Then why are they allowed to vote? Since when were they supposed to be nonpartisan?
They’re aupposed to follow legal orders. They’re not supposed to lose their political opinions.
Thank you for your candor. If you are a US citizen, that is embarrassing: Karl Rove was the Bush’s leading campaign adviser/architect. The administration broke longtime precedent by giving him extensive policy responsibilities as well. Typically, the political hacks and policy wonks are given separate briefs. I’m not bashing Bush: I’m just saying that this personnel decision raised eyebrows. Karl Rove resigned in last month.
If you are not a US citizen: no harm, no foul, no problem, in my view. Hey, I can name Brazil’s leader, (Lula?) but that is all.
I truly believe we have a case of miscommunication here.
That’s from the OP. If the flyers were posted on an individual soldier’s website, there would be no Washington Post article. The problem is that partisan and slanted material appears to have been distributed to soldiers in an official capacity. Typically, military liaisons receive clippings from the Congressional Quarterly.
From the WAPO article: “The sheets of paper seemed to be everywhere the lawmakers went in the Green Zone, distributed to Iraqi officials, U.S. officials and uniformed military of no particular rank.”
Emphasis added. Again, this seems to be distributed via some sort of official channel, and not the product of a lone soldier’s R&R.
But I can see how the OP may have been misread: BG said little.
Or someone in the DoD or the Administration.
Seems like a bit of an assumption on your part, but anyway I misunderstood your orignal post if that’s what you really meant.
It is an assumption based on this Administration’s track record to date. A presidential administration is not expected to be nonpartisan or apolitical, of course, but it is expected to keep its politicking within certain boundaries, as Nixon learned. And directing partisan propaganda to troops in the field is way over the line.
As is this.
And this.
And this.
And this.
And this.
It just goes on and on . . .
I would call it, “An evaluation based upon the available evidence”.
Remember these flyers were distributed to US soldiers and Iraqi officials and US officials. This is not an amateurish operation.
Furthermore, the military has not denied distributing these opposition biographies of Congressional leaders in an official capacity.
Then there’s the history of rigmarole that BrainGlutton has linked to.
There’s no reason to believe that this is the product of a bored serviceman with a computer printer.
I still don’t really see the problem with the bios, but of course they were made by either someone at Central Command or the US Embassy.
The only nitpicky type of criticism I can manage is that the section titled “Last Vote on Iraq” really should have been titled “Key Votes on Iraq” or “Position on US Involvement in Iraq” or something like that. Obviously the point of the section was to illuminate the reader about the votes of the congressman on withdrawing from Iraq, so Rep. Tauscher was right in a very narrow sense, but let’s face it: the question of withdrawal is obviously what the congressmen are going over there to be informed about, it’s the issue that Iraqi politicians who are meeting with them are concerned about, and I don’t see how relating the congressmens’ position on that is in any way a cheap shot, or a smear, or anything underhanded.
A guy like Moran, who has been against the war from the very beginning, ought not to complain that he’s been “slimed” or whatever because people are told about his position on the war. I say to the congressmen again, grow a spine and don’t shrink from your position, because you’re right.
Confirmed. See http://thinkprogress.org/2007/09/04/petraeuss-office-responds-to-misleading-bios-of-lawmakers/
I’m going to give our soldiers some credit here and assume that a good portion of them that received those flyers thought them less useful than the paper printed on them. There are some for which the flyers might confirm their beliefs, but for the most part, I reckon they just treat them like any other piece of paper that doesn’t directly concern them. They’ve got better things to do.
But shame on anyone who pulls political BS with our troops (both sides). They (the troops) need to be focused on their jobs and getting back safe…this type of stuff does no good.
I thought this thread was going to be about Democats having poor voting records on environmental issues. Boy was I wrong.