Residual Forces

Via Daily Kos

Clarence Thomas — chickenhawk
by kos

Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 06:25:59 PM PDT

American Constitution Society:

[In the Hamdan decision,] Justice Thomas refers to Justice Stevens’ “unfamiliarity with the realities of warfare”; but Stevens served in the U.S. Navy from 1942 to 1945, during World War II. Thomas’s official bio, by contrast, contains no experience of military service.

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Tags: Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, John Paul Stevens (all tags)

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Chickenhawk? (25+ / 0-)
No service?  Enough said.

For people of deep faith like George W. Bush, beliefs are intoxicating, and facts are sobering. Sober up, America!

by slip kid no more on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 06:25:48 PM PDT
Hang on a second (5+ / 0-)
Just because someone did not serve does it automatically make it “Enough said.”  There were plenty of concientious objectors, guys who booked to Canada, guys who pulled the bottom third numbers in the draft and didn’t have to go, and guys who just managed to stay in school long enough to slide by.  I don’t consider the less of any of them for that.  Nor does it automatically make any of them a chickenhawk, nor does it make them unqualified to talk about war.

There’s plenty of other reasons why Clarance Thomas is an abomination of a SCOTUS justice (pity Thurgood Marshall trying to roll over in his grave), but to automatically say chickenhawk shut up about war-that just does not logically follow.  I don’t think either of my senators served but I don’t consider them chickenhawks and value their opinions on war and the military.

Now that said, Thomas is a jackass if he didn’t even realize Stevens was in the navy.  It says he’s an idiot, not that he’s a chickenhawk.

I think maybe there’s too much uof a rush to label someone a chickenhawk.  To me, the label means someone who talks tough and then runs from a fight, or doesn’t know how to fight, or knows his empty bluster will never be called out.

And also, “chickenhawk”,  I keep conjuring up the image of the Warner Brothers cartoon character, the tiny little chickenhawk, being misled by Foghorn Leghorn until the little chickenhawk kicks the crap out of him and drags him off at the end of the cartoon.  There’s got to be a better word.

by markt on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:21:43 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
I apply… (21+ / 0-)

….”Chickenhawk” only to people eager to send other people’s sons and daughters off to die for some useless reason, but were themselves unwilling to do so. I hold people like that in the greatest contempt.

by metal prophet on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:22:44 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
I agree with you there (2+ / 0-)
I remember Charlie Rangle on Sunday mornings before this whole thing got rolling calling out for a draft so rich politician kids would have to dodge service just like daddy did, or go in harms way just like the rest.  I really liked the way he made his case, and he wouldn’t back off.

by markt on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:35:17 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
Too bad (5+ / 0-)
the draft never works that way.  I was around for the last one. Bush went to Texas, my friends went to Vietnam.  One is gravely sick from Agent Orange exposure - 35 years later.

We do not rent rooms to Republicans.

by Mary Julia on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:45:44 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
Especially when (11+ / 0-)
Thomas has the fucking audacity to try and pimp slap Justice Stevens’ majority opinion by trying to play the military card.

You can see photos and read the journal from my recent trip to Afghanistan here.

by Sharon Jumper on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:52:56 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
Agreed (4+ / 0-)
His comment speaks more to his general lack of intelligence than it does to his chickenhawk tendencies.

I loved the little chickenhawk in the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons!

by wedgewood58 on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:26:09 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
it applies to both (4+ / 0-)
his lack of intelligence and his cowardice

by nwskinner on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 09:37:57 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
How many of those conscientious objectors… (9+ / 0-)
are now hawks for the Iraq war?  How many that fled to Canada are now gung-ho over the fighting in Iraq?  And how many of them have children who are now serving in Iraq?

Not serving is but a tiny portion of what it takes to be considered a chickenhawk.  It has to do with hypocrisy, being seemingly pro-war but refusing to actually do any of the dirty work, sending others’ children to fight and die in Iraq.

by BruinKid on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:28:59 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
I see your point (1+ / 0-)
Not many I know of are hawks now, but they all have a lot of respect for the kids who choose to serve now.  Kids.  It gives me chills.  How’s the old saying go?  The old guys start the fight and the young guys pay the price.

by markt on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:44:50 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
I loved the chicken-hawk. (0 / 0)
Poor, spunky little guy.
by Capn Guts on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:42:02 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
That chickenhawk… (0 / 0)
Always seemed to kick Fog Horn Leg Horn’s big ass

by deatheats on Fri Jun 30, 2006 at 07:49:30 AM PDT
[ Parent ]
Chickenhawk. (14+ / 0-)
By claiming Justice Stevens don’t know jack about “the realities of warfare”, Clarence the Clown is implying that he does…. that he knows how that shit really goes down.

B. freakin’ S.
As usual.

“We are upping our standards … so up yours.” (Pat Paulsen for President, 1988)

by PBen on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 07:46:08 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
he’s from the same school… (4+ / 0-)
of “war veterans” as Bill O.

-8.25, -6.26 “Joe Scarborough - not retarded. Tucker Carlson? Jury’s still out.” - Stephen Colbert

by snookybeh on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 08:36:41 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
The point was that Thomas accused (5+ / 0-)
Stevens of being “unfamiliar with the realities of warfare.”  Thomas, without any basis for his argument, made the pretense of having comparative expertise, when in fact he doesn’t.  In my lexicon, chickenhawks don’t need the personal history of a chicken to earn the label.  It’s when they start puffing themselves up rooster-like and pretending they have expertise where they don’t; and when they are quick to label anyone else as a chicken who does not advocate a military shoot-em-up policy; and particularly when this brings in the possibility of getting other people killed, that I would call them ‘chickenhawks.’

by Eikyu Saha on Thu Jun 29, 2006 at 08:17:53 PM PDT
[ Parent ]
It IS ‘enough said’ given the context (1+ / 0-)
NO ONE who hasn’t served (or been in an unprotected combat zone) is fit to make ANY declarations on the “realities of warfare”.  Thomas has never had anything to do with the military or with any civilian agency that is prone to actually see and experience, first hand, the realities of warfare.  No one who has not had direct experience with the realities of warfare can make any statement on the same except on purely theoretical or ideological grounds, neither of which have any real bearing on objective reality.

Thomas has NO knowledge or experience of the realities of warfare beyond those he acquired from John Wayne war movies.  He is a roach (not just because of this remark but because of his very nature).  He, like virtually ALL GOPers, has nothing to base his spoutings on patriotism or heroism or on the nature/validity/usefulness of ANY combat operation.  Enough said.

by Terminus Est on Fri Jun 30, 2006 at 06:01:21 AM PDT
[ Parent ]