In light of my posting yesterday about how we ARE all cowards when dealing with race, I thought this graphics would help explain some things and make it a little more clear as to what Pelosi, Carter, Wright, Jones, and the others have been trying to say.

H/T to MISSOURAH.com for this great flow-chart explaining things

I have a bunch of news alerts that get sent to my email when certain topics are written about.  For example, “Blue October”, “Army”, “Silver Star”, “Medal of Honor”, “Distinguished Service Cross”, etc.  So, it was with interest that I clicked on a link in one of my “Silver Star” emails with the title, “Why are Democrats far more likely serve in the military than Republicans” written by, in a strange twist of irony, “Mr. Objective.”

As someone who still claims to be an independent, I couldn’t help looking further into this.

BLUF is that “Mr. Objective” wasn’t very objective at all.  Turns out he really just copied something published on the leftist website, www.awolbush.com and passed it off as his own.  As I dug deeper, it looks like the AwolBush site has been plagiarized by ALL the leftists.  I also found it highly ironic that the people writing these stories hadn’t served themselves!

So, what is the truth?  It’s somewhere in between.  It would be easy for me to hypothesize that the reason more Democrats than Republicans have served is because Democrats believe in sucking the teet of big government.  What better place to go after military service than back into government work?  But, one would have to assume that the inaccurate belief that more Dems than GOPers actually service in Congress.

If you check out the link to that story and start reading what the author is passing off as his own, you begin to immediately notice some glaring omissions.  For example, since the article is highlighting PROMINENT politicians, I couldn’t help but notice the exclusion of such political heavyweights as Representative Pelosi, Senator Reid, President Obama, and Vice President Joe Biden – to name just the top three.  Even more of note is the lashing that the author give VP Cheney for his “several deferrments” without so much as mentioning VP Biden’s FIVE and eventual Selective Service classification of “not available for service” due to a sudden asthma problem.

I also found it irksome that an article that highlights “prominent politicians” (let’s assume this is an original writing for the sake of argument) includes people I’ve never heard of:  Representative Tim Walz, Representative Phil Hare, Representative David Bonior, Representative Leonard Boswell, Former Representative “Pete” Peterson, and Rep. Mike Thompson to name a few.  They’ve even thrown a failed Democratic candidate for Governor in Floride into the list, Bill McBride.  There’s nothing “prominent” about any of these people.  Add this to the neglectful omissions of the aforementioned REAL prominent people and you see where I have issues with this misrepresentation.  Maybe I should report the site to flag@whitehouse.gov?

Now, I can’t speak for what is happening TODAY in the military.  I left military service in 2004, but when I was in almost everyone around me, officers and enlisted, considered themselves Republican.  Could it be that maybe the truth is just that more Democrats go into political office after leaving than Republicans and the author(s) are just misusing the “data?”
I thought it prudent to do a micro census to test my theory that this article is just wrong.  What better place to test it first than in the Senate Armed Services Committee?  Here’s what I found:

Carl Levin (D-MI) – Chairman of the Armed Services committee – DID NOT SERVE
Edward Kennedy (D-MA) Armed Services Committee – DID NOT SERVE
Robert Byrd (D-WV) member – DID NOT SERVE
Joe Lieberman (D/I – CT) member – DID NOT SERVE
Jack Reed (D-RI) member – VETERAN
Daniel Akaka (D-HI) member – VETERAN
Bill Nelson (D-FL) member – VETERAN
Evan Bayh (D-IN) member – DID NOT SERVE
Ben Nelson (D-NE) member – DID NOT SERVE
Jim Webb (D-VA) member – VETERAN
Claire McCaskill (D-MO) member – DID NOT SERVE
Mark Udall (D-CO) member – DID NOT SERVE
Kay Hagan (D-NC) member – DID NOT SERVE
Mark Begich (D-AK) member – DID NOT SERVE
Roland Burris (D-IL) member – DID NOT SERVE
John McCain (R-AZ) Ranking Member – VETERAN
James Inhofe (R-OK) member – VETERAN
Jeff Sessions (R-AL) member – VETERAN
Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) member – DID NOT SERVE
Lindsay Graham (R-SC) member – VETERAN
John Thune (R-SD) member – DID NOT SERVE
Roger Wicker (R-MS) member – VETERAN
Mel Martinez (R-FL) member – DID NOT SERVE
David Vitter (R-LA) member – DID NOT SERVE
Richard Burr (R-NC) member – DID NOT SERVE
Susan Collins (R-ME) member – DID NOT SERVE

Just using this as a measurement, 26% of Democrats are veterans while 45% of Republicans are.  Let’s look at the House side and pry into the House Armed Services Committee, shall we?  It’s a little closer, with 25% of Democrats on the committee that are veterans and 28% of Republicans.  Now, you’ll also notice that unlike our liberal friends, I don’t go around disparaging who did and did not serve in a combat zone. Many troops do not have the option of going into combat, but the mere act of volunteering and facing that possibility is good enough for me – even if it is not good enough for liberals.

We could probably go through this member by member and I’m willing to bet that the results would still either be close to equal or definitely on the Republican side.  Notice how the writer also mentions a bunch of “former” senators, representatives, etc!