Tough Enough? Kerry, Clark, and military perception...

[wyldwolf]

Great story here on how republicans paint democrats as being weak on defense and how some liberals provide fuel for that charge.

For more than three decades, liberals have carried the reputation of being not just anti-war, but anti-military and anti-soldier. It's a reputation that conservatives, particularly right-wing pundits and Republican political planners, have happily reinforced. Each election season, they hammer the message home: Democrats are weak on defense issues, weak on foreign policy, weak on military planning.

But with two former military heroes fighting for the Democratic presidential nod, and with Democratic leaders in Congress taking daily shots at the Bush administration for its shoddy planning in Iraq, the reputation is being stretched very thin -- probably far too thin for Karl Rove's tastes.

Points from the article:

John Kerry suggested that the military's rank-and-file are natural Democrats:

"I came back here to a country where I saw a whole bunch of people who'd served in Vietnam discriminated against, a lot of them from Arizona, a lot of them from New Mexico, South California, because Latinos and African-Americans I saw were drafted and on the front lines in far greater numbers than my friends from Yale or other people."

More on how republicans are trying to smear John Kerry and Wesley Clark..

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2003/42/we_591_02a.html

[bicentennial_baby]

1. Interesting part here

"So, are such concerns enough to push Clark off the Democratic stage? Writing in the Miami Herald, Joy-Ann Reid says they aren't, and worries that Gonsalves and other progressives are exhibiting the very mindset Republicans accuse them of harboring "a reflexive suspicion of the military and a sense that because it is an instrument of war, the people in it are necessarily warmongers.""

[wyldwolf]

2. Read the article that that quote is taken from... Soldiers can be liberal

The candidacy of Gen. Wesley Clark for president has touched off a nasty debate inside the Democratic Party. Not the one over whether he's really a Democrat -- that's so absurd it's hardly worth debating. The debate I'm talking about is over whether a warrior should lead the party at all.

I say yes, and not just because the Democrats need credibility on national security issues in order to beat George W. Bush next year. To me, the U.S. military represents some of the best values of the party: advancement without advantage, patriotism, multilateralism, shared sacrifice and diversity.

In the military, integration thrives alongside meritocracy. When the University of Michigan's affirmative action program came under assault from the Bush administration, it was the armed forces that stepped forward to defend the idea of diversity, citing the vastly improved military that resulted when the forces sought to make their ranks reflect America.

During the run-up to the Iraq war, when the media slipped into a chilling, McCarthyite posture, it was military leaders and soldiers who spoke most eloquently about people's right to dissent.

As for Kosovo, which has become the cause of many who oppose Clark: I can live with a war to stop ongoing genocide. It's the ones to knock off tin-pot dictators for 20-year-old genocide, phony ties to Sept. 11 and phantom weapons of mass destruction that this progressive has a problem with.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/6892555.htm

[bryant69]

3. Sometimes it feels like we can't focus on two enemies at once

We have real enemies out in the world, people who want to do us and our countrymen harm. And, I would argue, we have an enemy in the White House who's failed policies are hurting America and stretching our resources thin. And President Bush is also fighting (in his own singularly wrongheaded way) against our enemies abroad.

But we can't let ourselves be trapped into a sort of enemy of my enemy way of thinking. The enemies of America do not distinguish between nice liberals who want to leave them alone and evil conservatives who want to blow them up.

At any rate that's why I like Kerry and Clark--neither one of them is going to let up the fight against our enemies--although both will probably fight a bit smarter.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[CWebster]

4. It is true

in the same vein that Dems are accused of being big spenders when the reality is it is the Republicans who run up the bills.

But here is the underlying reality - why should the Dems allow the Republicans to frame the argument? Why should the Dems pick up the gauntlet---imposed by Republican priorities?

The reality is that more minorities and poor serve in the military, but it should not be highlighted as desirable. What you are all missing is the question of whether we want a militarized society, whether that, as a nation, should be our chosen method of resolving conflict---as the world's policeman. It is a failing proposition, and it devours our resources and robs us of opportunities to improve the lot of our own citizens and promote our humanitarian values in the world. Why should we compete to be more like Republicans when the Republicans have failed?

We need to promote our own view--as an alternative to the Republican militarization of our Country. it is idiocy disguised as the illusion of strength.

[wyldwolf]

5. Just a thought...

Why should we compete to be more like Republicans when the Republicans have failed?

Having a strong military isn't being "more like republicans." Republicans have hijacked the military and the flag.

We should take them back.

[cosmicdot]

6. agree with what you say

I thought Reagan and Clinton helped to bury old myths ... certainly with Bunnypants the Great Field Commander and Warrior King, one's military experience says nothing about executing the duties of the Executive Branch. Empty suit; empty resume; empty person does not = 'mission accomplished'. He needed a trifecta ... a Pearl Harbor ...

It certainly would be a great legacy for our generation to have began the process of out-growing the destructive games of past centuries . IMO, it's the natural evolution of 'civilization'.

When Bunnypants put forth, unchallenged, the idea of 'first war of the 21st century' (Afghanistan) ... that inherently negative 'vision' should have been jumped on like a flea on a dog, and the argument's framing would have begun. What an depressing thought ... hardly a way to inspire generations to achieve great things. Despite my lobbying re that 'charge to keep', no one in politics has to this day challenged those words. They should be an albatross around the Republicans' necks.

Yet, there are those who continue to perpetuate the past for the own gain; and, play into the GOP's gambit. Indeed, the Democrats should be framing the argument, and that frame needs to be put out there, and repeated repeated repeated by all.

Instead of trying of playing the my military record is bigger than yours ... that record should used to help springboard the antithesis.

Put the Nation and world peace first.

[Bandit]

7. Living in the past

Guys were drafted in the sixties but now-a-days they volunteer so he is talking oranges and apples. If the draft were to be re-instated then I think we would see a national uproar, but because these young people volunteer for military service and Rush Limbaugh is on Armed Forces Radio three hours a day every day I don't see these people in service today as Democrats. Oh I'm sure there are a few that have a brain and realize that all is not what Conservatives say, but very few. Propaganda works people and unless we find a way to counter it we will fail.

[CWebster]

8. "States of War

"Appeasing the Armed Forces Has Become a Political Necessity for the American President


http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1014-09.htm

[dfong63]

9. if soldiers can be liberal, then we shouldn't have to nominate one

... to get the military vote.