaching things with a ‘plan your work, and work your plan’ and ‘don’t shirk your responsibilities’ attitude, and got pissed off with people and groups who did not act that way.
trollhattan
@handsmile:
Seems like a Very Big Deal because she was among the very elite, with everybody short of the queen on her speed dial (irony grudgingly intended). Maybe Willard can watch her Austrian warmbloods for her while she’s in the dock.
peach flavored shampoo
@Raven: nope, nope, and nope. I’m sure there are left-leaning Marines. I just have never personally met any of them.
jl
General Smedley Butler, USMC, twice medal of honor winner.
I think he has been mentioned in the BJ blog comments before.
” I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. ”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
That pretty much sums up my experience in every unit I was in…that partisan politics were basically not discussed among officers.
Regulations allow for military members to have a partisan bumper sticker on their POV, and allow for them to wear political buttons on civilian wear, but I never knew of an officer who would do so. One of my noncoms did both, and even though I was sympathetic toward his choice, I’d never do either.
patrick II
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yeah, I understand that. I am not saying that they vote for Obama because he’s black, Kerry got 96% of the black vote and he’s not black. I am saying that I am not surprised that where there is a larger black population, and that includes the army, the democratic candidate does better — and the democratic candidate ware talking about happens to be Obama.
waratah
Does this mean that the news media will not be able to say that the absentee military vote will go automatically for the Republicans?
jl
@waratah: It means that when the GOP tries to suppress the military vote, the media may well deem it to be a ‘non story’, or bury it using some other rationale.
waratah
@jl: Sigh. That will probably be the next voting they will try to suppress.
Villago Delenda Est
@waratah:
You’ll recall that the absentee military vote was much discussed in Florida in 2000.
What baffled me on this, is that I was a voting officer for my first unit in Germany. Voting officers were well aware of deadlines for getting absentee ballots in the mail, and I’d personally contact every soldier in my company about registering to vote and getting their absentee ballot in the mail well ahead of the deadline. I told them that I didn’t care who they voted for, but that they made their voice heard and did it within the rules for their state.
Someone fucked up (probably not the postal service) and a bunch of absentee ballots arrived after the deadline and should have been simply tossed out, probably because they weren’t sent in well before the mailing deadline. The Rethugs assumed that military votes would break their way, so they insisted that the rules be suspended.
The rules are in place for a reason, and the Rethugs thought that ignoring the rules would help them, so they demanded in their most shrill voices that the ballots be included. No. It does not work that way. There is more than enough time to get your absentee ballot in within the rules.
srv
@peach flavored shampoo:
I kinda doubt a lot of televangical AF zoomies are going to vote for the Cultist Rombot. They’re really stuck. AF Enlisted folks tend to be a bit more educated and urban than their grunt counterparts, whereas the Army tends more south.
Marines, to their credit, try very hard to reach every nut – hence they’ll fight the Pinks at Berkeley. The Army has given up on the liberal coasts.
Suffern ACE
Perhaps veterans more than other groups pay attention to things like benefits for veterans and soldiers pay, don’t like the talk they hear about privatizing the VA, freezing soldier pay to make up a phony deficit crisis, revising GI benefits downward, etc. Unlike the left, perhaps they associate those ideas with Ryan’s budget and haven’t walked the plank over the Petersen commission recommendations.
BGK
RE: the “purple owwie” band-aid image in the linked “Wonkette” piece:
My second-World-War-veteran, Purple-Heart-recipient (carried Nazi shrapnel in his shoulder for 60+ years), and deeply Democratic late father generally treated Republicans with the absurdity they deserved, along the lines of “what the HELL is wrong with these people.” He seldom got mad, and wasn’t a grudge holder.
He was the type who was most genuinely angry, and most scary, when he was quiet.
When he saw the purple owwie band-aids during the 2004 GOP convention, he got really quiet. I don’t think he ever found anything the Republicans had done so profoundly insulting.
Bruce S
These are veterans – which means they’ve had some time to step back. Also, frankly, given the fact that no President in modern history has done as much damage to our armed forces, thrust them into battle so carelessly or prosecuted a mission as incompetently (in both Afghanistan and Iraq) as George W. Bush, the real surprise is that the GOP is still able to keep the CinC who ordered the bin Laden mission’s lead over Willard among vets below double digits.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Sad thing is that she worked up from the working class (in Britain, much lower than middle class here) and set her sights on being the evil handmaiden to the elite. A little on her background,
If she ends up convicted and Rupert doesn’t come to her rescue somehow, she will find that her speed dial will keep coming up empty.
gogol's wife
@gaz:
Cary Grant is God. Make sure you get “This Is the Night” with Thelma Todd where he steps on her dress and rips it off. Precursor of Bringing Up Baby.
tones
Wonkette, Schmonkette.
If there is anyone who is really not wonkish , it is her.
Djur
@tones: “Wonkette” is not a person.