Deadeye Dirty Tricks Strike Again

Deadeye Dirty Tricks Strike Again

Rep. Musgrave using the troops as props.

… At the same time, the Bush administration
is going directly to the public with its war message. Raul Damas, associate
director of political affairs at the White House, has been on the phone directly
to Republican county chairmen to arrange local speeches by active duty military
personnel to talk about their experiences in Iraq. To some Republican members,
this unusual venture connotes a desire to go directly to the people to sell
the president's position without having to deal with members of Congress. …
Bob Novak

Where'd it go, the picture, that is? I went looking for it, but saw it was gone. That's why I use the picture you see above in this post. They
scrubbed this photo. Josh Marshall explains.

When Novak first raised the issue of Republicans using the military to go around Congress, all we could really do was wait to see
what would happen. Josh
Marshall has got the first episode in the Republican drama of Use Your Heroes,
and it goes against everything in the military
regulations.

4. POLICY

It is DoD policy to encourage members of the Armed
Forces (hereafter referred to as \”members\”) to carry out the obligations
of citizenship. While on active duty, however, members are prohibited from
engaging in certain political activities. The following DoD policy shall apply:

4.1.1. A member on active duty may:

4.1.1.1. Register, vote, and express his or her personal
opinion on political candidates and issues, but not as a representative of
the Armed Forces.

4.1.1.2. Make monetary contributions to a political
organization.

4.1.1.3. Attend partisan and nonpartisan political
meetings, rallies, or conventions as a spectator when not in uniform.

4.1.2. A member on active duty shall not:

4.1.2.1. Use his or her official authority or influence
for interfering with an election; affecting the course or outcome of an election;
soliciting votes for a particular candidate or issue; or requiring or soliciting
political contributions from others.

4.1.2.2. Be a candidate for, hold, or exercise the
functions of civil office except as authorized in paragraphs 4.2. and 4.3.,
below.

4.1.2.3. Participate in partisan political management,
campaigns, or conventions (unless attending a convention as a spectator when
not in uniform).

What Josh also points out, which is something I knew from others
and is important, is that soldiers can be court martialed for breaking any of
the DoD policies and military regs.

It's like the Republicans are casting some movie in which they
are the stars at every event, but to prove they've got game, they trot out soliders
IN UNIFORM to back up the president's policies. There is no way a soldier can
speak against the commander in chief. That's how it should be and that's why
they're not to appear in uniform at political events, especially representing
a political position.

The occasion was the Republicans' Lincoln Day dinner, which had
250 of the Bushies on hand. The key not speaker was U.S. Congressman Mike Pence
of Indiana. Bet he didn't mention that President
Bush has dropped 18 points since May 2005 in Indiana and is now at 37% approval in that
state.

There is no doubt this is serious. No political party owns our
military. But now Musgrave & the Republicans are actually nuking pictures that prove they're using our soldiers as political props.

What Musgrave and the Republicans are doing hurts us all, not to mention it puts the soldiers in danger of losing their careers dishonorably. However, undoubtedly, it hurts the Democratic Party most because
we are the minority right now, without any power to do anything about what Musgrave
coordinated at the Lincoln Day dinner. Frankly, I'm cynical enough to believe
that the Republicans are again using the military because their own are demoralized
by Bush's presidency, and nothing bucks up the political troops like the military.

The inference is clear: Republicans are the party of the U.S. military. I would like to introduce them to the Fighting Dems.

The U.S. military are not props to be used for political means
by the president and his party. Isn't it bad enough our military has been used and abused in Iraq, a large majority believing we should get out of the war within the next year? Yet another fact unlikely to have been mentioned during the propaganda fest for the president, which had Republicans using the U.S. military as props.