I've never heard anyone say they'd never vote for a politician who lied about his voting record. I've never heard anyone say they'd never vote for a politician who lied on his resume (although I get the O'Leary reference, it's a different situation). I've never heard anyone say they'd never vote for a politician who lied about his education. I've never heard anyone say they'd never vote for a politician who lied about a campaign promise. I have often heard people say they'd never vote for a politician who lied about military service. Why?
IMO, I think some people believe that those who serve in the military are heroes and therefore lying about one's heroism is reprehensible. I'm simplifying it to an extent (not everyone I'm referring to might use the specific word "hero") but I think it gets at the fundamental issue: some people have an emotional perception of what being in the military means and are thus outraged when someone fakes their way into that emotional perception.
In my view, lying about military experience is particularly galling because in many cases it's not another job, it's life or death. If someone lies about the role they played in consummating a deal, that's one thing. If someone lies about putting their life on the line it's quite another. IMO, it's so scummy because you're dishonoring those who were wounded or died serving their country. No one gets wounded or dies putting together a corporate merger.
Tis the season. Here's another, particularly amusing one. Although it is not about her own service, but her dads. barfo
Did her father contract that lung disease while fighting the Nazi regime in Germany? EDIT: Keep in mind, Delmar Berry "got himself killed in 'Nam, and didn't even know it..."
Fighting them as a civilian? It is actually the case that he died when she was 11, she was born in 44. That much is true. barfo
I'd be more inclined to vote for someone who was brave enough and intelligent enough to refuse military service, and honest enough to brag about it.
I'd rather not vote for anyone who is a proven liar. Lieing about military service is no different than any other kind of lie.
Conservative blogs want to out politicians who lie about their military experience. They want that information, until an important election is at stake. They contradict themselves when they gloat over Dan Rather's firing for outing President Bush's year-long absence from his National Guard meetings. Message boards on such blogs love to brag about getting him fired for that. No connection, but I think I'll talk about NBA owners. As we used to tell Okies on the Sonic board, Aubrey McClendon is a fraud who owned a big natural gas company entirely on debt (by short selling stock). Like many living on debt, he lost all his money in the current recession. He couldn't borrow money anymore to keep buying and selling the same shares in his gas company. Until he stopped being the company owner (because he couldn't afford to own any stock anymore), he had pretended to be rich by paying himself $100M per year from the company. But now that he can't fake ownership in the company anymore, his only wealth is his part-ownership of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Back to my first paragraph. The fraud Aubrey McClendon funded the Swift Boat Veterans group whose purpose was to disparage John Kerry's 3 Purple Hearts, claiming he had faked his injuries. Here is a whitewashed version of McClendon's story. It leaves out several things, like the bitter opposition in Michigan to his sudden appearance there to outbid an environmental group for a tract of land they were trying to protect. He was the moron who admitted the Okies never intended to keep the Thunder in Seattle, no matter what new stadium was built or new deal was made. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aubrey_McClendon
Blumenthal is still up over 20 percentage points over his Republican rival. At some point you have to say Connecticut gets what it deserves.
