Anyone, and that includes myself during a 28-year Air Force career, who has not experienced combat first hand, is not in a good position to make military decisions about other people’s lives. It is too easy to carelessly play war games and not understand to the depth of your being what war does to the soul of everyone involved.

The most disgusting “players” are those who play with the scarred minds of veterans as happened when John Kerry who volunteered to serve, served admirably, had the guts to oppose the Vietnam war, and then was condemned with false stories that seriously damaged his campaign. Carl Rove and his political games gave us the disaster that is George W. Bush. Giuliani and Romney only believe in politics and power, not what is best for America and the world. True character has to be the prime reason to select our next president. They and all the GOP candidates don’t have it. I’m sorry I have to include John McCain because he sold his soul to the right wing this go round.

And even when you do experience combat, someone like Gen. Colin Powell who rose to the top because of politics, you can sell your soul to get there and then blame everyone but yourself after the Iraq disaster and claim that you knew the right thing to do but weren’t listened to. If he really knew how bad it would be, he would have stood tall like Gen. Shinseki and prevent the tragic results. Real combat leaders, who knew Powell well during his career, will tell you that he was a phony. Down with all phonies.

...in politics (it applies to almost anything), that goes a long way toward explaining the completely irrational enthusiasm all those Republicans have for such obvious chickenhawks.

In the Republican mind, apparently, all that matters is that "you're one of us." If you're "one of us" then all is forgiven, always and forever.

The old saying? "Giuliani and Romney may be scumbag chickenhawks who are lying and spinning as hard as they can...but they're OUR scumbag chickenhawks. Ergo, far more desirable than any Democrat, no matter how honest, competent, or qualified."

The entire business addressed in this essay reminds me of something I read before the 2004 election. An older couple, in the South, was asked why they were voting for Bush. They said, more or less "he's a good Christian, he shares my values." How many ways is that statement not only wrong, but deeply delusional? These people were ignoring--or were actually ignorant of--every single way in which Bush/Cheney has lied, cheated, murdered and stolen in the years before the election. None of that mattered. Only the delusion mattered.

The GOP--and most of its adherents--has been morally bankrupt as a political party for over 20 years. It just hasn't fallen over dead yet. Would that the Democrats would freakin' HELP it fall over a little faster.

Very well put, Retired Military Patriot. I wouldn't presume to to try to add to or amplify such an excellent post.

Just want to say that anyone whose intelligence isn't insulted by republican declarations of what they WOULD HAVE DONE to serve their country during the Viet Nam war has no intelligence to begin with. Keep voting republican, all you stupid-ass morons!

as in friggin "...Fries." And now I'm too voracious to say anything else, except "'Hell, *triple* Git-Mo if some of the folks I give coin to everyday can find some shelter there,' you vapid slut."

As both a Salon reader and a former Mormon missionary, I think it's important to point out that Mitt Romney did not get to choose where he would serve his LDS mission. He ended up in France, but he could just as easily have been sent to Guatemala instead. Or he could have been sent to Mexico, or Taiwan, or Connecticut, or any number of places outside or inside the United States where the LDS Church then had an organized mission. Prospective young LDS missionaries have no idea where they might be sent (Third World or First World, hot climate or cold, foreign or domestic, receptive or non-receptive), and they don't find out until they receive the official letter from Salt Lake extending them a call to serve in a certain mission. And then there's no opportunity to lobby for an alternate location -- one either accepts the call to serve in a certain mission, or doesn't go at all.

Though I'm not a Romney supporter, I don't question his sincerity in serving as a missionary. (I myself served as a missionary in the Philippines during the Marcos martial law era, several years after Romney did his stint in France.) For most young Mormons back then, it wasn't a matter of trying to avoid serving one's country by working for one's church. No, they were merely trying to serve God by temporarily giving up everything else in their lives -- college, work, romance, recreation, and, yes, serving one's country -- in sacrifice to what they considered a greater good. And for this service, they received no salaries or stipends from the Church; all their living expenses were paid by the missionaries themselves or their families.

The only place to which a prospective young Mormon missionary can be pretty sure he won't be sent, is whatever city and state was his home when he filled out his paperwork.

Just a relatively short note on the strange defence both Republican candidates-to-probably-be [and surely many others] chose: 'If I had been called ...'

Well, obviously some guys went hearing the call long before a draft letter came through their letter-box's slit, i.e. John Kerry, who chose not to wait but actually serve his country. You do not need to be a Democrat or sympathiser or a member of the John Kerry fan club to admire this.

this begs the question of when does your country call you, when they write you a letter? When MPs are taking you by your arms? When everything is over and you just have to use shovel and brush to clear the streets of rubble? Ah, even then you dodge it by not paying damages to those heroically clearing the rubble and trying to save lives without thinking of their own health ...