WWII Vet Declines Private Meeting with Obama on D-Day Anniversary

[Jedidiah]

I may be wrong, Z, but I think he was referring to the sliding of the union of independent states into the nationstate we seem to have now. Darth will set us straight though.

[Zymologist]

One of the few things that I've learned from Civics is that President Obama cannot, in fact, be criticized*. For all practical purposes, he is the perfect leader.

I've also learned that "scandal" means nothing anymore.



*Unless you're criticizing him for not being liberal enough.

[nickcopernicus]

lao tzu (and others):

In your mind, is it possible for us lowly conservatives to offer any criticism of the current administration at all, without it being "bashing" (or racist, bigoted, etc.)?

Nick:
I'd say it's possible, but not probable. The OP was obviously just more ODS on CP's part because AFAICT, there was no point to the OP. So some WWII veteran believes it's hard to respect President Obama as the Commander and Chief.....? So? Big freakin deal. A great deal of the “criticism” here, and elsewhere on the political right have to do with either false scandals, or other inane accusations (being a Muslim, a M. Brotherhood supporter, a communist, ect. Ect.)

[Juvenal]

Am I reading you wrong, or is your criticism directed more at the conservative's than at the Obama administration on these issues?

Dear Jim,

My criticism of "conservatives" is related to their inability to address these failures in the Obama administration's policies, being continually distracted by conspiracy theories and the next 50 votes to repeal the laws of arithmetic that dictate the House can't repeal ACA on its own. The caution quotes are related to the fact that these are, for the most part, criticisms of the Tea Party wing of conservatism.

As ever, Jesse

[Darth Executor]

There are any number of meaningful criticisms of administration policy open to conservatives. A while back, I posted to CP my list of issues with the Obama administration, including, as best I recall, failures regarding:

Translation: There are a number of liberal criticisms of administration policy open to conservatives.

Honesty, of course, would make you look insane. The liberal must obfuscate, if not outright lie in order to obtain and maintain power. That's what generally happens when you build a coalition on telling losers that they're really just winners who were denied their crown.

Climate change is real

A Manhattan Project for cheap energy would be very useful. The problem with that of course is that the energy industry is one of the few quasi-conservative industries left. It would not do to deny the true right one of the few funding sources they have left so the project must wait until the liberals have been crushed, their leaders executed and their ideals expelled from public discourse under penalty of severe beatings.

Health insurance saves lives

My plan of a tax on liberalism (at least until it's banned) should provide for a good compromise. Liberals get universal health insurance. In exchange, they get to pay for it. All of it.

Guantanamo is an embarrassment

I agree. Most of its inmates should have probably been executed.

American means immigrant

Kindergarten level argument (which is about as high as your intellect can go in non-autistic subjects). Mass immigration is usually destructive to both culture and economy. It's certainly destructive today. American doesn't mean anything and never really did, other than some odd drivel about freedumb. It succeeded because it wasn't full of the kind of people that ruined Mexico, who are now invited by people like Lao Tzu to ruin another country. The only worthwhile immigration reform is an encore of previous successful policy, the militarization of the Mexican border and the infliction of sanctions on Mexico for the damage they've done by attempting to offload many of their poor and/or criminals on someone else..

Full-time work should pay for basic food and shelter

As ever, Jesse

Here's a lesson in economics even a simpleton like you should understand: in a free trade, free immigration environment, your work (particularly if it's unskilled, though it will soon cover most labour) is worth as little as anyone in the world is willing to pay. Since you approve of millions of barbarians jumping over the border, you frequently won't even have to factor in transportation costs. The higher the minimum wage, the more likely that the increasingly anemic job market will shift even more work somewhere else, leaving the workers with a minimum wage of 0 + whatever they can scrounge up from welfare.

Mass immigration.
Living wages.

Pick one.

[JimL]

Dear Z,

Please note I do not consider conservatism a "low" position, excluding the Tea Party wing of course, assuming, perhaps without cause, that one considers the TP a conservative movement. I don't.

There are any number of meaningful criticisms of administration policy open to conservatives. A while back, I posted to CP my list of issues with the Obama administration, including, as best I recall, failures regarding:

Climate policy
ACA
Guantanamo
Immigration reform
Minimum wage revision

Well, I'm sure the first three were on there, but I can't fully vouch for the last two.

There's no real risk of "etc." in these given a few fairly conservative caveats:

Climate change is real
Health insurance saves lives
Guantanamo is an embarrassment
American means immigrant
Full-time work should pay for basic food and shelter

As ever, Jesse

Am I reading you wrong, or is your criticism directed more at the conservative's than at the Obama administration on these issues?

[Juvenal]

Jesse, it wasn't because of your comments about the article, but the way you responded to CP when he said his dad was a vet. You mocked him.

Dear John,

If that's the impression you were left with, I can only say it wasn't intended. But the author is responsible not merely for their intentions but for making their message clear to the intended audience, regardless, so that's my bad.

Certainly, I "accepted" his invitation to mock his dad, but that was just an attention-getter, much like CP's insertion of his dad into the conversation; I "took" the invitation, but I didn't follow through. The mockery, as OBP noted, was of the article, in the form of a parody.

