Big Dogs Weblog

Did Obama Tell A Lie About Desire To Join Military?

Sep 7, 2008 Political

Barack Obama must need more sleep and after the week he has had he must need a cigarette. The Sainted One was on This Week with George Stephanopoulos and he made two mistakes. The first one dealt with the smears against candidates and he stated that the McCain campaign had not brought up “My Muslim faith”. I know what he meant but it was certainly a slip of the tongue he does not need because under Islam one may lie to further the religion. How many will see it this way? Fortunately for Obama, George was there to correct him like a good Democrat. Obama went on to say how McCain surrogates had been the ones and completely ignored the fact that Hillary and her peeps were the ones to spread this all over during the primary. That is what ticks me off the most about Obama’s answer.

There is one item that is more than likely an outright lie. Obama was asked if he had ever considered joining the military and he said he had. This little tidbit has NEVER been mentioned during the oh so long campaign and according to the news, Obama did not mention this in either of his books. One would think that might be a big deal. It is likely that Obama is lying about this in order to ingratiate himself with people who actually support the military. The second part of the lie comes in when he said he had to register for the Selective Service when he graduated from high school. There was no registration for the Selective Service when Obama graduated.

The draft and the Selective Service registration were ended by Republican presidents (Nixon and Ford respectively) and the new registration requirement was instituted by a Democrat, Jimmy Carter. Yes, Obama was required to register but he graduated in 1979 and the registration was reinstated in 1980. Therefore, Obama was not required to register when he graduated, as he claims in the interview. He was not required to register until a year later.

Obama claims that he decided against joining because we were not engaged in an actual conflict at that time (though we were in a standoff with Iran over hostages, depending when he thought about it in 1979). I guess we are supposed to believe that the guy who wants a defeat in Iraq was willing to join the service, had we been at war.

It is more likely that Obama realizes his life lacks in military service when one considers the other three candidates. Biden has a son in the Guard who will deploy next year, McCain served and has two sons in the service and Palin has a son in the military who is deploying this week. Obama is the odd person out having never served and having children who are too young to serve (and will never serve anyway).

I think this is a huge lie on the part of Obama. People can defend him if they want but the timeline of the draft registration coupled with the fact that he never mentioned this in his books or during this campaign tells me that it was recently concocted.

Source:
Telegraph UK

Neither the Telegraph or Stephanopoulos pointed out the inaccuracies.

UPDATE: It is possible that Obama made a mistake when he said he registered when he graduated from high school but I find it unlikely he would not know that he registered while in college. Besides, he specifically said when he graduated, not after and he made a big deal about being in Hawaii and all the military bases. Bottom line, if it were true that he considered joining he would have mentioned it in one of his books.

Tags: draft, lies, military service, Obama, selective service registration

Democrats Flip-Flop on Importance of Military Service

Jul 1, 2008 Political

It seems that the Democratic strategy is to minimize John McCain’s military service so as to put him on an even playing field with Barack Obama with regard to experience and ability to lead the country as well as the armed forces. Obama surrogates have been minimizing McCain’s service and repeating that it does not give him any experience needed to be president and the sole purpose is to make people think that McCain is no more qualified with regard to military matters. The interesting thing is that after 6 or 7 of his surrogates have beaten up on McCain (the latest being Wesley Clark) they have changed tact and now want McCain to stop discussing his military service (which McCain does very little of). Jim Webb, Democrat of Virginia put it this way:

“I think what we really need to work on over the next four, five months, and it goes back to the speech that Sen. Obama gave [Monday] and this little fight that I’ve been watching and that is, we need to make sure that we take politics out of service,” Webb said. “People don’t serve their country for political issues.”

He continued: “And John McCain’s my long-time friend, if that is one area that I would ask him to calm down on, it`s that, don’t be standing up and uttering your political views and implying that all the people in the military support them because they don’t, any more than when the Democrats have political issues during the Vietnam War. Let’s get the politics out of the military, take care of our military people, or have our political arguments in other areas.”

First of all, McCain does not go around discussing his military credentials because they are well known. I have never heard him state that people in the military agree with him because of his service though most members of the military are conservative and vote Republican.

Secondly, why is it that Webb and the others want McCain not to discuss his service? They want to take this issue off the table. The military angle is designed to make people believe that the military does not support McCain and that is why they told that flat out lie. The Democrats want to negate the military vote as much as possible and want to diminish any support McCain might get from the military.

The interesting thing about all this is that the very people who want McCain to tone down the military talk felt perfectly comfortable using their own service to advance their careers. Jim Webb touted his service all over when he was running for office and he made a big stink about his son being in the war zone. Contrast that with McCain who takes care not to mention his 3 sons serving in the military, one of whom is in combat. Webb had no issue when he ran a campaign ad that showed footage of Ronald Reagan praising him for his service as a Marine. Webb certainly didn’t have any objection when he used military women who endorsed him to quell woman who were upset with Webb’s article that stated women can’t fight. I guess it was OK to use his service for politics then because he is a Democrat.

