Living Up To His Name Again

So John Boehner thinks Repug senators who “have begun to favor a change of course in Iraq are ‘wimps’,” huh?

That means that Sen. Richard Lugar, who served in the Navy for three years, is a wimp? Sens. Chuck Hagel and John Warner, both of whom served in the Marines, are wimps also? And I guess that would also include Sen. John McCain (and I really don’t need to recount his story, do I?).

I have disagreements with all of these people (particularly McCain and his disappearing presidential candidacy), but there is no denying that they put themselves in harm’s way to protect us at some point in their lives.

And what did Boehner do? As mcjoan notes, Boehner was discharged from basic training after eight weeks for medical reasons. Also (as noted here)…

…Boehner had no issue with the favoring of "mandatory surrender dates" before he was against him as he voted multiple times to speed up the timetable to bring the troops home from Somalia under President Clinton (House Roll Call Vote #179, 5/22/93 and House Roll Call Vote #555, 11/9/93) and voted against funding the war effort there. (House Roll Call Vote #188, 5/26/93).

In other words the House Minority Leader, the Congressional leader of the Republican Party voted to force the President of the United States, the Commander-in-Chief, to withdraw troops from active combat earlier than the President thought was necessary on more than one occasion, and actually voted not to fund combat operations. ALL IN A MILITARY OPERATION WHERE ONLY 43 U.S. SERVICE PERSONNEL WERE KILLED IN COMBAT.

Any loss of life is significant, but it’s plain to see that nothing but rank, putrid political posturing is behind Boehner’s antics. And though the numbers offered here are still nothing to brag about, I think it shows that the voters don’t have any regrets about handing over Congress to the Democrats last November.