Veteran status isn't sufficient endorsement for an article that was blatantly misleading in its association of a punch-line quote with a well-known veteran who clearly did not deliver that quote. Doing so opens the door to criticism.

As ever, Jesse

[Juvenal]

lao tzu (and others):

In your mind, is it possible for us lowly conservatives to offer any criticism of the current administration at all, without it being "bashing" (or racist, bigoted, etc.)?

Dear Z,

Please note I do not consider conservatism a "low" position, excluding the Tea Party wing of course, assuming, perhaps without cause, that one considers the TP a conservative movement. I don't.

There are any number of meaningful criticisms of administration policy open to conservatives. A while back, I posted to CP my list of issues with the Obama administration, including, as best I recall, failures regarding:

Climate policy
ACA
Guantanamo
Immigration reform
Minimum wage revision

Well, I'm sure the first three were on there, but I can't fully vouch for the last two.

There's no real risk of "etc." in these given a few fairly conservative caveats:

Climate change is real
Health insurance saves lives
Guantanamo is an embarrassment
American means immigrant
Full-time work should pay for basic food and shelter

As ever, Jesse

[Zymologist]

lao tzu (and others):

In your mind, is it possible for us lowly conservatives to offer any criticism of the current administration at all, without it being "bashing" (or racist, bigoted, etc.)?

[Cow Poke]

Apparently the point of my response to your OP went right over your head CP.

You spewed forth ignorance! Nothing new there.

[JimL]

I found this on the Daily Beast:

Source: Daily Beast

When the ceremony was over, I made my way through the arrays of marble crosses to the stage and to the man in the blue hat who had taken Obama’s hand.

His name, it turns out, is Irving Smolens, and he was only 19 when he took part in the Normandy landing. Afterward he spent much of his life as a buyer of women’s and children’s clothing in Massachusetts, leading a quiet, peaceful life with his family.

“What did you say to Obama?” I asked him.

“I thanked him for keeping us out of war,” said Smolens.

© Copyright Original Source

Why does it not surprise me that your little pea brain would come to this conclusion just because a nice old WWII Veteran exercised his right to express his own opinion.

From his LinkedIn page:

Source: Irving Smolens | LinkedIn

I am a D-day veteran of the Fourth Infantry Division and fought as an Artillery soldier against the Nazi Germans for eleven months in all five major campaigns in Western Europe. I was spared from having to invade Japan an probably being killed by the use of Aromic bombs. I have invested conservatively and wisely and have no financial problems.At the 60th Anniversary D-day observances in Normandy I was given the honor of leading the 21 gun salutes on both Utah and Omaha beaches. I am hoping to live at least another two years so that I will be able to attend the 70th Anniversary ceremonies. I hope that Obama will still be President so that I can meet him in Normandy.

© Copyright Original Source

([sic] as appropriate)

TWO THINGS, Jimmy ---
A) note that he credits the ATOM BOMB with saving him from having to invade Japan!
2) He is an Obama supporter (as is his right) who hoped he would live long enough to meet Obama at the 70th D-Day ceremony.

I'm glad he did.

Apparently the point of my response to your OP went right over your head CP.

[Epoetker]

If Brooks isn't a conservative, then neither is Buckley.

Agreed.

Losing Mum And Pup also makes clear the personal failings that made Buckley such a disaster for the American Conservative Movement and (particularly interesting to me) to the cause of patriotic immigration reform, which he encouraged some of us to champion in National Review before stabbing us in the back and handing the magazine over to hostile neoconservatives and GOP publicists.

By the 1980s, WFB was quite incapable of fulfilling the leadership role he still insisted upon. And it was the conservative movement, and America, that paid the truly cruel price. Like WFB himself, it turned out that the conservative movement was to have no “second act”, in Scott Fitzgerald`s famous phrase, after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. WFB simply did not have the energy or the courage to adapt to the next generation of issues. And he was not prepared to tolerate those who did.

As to the veterans thing ... *snort*

Yes, I am. And so was my dad, who also served in WWII, and also landed on the beach on D-Day.

And so was my grand-dad, who served in WWI. I was with him at the Palmer House in Chicago when he handed over the Last Man's Cup from Ambulance Company 129 to the National Archives.

Given how you've been previously snorting about how you could be printing anything, I'm going to cheekily say that you're probably making that up.

I could keep on going, back through the Revolutionary War, because, as it so happens, I'm an American veteran from at least as long a line of American veterans as anyone here, and almost certainly longer.

Oh please. You're probably a goat herder or a cartoonist.

Folks wanting to play the veteran's card to score cheap political tricks need to get over the fact that it's not a partisan brickbat to use for bashing the Commander in Chief.

And it sure the hell shouldn't be used for doing so on D-Day.

Unless you're the National Review.

