Harvard Law School announced that it will cut its budget 10% next year, and lay off some employees.
In a dramatic move, several of the law school's aging leftists, tired of writing about their commitment to egalitarianism and social justice and their loathing of Harvard's elitism, and eager to put their words into action and embarrass the school and their more selfish colleagues, offered to take voluntary unpaid sabbaticals next year so that their much more poorly paid comrades could retain their jobs. Professor Duncan Kennedy was quoted as saying, "I have long advocated that HLS's professors and janitors switch places from time to time, and I'm happy to take the place of a laid-off janitor for the year."
Actually, only the first sentence is true. The second part hasn't happened, at least not yet.
The subtanceless, partisan posts that Bernstein, Kopel, and Barnett keep pushing don't advance the readers' understanding of important issue one iota. They're just angry political rants.
In other words, libertarian hypocrisy is OK, leftist hypocrisy isn't.
A true leftist would argue that everyone's work should be treated as equally valuable and that salaries should be the same.
We don't need Duncan Kennedy to become a janitor, just get paid like one.
Actually, if you read the end of Kennedy's article, he actually argues that all law school employees should get paid the same.
For the others: a libertarian would only be a hypocrite if he advocated gov't financing of law schools because it benefited him, even though in principle he's against such financing. Otherwise, given the scope of government involvement in the economy, libertarians literally couldn't exist (couldn't use the roads, couldn't use gov't-regulated services, could buy food affected by gov't farm programs, couldn't go to colleges that get federal funding, etc).
Meanwhile, I haven't said anyone's a hypocrite, and, like an earlier commenter, I wouldn't actually be surprised if some faculty at HLS volunteered a pay cut to save jobs, as they did, e.g., at Brandeis, my alma mater.
Tuition to rise 3.5 percent at Harvard for 2009-10
http://www.news.harvard.edu/r/tuition.html
Harvard lost more than that with the market dip. Harvard's endowment is much more:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122832139322576023.html
It makes most sense for those who are most highl paid to take a cut. I don't know how salaries work at HLS, but at most colleges, it is the administrators who make the highest salaries. So, let the President and the provosts/deans/et alia start with cuts; if that is not sufficient, look to the next highest paid folks.
On my campus, we could save lots of money by cutting into the 'make it pretty' budget.
Oh, right, like it's hypocritical for leftists to advocate for higher taxes when they don't actually voluntarily pay extra to the Treasury each year.
Right. You didn't say the word "hypocrite." Instead, you merely implied that a certain group's actions belie their stated beliefs. Two completely different things.
Student activists have recently disputed the notion that the University’s core mission revolves around its educational mission—a central argument behind the administration’s justification for staff layoffs.
Laura M. Binger, a third year law student who said Jackson made that claim during the recent meeting with labor activists, expressed her concern over what she views as a distortion of Harvard’s mission.
What is Harvard's core mission?
And like keypusher64, I too wondered what Ms. Bing and those other student activists thought the school's core mission was or should be if not an educational one. Was that just sloppy writing, and it's not that those students think it should be other than educational, it's that they think the school is no doing a good job of it. What else would it be, preparing revolutionaries?
We don't actually have that many leftist (as distinct from liberal) profs here at HLS. Whether our leftist profs take voluntary pay cuts has got basically nothing to do with the merits of socialism, liberalism, libertarianism, conservatism, etc, as a political philosophy. For the two cents it's worth, I'm on the left, and were I a professor here (rather than a student), I'd happily take a pay cut to save a staff job. But that just means I'm a nice guy; it doesn't somehow validate my political views, any more than Duncan Kennedy's apparent failure to take a pay cut validates David Bernstein's opinion of him.
No, salaries are protected only to the extent that various work rules and contracts protect them. If the university needs to cap salaries or impose 'diets,' the tenured faculty are just as susceptible.
I don't know what 'unwanted faculty member' you have in mind. Of course, if an administration targeted an individual for salary reduction, there would be a legal stink.
And here I thought it was about coasting on someone else's dollar and getting shitfaced every other night. After which, I suppose, one is ready for the 'real world.'
Hypocrisy is the debt vice pays to virtue.
I write that only in the hope that Professor Volokh would divine its origin and ruminate on its possible meanings. I love those posts.
Medical school faculty have tenure, but my understanding is that it operates nothing like it does in colleges and other graduate schools. If a dean or department chair doesn't like the person's face, that person will eventually be gone, though they may have tenure. They won't see raises, they'll lose their secretary, they'll be shifted to a less desirable space, etc. (I know a tenured math professor that happened to, but his university position was in effect a part-time teaching job, he was not engaged in research, and his efforts were focused on textbook writing. So, he didn't protest.)
Are salaries and raises in law schools and other schools pretty much an across the board thing, at least within departments? Does everyone get the same % increase, when there are increases, according to there rank, senority, or other criteria? What do full professors at HLS get paid? What about salaries as you move down the food chain? How much opportunity is there for faculty to supplement their salaries with outside consulting? I have no notion of these things, but am mildly curious.
