Bill is abetting Hillary's makeover as a pro-military hawk. After a fund raiser in the military heavy Florida Panhandle, Bill claimed that Hillary has strong support among military voters and military leaders.
Former President Clinton says his wife has strong support among military voters and that the Democratic presidential candidate is up to the task of rebuilding the nation's military after years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Hillary is best suited to rebuild our military after years of war? Does he mean as opposed to rebuilding our military after his years of budget slashing and morale crippling policies?
I'm flabbergasted. Folks, I was in the Navy during most of the Clinton Administration. One of the factors that lead to my decision to retire was the state of the Navy after six years of his misuse and abuse of our Armed Forces. I was in the Navy during the Carter Administration. There were a lot of similarities. There were constant manpower reductions; some of them coming out of the blue. Suddenly our manpower end strength would be reduced and personnel reduction plans would follow. Early outs, early retirements, sudden strict adherence to personnel separation policies that forced separation of members who had been previously waived.And Clinton said his wife is the best candidate for that job.
Clinton says his wife's seat on the Senate Armed Services Committee has helped to build her rapport among military leaders.
"She enjoys a good reputation among many mainline military officers and military people in New York," he said.
The next president will have a major task of taking over a highly stressed Army and Marine Corps, he said.
Additionally, after six years our parts and spare parts situation had deteriorated to a state I hadn't seen since the Carter years and the earliest years of Reagan - as he was trying to build up the military - after the Carter neglect.
All of that was in the pursuit of balancing the budget. A budget that got balanced almost exclusively at the expense of the Department of Defense and national security.
In 1996, the summer Olympics were held in Atlanta, GA. Every squadron in the Fighter Wing was tasked to send two or three people to Atlanta for several weeks to perform a variety of duties in support of the Olympics. This was a tasking that was inflicted on many Navy units besides our Wing. I have never heard of the military being used in this role for any previous Olympics, nor any since. I chalk it up as just another example of Clinton's disdain for the military and his view point that they are just there for whatever he wanted to use them for.
If anyone thinks his wife has a different outlook on the military, I think they are sorely mistaken. Hillary has spent her time in the Senate remaking her image into a pro-military hawk. Her early and large lead over her democrat presidential rivals has allowed her to move to the center on foreign policy earlier than she expected. Make no mistake, it's an act. Hillary doesn't like the military and she'll stab them in the back as soon as it benefits her.
Hillary has to do this to try to get the military and veteran vote, and to get the vote of those Americans who believe in a strong military and foreign policy, while at the same time keeping the anti-war crowd happy by denigrating President Bush's Iraq war policy. Bill telling us how good she'll be on the military will not make it so. He's just making it up as he goes along - which is one of the things Bill does best, and the media eats it up.
From an email Theodore's World PC Free Zone blog received from an active duty member:
The Hildabeest came to Baghdad while I was there. She came to the Presidential Palace, now the US embassy, to have lunch with the troops, though none of them would sit with here and if she sat at their table, they finished their meal and promptly left. [...]One I hadn't heard until reading it at the same blog
That's one I would love to get a source for....and Chelsea used to tell the Marine Guards that her parents loathed them.
But, you don't have to believe me on all of this. Read Buzz Patterson's book, Dereliction of Duty. Buzz was a military aide for Clinton. One of the military aides who carries the nuclear football.
...how the President and the First Lady, and much of their staff, consistently treated members of the military with disrespect and disdain; and how Clinton groped a female Air Force enlisted member while aboard Air Force One, among other incidents large and small. A considerable portion of this slim book is devoted to the myriad ways in which President Clinton undermined the military, and hence the security, of the nation. [...]
My firm conviction is that democrats in general, and Bill and Hillary specifically, see the military as a necessary evil. It's highest and best use is a vehicle to direct pork to their districts (see John Murtha), and a social experimentation organization, and as Rush says, a Meals on Wheels outfit.
|