{"id":4527,"date":"2010-12-03T09:50:24","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T14:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4527"},"modified":"2010-12-03T09:50:24","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T14:50:24","slug":"curmudgeon-in-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/12\/03\/curmudgeon-in-chief\/","title":{"rendered":"curmudgeon in chief…"},"content":{"rendered":"
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McCain, others say military gays study is biased<\/a>
The Associated Press<\/strong>
By ANNE FLAHERTY
December 3, 2010<\/div>\n

WASHINGTON — A doubting John McCain led Republican opposition Thursday to letting gays serve openly in the military, sternly clashing with the Pentagon’s top leaders and warning that troops would quit in droves if Congress repealed the "don’t ask, don’t tell" law. In tense exchanges with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, McCain and other Republicans dismissed a Pentagon study on gays as biased and said objections by combat troops were being ignored. <\/p>\n

Gates and Mullen defended the study, but McCain blamed politics for pushing the matter forward during wartime. He predicted that Marines and soldiers assigned combat duties, in particular, would abandon their service if they had to serve along with gays open about their sexual orientation. <\/p>\n

McCain, R-Ariz., also said the study was flawed because it asked troops what impact repeal would have, instead of whether they wanted the law repealed at all. The study found that two-thirds of troops predicted few problems, but those who did were mostly assigned to combat roles. "We send these young people into combat," said McCain. "We think they’re mature enough to fight and die. I think they’re mature enough to make a judgment on who they want to serve with and the impact on their battle effectiveness"… <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
I wonder what’s wrong with John McCain? We sort of thought he was the laudable kind of Maverick – someone who thought for himself, someone who could think outside of the box. I guess we were just deluded. He turns out to be something else – a curmudgeon? an asshole? a company man? It’s hard to put one’s finger on it exactly. Whatever he is, he’s sure not presidential material.<\/div>\n

I’m sure of one thing, he’s a bully – someone who leads with anger, intimidation, contempt. There’s a video with this story in which he acts like a complete jerk, almost inciting soldiers to quit over DADT if it’s repealed. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that today’s young people have grown up in a different world from his. The white, heterosexual guys aren’t necessarily automatically on top of the heap any more, and seem to be doing fine with that. He’s preaching an anachronistic sermon, and I’m not actually even sure he believes it. He may just be doing Mitch McConnell’s dirty work in opposing anything that Obama supports – a sore loser with a chip on his shoulder fronting Republican obstructionalism.<\/p>\n

Some time in the past, I thought of him as a Republican with good sense. That was a long time ago. I think I was wrong…<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McCain, others say military gays study is biased The Associated Press By ANNE FLAHERTY December 3, 2010 WASHINGTON — A doubting John McCain led Republican opposition Thursday to letting gays serve openly in the military, sternly clashing with the Pentagon’s top leaders and warning that troops would quit in droves if Congress repealed the "don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}