*smirk*

Lao tzu, you're a liberal. A slave to the government Fund Feed, a true believer in what the New York Times says, a man who thinks the Word of the University is the Word of God, and a respecter of Persons before a respecter of Truth. Everything you know, you acquired secondhand. And I'm actually inclined to cut certain teachers some slack, but only if they're honest about what they do and why they do it. Or willing to point to who's forcing them to lie. You're under a kind-of-pseudonym, dude, no reason to play dumb for us TWeb folks.

All in all, a noble effort to protect yourself, but next time come back with an apology, an "I was drunk," or a "My Republican boyfriend logged in on my account by mistake."

[Cow Poke]

Vets are no different than the general population in that they all have their own opinions. Heres one for you: Irving Smolens, a veteran who fought at Normandy at the age of 19, stepped out from the crowd of veterans attending the D-Day events and took hold of Obamas hand and wouldn't let go until he said his peace. The conversation couldn't be heard over the crowd of course, so Smolens was tracked down by a reporter who asked him: "what did you say to Obama", Smolens reply was, "I thanked him for keeping us out of war."

I found this on the Daily Beast:

Source: Daily Beast

When the ceremony was over, I made my way through the arrays of marble crosses to the stage and to the man in the blue hat who had taken Obama’s hand.

His name, it turns out, is Irving Smolens, and he was only 19 when he took part in the Normandy landing. Afterward he spent much of his life as a buyer of women’s and children’s clothing in Massachusetts, leading a quiet, peaceful life with his family.

“What did you say to Obama?” I asked him.

“I thanked him for keeping us out of war,” said Smolens.

© Copyright Original Source

Well, I guess that says it all then, Obama as Commander and Chief, is beloved by all veterans!

Why does it not surprise me that your little pea brain would come to this conclusion just because a nice old WWII Veteran exercised his right to express his own opinion.

From his LinkedIn page:

Source: Irving Smolens | LinkedIn

I am a D-day veteran of the Fourth Infantry Division and fought as an Artillery soldier against the Nazi Germans for eleven months in all five major campaigns in Western Europe. I was spared from having to invade Japan an probably being killed by the use of Aromic bombs. I have invested conservatively and wisely and have no financial problems.At the 60th Anniversary D-day observances in Normandy I was given the honor of leading the 21 gun salutes on both Utah and Omaha beaches. I am hoping to live at least another two years so that I will be able to attend the 70th Anniversary ceremonies. I hope that Obama will still be President so that I can meet him in Normandy.

© Copyright Original Source

([sic] as appropriate)

TWO THINGS, Jimmy ---
A) note that he credits the ATOM BOMB with saving him from having to invade Japan!
2) He is an Obama supporter (as is his right) who hoped he would live long enough to meet Obama at the 70th D-Day ceremony.

I'm glad he did.

[Cow Poke]

Vets are no different than the general population in that they all have their own opinions. Heres one for you: Irving Smolens, a veteran who fought at Normandy at the age of 19, stepped out from the crowd of veterans attending the D-Day events and took hold of Obamas hand and wouldn't let go until he said his peace. The conversation couldn't be heard over the crowd of course, so Smolens was tracked down by a reporter who asked him: "what did you say to Obama", Smolens reply was, "I thanked him for keeping us out of war." Well, I guess that says it all then, Obama as Commander and Chief, is beloved by all veterans!

Rachel Madcow told you this?

[JimL]

The last line of this article, which I have bolded, sums up what my own Dad, also a WWII Vet, feels about Obama:

Source: National Review Online

Brix, France — Some of the veterans attending the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings here in France have fascinating stories.

Take George Ciampa, the most vibrant and spry 89-year-old I have ever met. In 1944, he landed in Normandy as a soldier assigned to the 84th Graves Registration Unit. “I spent the next few years going from France to Germany helping to bury people,” he told me. He was involved in setting up the temporary military cemeteries in Normandy that have now become stirring memorials to our fallen dead.

The experience transformed George, and he eventually became a filmmaker celebrating America’s heroes. His website tells the story of the four documentaries he has done on military valor. He is still making films today.

This week, George received a call from the White House, who said they knew he would be over in France during D-Day, and wondered if he would attend a private meeting the White House was arranging for veterans with President Obama.

George thought about it for awhile and concluded he just couldn’t. “I have so many issues with the president’s policies, including the most recent ones,” he told me ruefully. “I just couldn’t convince myself to do it.”

He is not alone. The recent Bergdahl prisoner swap in which five hardened Taliban terrorists were released from prison is rubbing a lot of the military veterans attending D-Day events the wrong way. “It’s not that we don’t want to respect the commander-in-chief,” one told me sadly. “It’s just that he makes it so hard to do so.”

© Copyright Original Source

Vets are no different than the general population in that they all have their own opinions. Heres one for you: Irving Smolens, a veteran who fought at Normandy at the age of 19, stepped out from the crowd of veterans attending the D-Day events and took hold of Obamas hand and wouldn't let go until he said his peace. The conversation couldn't be heard over the crowd of course, so Smolens was tracked down by a reporter who asked him: "what did you say to Obama", Smolens reply was, "I thanked him for keeping us out of war." Well, I guess that says it all then, Obama as Commander and Chief, is beloved by all veterans!