Big Sky Cairn

On October 26, 1967, John McCain was shot down while flying over Vietnam. McCain parachuted into a lake, breaking both arms and a leg before he nearly drowned. After he was pulled from the water, a crowd attacked him, crushed his shoulder with a rifle butt, and bayoneted him. But his nightmare was just beginning.

McCain spent nearly six years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton. And despite being tortured and beaten on a regular basis, McCain turned down a 1968 offer of repatriation unless the North Vietnamese would release every American soldier taken in before him was released as well.

Due to the injuries that he received in service to his country, McCain has been rated 100% disabled by the Veterans Administration. So, when I read an article in the LA Times saying that McCain is not fit to be president because of injuries, I wanted to scream. Luckily, I have an electronic soapbox.

By any measure John McCain is a hero, who suffered unspeakable torture in service of his country. He then spent the next three decades in public service. And arguing that the injuries he sustained in Vietnam disqualify him from the presidency is abominable.

McCain is hardly the first person with disabilities to enter politics. Max Cleland and Tammy Duckworth are both 100% disabled, and they are both excellent public servants. Should their injuries make them ineligible to be president?

Franklin D. Roosevelt, the hero of the Democratic Party, was horribly disfigured and disabled after contracting polio but he served as President for 12 years. His disability didn’t get in the way of his accomplishments, and they certainly didn’t hinder his ability to bring his country out of the Great Depression and lead us to victory in WWII.

So, if these politician’s disabilities don’t hinder their ability to serve, why is McCain different? Because he’s a Republican? Because some moron at the L.A. Times who is neither a doctor nor a therapist says so?

Anyone who has ever volunteered on a statewide campaign can tell you, the trail is a grueling test of the candidate’s physical and emotional health. And in the last 25 years, McCain has breezed through three campaigns for the House of Representatives, three campaigns for the Senate and two presidential campaigns. Not to mention the travel and schedule he had to maintain in order to become one of the nation’s most heralded and powerful politicians.

If he can do all of that despite his injuries, I have no doubt that he is healthy and strong enough to serve as president.

But perhaps the most deplorable part of the LA Times article and the constant speculation about how McCain’s disability impacts his health is what it says to the thousands of young disabled veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Thank you for serving your country and putting yourself in danger to protect my freedom, but you are no longer qualified to be president. So, if you aspired to a life of public service in government, be advised that your aspirations will be limited to only certain offices. What kind of message is that to send to the brave men and women who have sacrificed more than many of us can imagine in the name of freedom?

McCain’s doctors say he is in great health. And his performance on the campaign trail over the past several months should silence the naysayers. But even if you think that he’s too old and frail to be president, don’t start insinuating that the brace men and women disabled in combat aren’t fit to hold public office. Because anyone who can survive the pain of his injuries, the grueling recovery therapies and the stigma of being disabled while rising to a position of prominence in the unkind world of politics is tougher and more qualified to be president than most of us will ever hope to be.

As a general rule, when an elected official introduces legislation, they almost never call it something bad. If they could get away with it, I’m sure every bill would be called the “Happiness, Puppies and Children Act.” Of course, the devil is always in the thousands of pages of actionable legislation behind the frou-frou title.

Now, Democrats have gotten really good at using bill nomenclature to set up Heisman Votes. Sometimes, they even trick themselves. And here are three examples from recent history.

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An honest question to those worried that proving citizenship and/or identity is too high a hurdle for voting.  What is the threshold for asking too much?  Is it acceptable to ask for proof of residence in the voting district?  What about asking someone for proof of their name?

If these are okay, what makes them different from asking for difficult-to-forge photo identification?  What’s the bright-line for the amount of effort we can require to vote?

If they’re not acceptable, are you okay with people voting multiple times at as many voting locations as they can drive themselves to in the course of an election day?

It seems to me, there are competing interests both in reducing burdens at the polls and ensuring that polls aren’t being abused.  Pressure from the first interest moves toward eliminating any requirement for voting while pressure from the second moves toward instituting stringent requirements.  Somewhere, there’s a balance between those interests and it’s probably safe to assume that where you think that convergence if interests lies is influenced by your political ideology.  I understand my perspective - but I’m wondering how far toward accessibility the Left wants to take us.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed their yearly resolution honoring mothers and Mother’s Day. A noble gesture meant to signify the love and appreciation that all Americans feel toward the women who bore us. But this year’s resolution is wrapped in a little bit of controversy and a whole lot of distortion.

It started when the Washington Post’s Dana Millbank published a story entitled “Republican’s Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies and Kittens.” This article was then picked up by two of Montana’s lefty bloggers who used it’s finer points to argue that Montana Representative Denny Rehberg didn’t vote to support mothers. But their argument leaves a lot to be desired.

