Saturday, October 17, 2009

Reprehensible? Certainly. Malfeasance in Office? Probably.

Treasonous?  

I am beginning to think so.

You may have heard about the way the Senate Armed Services Committee is raiding the Defense Operations and Maintenance Budget for various and sundry pork barrel projects, many of which have absolutely  nothing whatsoever to do with National Defense.  (Original report here, Blackfive's Deebow weighs in here.)

Now, I could tolerate them buying an extra destroyer and cutting a C17, say, although if the Navy doesn't want a destroyer, it seems silly, and fiscally unwise.

Slashing the training budget to pay for a health care program, or Ted Kennedy University--when we are at war!!!--is treasonous.

And, it must be noted, this shameful activity is bipartisan--Republicans are as guilty as Democrats.

What really got my blood boiling, though, was this comment to the Blackfive piece linked to above:  Describing His Imperial Majesty Barack Hussein Obama's visit to Texas A&M, to speak of voluntarism to what is probably the American institute of higher learning with the highest rate of Military Service in the nation*, he flew in on Marine One with a helicopter gunship escort!

I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone felt a gunship escort was needed.

(Considering that this was, in fact, Texas A&M, I am confidant that this was indeed a gunship, and  not a case of mistaken identity.  The commenter also mentions a "decoy" bird for Marine One, which may have been a support aircraft.  The differences between a "slick" and a "hog"--obsolete terms, BTW--are pretty obvious...)

I guess the Tea Parties are having a greater effect than we realized...
***
*In terms of numbers, that is; while there are probably a few Aggies who do  not go on to active service, it is the only University I know of there the ROTC "Corps of Cadets" is actually nearly the size of a (small) Corps.  Active Duty rates for West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy all approach 100%, or course...
One of the great pastimes in the military is telling Aggie jokes; typically, Aggies themselves have the best collections.

1 comment:

NotClauswitz said...

I don't think Bush even did that when he went to Stanf(Obama)ord.