Chickenhawk Congressman Smears Military Expert
Center for American Progress military expert Lawrence Korb testified before the House Armed Services Committee this morning, challenging escalation proponents to have the courage of their convictions and call for a draft if they would like the surge to continue indefinitely. One right-wing Ohio Congressman, Michael Turner, desperately tried to smear Korb during his question and answer period…. After humiliating himself once, Turner next turned his guns on Korb’s prepared written testimony. “I’ve not seen citations like this before the committee,” Turner said, noting that Korb referenced research sources in his statement. Korb said he provided the citations for the lawmakers as a reference point for more information. He noted that Gen. Jack Keane, a co-panelist, “did not have any footnotes. His were all opinions.”… After falling flat in his numerous stabs at Korb, Turner moved onto the next smear. Taking a comment made by Korb completely out of context, Turner asserted that you’ve told us “you’re not a military expert.”
There are few things I find more objectionable and offense in public service than a politician so wedded to their ideology that they’re willing to go to any length or sink to any depth in order to pursue their deluded, misguided agenda. Americans are dying in Iraq for no discernible reason, yet Mike Turner sees it as his right to use a Congressional hearing to smear a scholar whose views on the war he happens to disagree with. Then the coward tries to slink out of the hearing room before being called to account for his attempted character assassination.
If you want to support the war in Iraq, that’s your prerogative, but to use your bully pulpit to launch what amounts to character assassination is both offensive and mean-spirited. Turner has no argument to present; all he tried to do was to minimize Korb’s qualifications and scholarly bona fides in a thinly-veiled attempted to smear him. Turner’s actions are not only an embarrassment to Congress and to his district, they represent a complete and total disrespect of a man and a scholar who deserves better.
Turner is a classic “chickenhawk,” a term used to refer to strident war proponents who have never personally experienced war. Korb, on the other hand, is a Navy captain who served in Vietnam. He has served in the Pentagon, taught at the Naval War College and Coast Guard Academy, and has twice traveled to Iraq. He recently returned from a 10-day visit to Baghdad (see his dispatch here).
Wow…a DUMB@$$ AND a chickenhawk? Talk about being multi-talented, eh??
The sad thing is that Turner is hardly alone is his blind, partisan willingness to unquestioningly carry water for Our Glorious and Benevolent Leader © and his Excellent Adventure in Iraq. He’s merely one of the worst, most ignorant examples…and yet when is the Mainstream Media going to shine any light on cockroaches like Turner? Yeah, about the same time The Worst President EVER begins speaking in tongues during a State of the Union speech….
