He didn’t lead them into an ambush. His platoon was part of a group trying to take a hill in Italy. To get to the hill, the troops had to cross a mined field that was being protected by a machine gun nest in a farmhouse. Troops were being slowed down by the minefield and decimated by the machine gun, so Dole was ordered to take out the machine gun. The platoon threw some grenades and missed, and then the machine gunners noticed them and turned the gun on the platoon. Dole’s runner had been hit, and he was dragging him to safety when he got hit, either by the machine gun or a shell fragment.
And, if it’s worth anything, I thought Dole was hysterical. One of the funniest men in Washington.
The way I heard about it, Dole’s humor was often very pointed and acerbic. It was not expected to play well with a broad electorate, so he turned it way down when running for office. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t cone up with something else to make him interesting to voters.
Translation: “I’m just a caveman. I fell on some ice and later got thawed out by some of your scientists. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic make me want to get out of my BMW.. and run off into the hills, or wherever.. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine, I wonder: “Did little demons get inside and type it?” I don’t know! My primitive mind can’t grasp these concepts.”
Are you ever going to provide any actual examples that might let us think there is actually a mind at work behind your screenname, or are you just going to keep faithfully parroting Fox talking points?
A lot of Dole’s humor was in his delivery, but I’m trying to think of some Dole jokes.
Some magazine did a story on him, and it had a picture of him and Elizabeth making the bed together. So an old man wrote him complaining that ever since the picture showed up, his wife would make him help make the bed.
Dole wrote back saying, “Brother, you don’t know the half of it. The only reason Elizabeth was there was because they were taking pictures.”
Not too long after the '96 election, President Clinton gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom. So, he was at the White House, and in his remarks, started the speech with, “I, Robert J. Dole . . .do solemnly swear. . . Sorry, wrong speech. But I had a dream. . .that I’d be here this week receiving something from the President. I thought it would be the door key.”
When he and Senator McGovern were cosponsoring a food stamp bill, one of the things that got caught up in the Senate was the matter of eligibility, and there were some Senators who wanted a longer and more detailed review to make sure that the people applying actually needed food stamps. Dole’s response to that was, “Are we going to include a burial allowance for the ones who starve?”
During the '88 campaign, Bush claimed that when Reagan needed help, he called on Bush, and Dole’s answer to that was, “Has he called collect?”
And his story about how he became a Republican. "Well I asked the local county clerk and he said, “Well, there’s twice as many Republicans in this town as Democrats. So I made a great philosophical decision right there on the spot.”
Yea, Mitt. First you look like Marie Antoinette. Second, what have you been doing the last four years? Creating jobs? Naw. Getting experience? The only thing you are experienced in is sucking your own dick. What a POS this guy is.
In response to the OP, I originally wanted to think that all this is confirmation bias and the recency effect, that every year we liberals point to the crop of GOP candidates and say its the worst ever just as Republicans like to point to the Democratic candidate and say he’s the most liberal candidate ever. Then I see in the polls that Santorum is frothing up the polls in Iowa, and how all the craziest nutjobs in the field of GOP candidates usually relegated to the fringe are getting their moment in the sun and their spot atop the polls.
Yes, these are definitely the worst ever group of Republicans in recent history.
Sorry, I thought it was common knowledge now. Gingrich is falling and Santorum somehow lubed his way up to 3rd place in the latest Iowa polls. Unfortunately for Huntsman, the caucus is less than a week away and it doesn’t look like he’ll be getting his turn for a bump.
Washington Post reports that Huntsman is blanketing NH with ads. The Republican Iowa caucus is not considered fertile ground for Huntsman, so he’s putting more effort into NH. After the NH primary he’ll either be a viable Not-Romney, or he’ll be toast. Or not - it’s a volitile campaign.
Eh. The Iowa caucus is kind of a stunt anyway. Very early and not a primary. Huntsman has probably been too focused on New Hampshire, but I don’t blame him for dismissing the Iowa caucus.
(The trick is to dismiss the Iowa caucus without appearing to dismiss the rural Midwest.)