http://www.vetvoice.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1773McCain's Elitist Response to Military Donor Story
by: Brandon Friedman
Fri Aug 15, 2008 at 17:36:07 PM EDT
When it came out yesterday that troops overseas were donating six times as much money to Obama as to McCain, the McCain campaign was quick to respond:
This campaign is confident that it will find significant support among active duty troops stationed both at home and abroad, but most of those troops are likely too busy doing the important work of defending this country to make political contributions. We'd also note that John McCain has been endorsed by more retired admirals and generals than Barack Obama has military donors.
First off, the second sentence isn't true: As noted in the donation analysis, Barack Obama received money from 859 military donors. By contrast, the McCain campaign--by its own admission--claims the moral (not monetary) support of only 241 retired flag officers.
But aside from the fact that the McCain campaign lied or is confused, does anyone catch a whiff of elitism here? Is support from within the ranks somehow more credible if it comes in the form of a general officer or an admiral? If so, that would be strange. . .since flag officers aren't the ones fighting the insurgencies in Iraq or Afghanistan.
This comes as no surprise--and it reinforces the message: It's clear that McCain values the opinions of flashier, high-ranking, inside-the-wire types over the views of the grunts, the medics, and the lieutenants who wade waist-deep through the muck and blood and shrapnel of insurgency, day in and day out. And while he may easily dismiss the actual combatants of these wars in a moment of political self-defense,
those same troops will not so easily forget his bellicosity, his foreign policy ignorance, and his general lack of respect for them when it comes time to vote in November.
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