When 2004 rolled around and John Kerry reported for duty and tried to trump his three months of service in Vietnam into an adventure filled, full blown, military career, these very people were behind him every step of the way. They allowed Kerry to embellish his record and to act as if he were a war hero while they ridiculed George Bush as a drunken, drugging, AWOL National Guardsman. John Kerry’s war experience was what we needed to lead this country and Democrats like Clark and Webb were pushing this executive responsibility as the salvation the country needed. Never once did any of them tell Kerry to tone it down or to keep his service out of the race. They actively pushed this aspect of Kerry’s life while ignoring the anti war protesting that he engaged in for about two years, or nearly eight times longer than he served in Vietnam. The Democrats wanted us to honor his service and vote for him because of it while ignoring the disgrace he brought to military members still fighting in Vietnam. All of this was perfectly OK because Kerry is a Democrat and they always have a different set of rules by which they play.

The only time military service does not matter is when Democrats are running candidates without any. When they run people who served we are told they are war heroes but when they run people with no service experience then we are told that military experience is not needed. Bill Clinton had no military service and gamed the system in order to dodge the draft. Not important, too much emphasis put on military experience so let’s move on, nothing to see here.

Now they are in the same boat. They have Barack Obama who has no military experience so now it is no longer important. If Obama had been in the service, he too would be reporting for duty and they would be trumpeting his great service as if he were Sun Tzu. Instead, they must marginalize John McCain’s service because Obama, like Clinton, did not serve. That is how they intend to level the playing field. They believe they were able to do it with Clinton and will try to do it again with Obama.

The big difference is that when Clinton ran we were not at war. The person who assumes the leadership of this country will inherit a war. It would be a good idea to have someone familiar with the concept running the show. The public knows it and the Democrats know it and that is the sole reason they are attacking McCain’s service and the value of it. They cannot compete in this arena and they know it.

We cannot allow them to denigrate McCain’s service for political expediency. His service and military experience is as good as Clark’s (despite what Clark thinks) and it is certainly far superior to that of John Kerry, both of whom ran for the office of president while emphasizing their military credentials.

This is one battle Senator Hopenchange cannot win so long as we do not allow the enemy to rewrite history, a feat at which Democrats are quite skilled.

Source:
The Hill

Tags: Democrats, jim webb, McCain, military service, Obama, protests, war, wesley clark

Senator Harkin is Anti Military Idiot

May 17, 2008 Military, Political

Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa is a bonehead who has insulted John McCain because McCain served in the military. According to Harkin, McCain’s service and the generations of service from his family has wired him differently and renders him unfit to serve as president. Imagine that, Harkin thinks military service makes one unfit for the Presidency. Remember when service was a good thing and when most of our presidents served or came from military families? Perhaps liberals look at this differently because it is getting harder and harder to find liberals who served and they know this.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s family background as the son and grandson of admirals has given him a worldview shaped by the military, “and he has a hard time thinking beyond that,” Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Ia., said Friday.

“I think he’s trapped in that,” Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa reporters. “Everything is looked at from his life experiences, from always having been in the military, and I think that can be pretty dangerous.”
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Harkin said that “it’s one thing to have been drafted and served, but another thing when you come from generations of military people and that’s just how you’re steeped, how you’ve learned, how you’ve grown up.” Des Moines Register

Harkin is absolutely, without a doubt a complete idiot. He believes that being in the military and that havng a family history of serving makes one unfit to be the president. I guess the idea of discipline, selfless service to the country, duty, honor, and integrity (all values taught in the military) are not what Harkin would call positive attributes. And why would he? Just look who he backs for president. Barack Obama.

Barack Obama lived the ideal liberal life. He was born to a black man and white woman. His father left when Obama was very young so he was left in a single parent household. Eventually he ended up being shipped off to his typical white grandmother. Obama benefitted from affirmative action and used the benefits provided by the government to attend law school and then he became a politician and has lived off the government. Barack Obama has lived a liberal life of handouts and socialism. He is not fit to be president. His life experiences are ingrained in him and he will try to run the country based on his liberal ideas of income redistribution.

It seems to me that Democrats are positioning themselves for the general election. They know that Obama has NO military experience whatsoever and his life shows he has little leadership experience. The left is trying to make this a non issue now by claiming it is McCain whose life experiences make him unfit to serve. There are a lot of problems with John McCain that might call into question his qualifications for the presidency but his military experience is not among them and Senator Harkin should be slapped around for suggesting such stupidity.

Think about it America. The Democrats want you to believe that military experience and a family history of service makes people unfit to be president. Barack Obama is supposed to be the next coming of JFK. As I recall Kennedy was in the Navy. His service failed to make him unfit to be president.

Only in the mind of liberal idiots could military experience disqualify a person from serving AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE ARMED FORCES.

And this is the kind of logic that wants to run this country. It might be a good idea for the liberals to come up with another line of attack. This whole military issue will backfire. Harkin has already insulted a lot of people who have served and whose families have a history of service and these insults will not go unnoticed.

Big Dog salute to GM Roper

Tags: harkin, insult to military, McCain, military service, Obama