First off, the bill honoring Mother’s Day was H. Res. 1113. According to the Library of Congress, Rehberg voted for H. Res. 1113. In fact, the resolution passed 412-0. Which would suggest that every Member who voted, supported the Mother’s Day resolution.

So, where did the Montana bloggers and Millbank get the idea that House Republicans didn’t support the resolution? Because after the vote was complete, Rep. Tiahrt (R-Kans.) moved for a “motion to reconsider.” A motion supported by 178 House Republicans. But despite the motion’s name, Rehberg’s support for the motion doesn’t undo his support for the Mother’s Day resolution.

According to the House Rules Committee’s website, a motion to reconsider:

Under Rule XVIII, the motion to reconsider is available to any Member who votes on the prevailing side of a question and who wishes to move reconsideration on the same or succeeding legislative day. This normally only occurs when Members (usually Minority party Members) determine there is a need to slow down the legislative process.

So, why would Millbank and the lefty bloggers insinuate that this motion showed the Republicans disdain for mothers and Mother’s Day? Because it makes Rehberg sound like the Big Bad Wolf. Nevermind the fact that the motion to reconsider doesn’t change the fact that H. Res. 1113 passed unanimously.

Rehberg is on the record supporting Mother’s Day, as are 411 of his House Colleagues. His vote for the motion to reconsider doesn’t change that. But why let a little thing like the facts get in the way of a catchy headline?

Defining the meaning of “is” is too 90’s. The fun new words are “progressive” and “non-partisan.” Hattip to Andy who found this gem describing Forward Montana;

Forward Montana, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to electing a new generation of progressive leaders…

I am not going to knock anything Matt Singer does at Forward Montana, but to say a self-described progressive group is nonpartisan is a very tenuous stretch of the word.

I understand why groups like Forward Montana describe themselves as progressive and not liberal. Liberal are seen by the average Joe as being hopelessly out of touch and elitist; thus the liberals had to find a new more palatable label…progressive. After all who can be against progress?

Still I am fine with this, a phrase about pigs and lipstick comes to mind. But to say that progressives are nonpartisan is a farce. After all I believe it was the champion of the Progressive movement, Senator Paul Wellstone, who stated progressives represent the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

*As an aside I am well aware of the historical context of the word progressive, but I would submit that modern progressives have very little in common with the legacy of early progressivism, namely Teddy Roosevelt.

In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. penned one of the most powerful modern soliloquies in his Letter from Birmingham Jail. The subject was injustice and civil disobedience as a response to injustice. Undoubtedly, one of the students that staged a sit-in at the University of Montana read a rah-rah version of this letter in their “Activism for Dummies” handbook.

At first glance, it seems like a perfect match. Martin Luther King talks about sit-ins to challenge injustices. It’s his entire justification for why he’s sitting in Birmingham Jail writing letters. He is even analytic enough to provide certain steps - goals set forth - for civic disobedience.

The purpose of our direct-action program is to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.

So far so good, right? For MLK, sit-ins were a means to an ends, in this case forcing negotiation with a dominant party that was refusing to come to the table. The sit-ins weren’t designed to get a press hit, they were designed to spark dialog.

But the similarities begin to fade with closer examination.

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I’ve discussed the orthodoxy of science - the fall-in or get out mentality that political advocacy has created in the scientific community. I’m not personally sold on Intelligent Design. I’m not a fan of Christian Apologetics. But the way science acts to protect the status quo is similar to our discussion on Global Climate Change.

Obviously, I haven’t seen the movie. I’ll probably end up getting the DVD on Netflix. Whether or not you agree with Intelligent Design doesn’t seem to matter. From what I’ve seen, the movie is less about the nuance of origins and more about the way the debate is waged.I was going to write more, but Montana Headlines beat me to the punch, and did it with much more eloquence than I would be able to muster.  Go read.

From the comments here at Big Sky Cairn comes this from Mark T:

Read slowly, my friend, s-l-o-w-l-y: Not all republicans are racists, but all racists are Republican.

Does the rest of Sinestra agree with Mark on this?  How does Dextra feel about this claim?  Is this dialog even worth having?

Here’s some unconstructive input I’ve recently learned from our friends on the left.

* The University of Colorado asserts that racism is about white privalege and therefore a racial minority cannot be racist.
* Mark T postulates that all right-thinking people are racist.

There’s this episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk defeats a robot computer machine called Nomad by feeding it a logical paradox. I wonder what will happen when the Left sees this…

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A dramatic reenactment of a blog conversation between Doug Craig and jhwygirl for your enjoyment. The subject has been changed to project the incoherent.

“Bob turned left.”

“All your evidence says is ‘Bob didn’t turn right.’”

“Well, not turning right is turning left.”

“Not really; I’d need to see evidence that Bob didn’t go straight.”

“I don’t have evidence. So we both win!“

Me: Huh?