I hope that this is not the best defense that the government-employed libertarians on this blog can muster to their hypocrisy, because it's awfully weak. It may be correct that some reliance on government-funded benefits is unavoidable. But unless DB is suggesting that he's otherwise unemployable, I don't see how that observation justifies him taking advantage of a lifetime, taxpayer-funded position. How is DB's compromise of principle any different (or less voluntary) from the one he's criticizing in this post?
"leftist but elitist"
But?
Where have you been these last 40 years? Bernstein's point, and its is well taken, is that the Faux Leftism of our elites has worn so thin that it can be seen through in their every action, or lack thereof.
"Faux Leftism" - what would count as the real, non-faux thing for you? Taking students to cut sugar cane in Cuba?
Wow, some scary stories, there. Reminds me of the stories about John Silber moving members of the philosophy dept - perhaps the whole dept? - into basement offices somewhere at BU after he became President.
It is true that there are places - both very big universities and very, very small colleges, where a Prez or Dean - maybe even a Chair - can make life hell for someone with tenure. But, usually, there are at least some work rules in place and a personnel committee, so that the picked-on faculty member can make an effective complaint about the most egregious treatment. Docking someone's salary would be a serious problem in most undergraduate colleges and universities. (Not giving someone 'merit' pay is easy enough.)
This is all very intriguing to me, particularly as most people outside academe think tenured faculty are untouchable. Yet, from what you say, it depends entirely on the type of school.
These days, it seems to be to maximize the size of the endowment.
"'Faux Leftism'- what would count as the real, non-faux thing for you? Taking students to cut sugar cane in Cuba?"
This is actually on topic: one whose actions matches its words, i.e. the aspirations which Leftists claim to hold dear: equality, social justice, diversity, et. al.
Given the inequality between the ruling clique and the hoi polloi, the injustice that keeps dissidents jailed, and the one-party state, Cuba would be even worse than Harvard in exhibiting a real Leftism.
Actual, everyday life in these United States gets remarkably close to the Leftist ideal - certain closer than HLS or Cuba manage.
At the very least, this brings into question the depth of their genuine concern for the poor and underprivileged. One would almost suspect that they are less motivated by compassion and more by guilt at their own prosperity and/or by a fear that the unwashed rabble might rebel without their bread and circuses. Either explanation is more easily reconciled with this need to make sure that you neighbors are paying as much as you do. Real compassion by contrast doesn't care how much your neighbors are doing.
So, although you can accuse conservatives and libertarians of being equally callous to the plight of the poor, you cannot charge them with hypocrisy in this same sense, because they never argued that their policy preferences were guided by a holier-than-thou concern for the poor and downtrodden.
I do not understand the point of the original message or most of the responses, other than provoking a largely pointless exchange of insults, but after the immorality and failures of the Bush Jr. era it would require a huge lack of self-awareness for any conservative/Republican/right-leaning libertarian to expect to have the stronger hand in this type of exchange for a substantial number of years.
I do not expect those who lean right to begin every statement with "I apologize" (although it would be appropriate), but to begin a flame war makes about as much sense as former Vice President Cheney's recent observation that Republicans should resist any effort to moderate their recent God-guns-gays nuttiness.
When US troops were dispatched to Afghanistan after 9/11, was that an exercise in hypocrisy by conservative chickenhawks "send(ing) other people (and other people's children) [to] die in vain efforts to vindicate discredited ideology"? (You do know, don't you, that ours is an all-volunteer military, so the only ones who go are those who agreed to?) Do you view Clinton, hardly a conservative, though himself a draft-dodger (and hence "chickenhawk"?), a hypocrite for sending troops to Somalia and bombing Serbia? Or, where those endeavors that met your approval, while Afghanistan and Iraq have not?
But rather OT here, isn't it?
It is not hypocrisy, for example, if I think that the United States should go to war even though neither I myself nor any of my children are likely to be on the front lines. Nor, I might add, is it hypocrisy if I think that the police force ought to track down dangerous criminals, even though I do not plan to grab a .44 and set out with them.
But seriously, the word "chickenhawk" does not refer to any moral failing at all. It is just a term that means "you supported Bush and I hate you". Given that this is the complete and entire import of the word, you should not be surprised that when you use it, instead of slinking away in shame, people just roll their eyes at you.
You might wish to dispute his claim, but there is nothing obscure about it.
Bush and Cheney, however, are chickenhawks, readily distinguished from Mr. Rumsfeld. Chickenhawks aggressively promote unnecessary military action, yet leave the fighting and dying to others.
The military action in Afghanistan -- a legitimate response to the events of September 11, 2001 -- occupies an entirely different category from the preordained, ideologically driven, pretextually arranged, ineptly administered misadventure in Iraq.
I do not advocate deporting anyone from Israel. I believe Israel's current trajectory is unsustainable -- consequent mostly to the bad decisions associated with its original location several decades ago -- and the several costs of propping up Israel unacceptably severe for many people and nations. Offering Israelis the opportunity to find a secure, prosperous, enjoyable life in a West Virginia or west Texas strikes me as a better plan that attempting to maintaining the unstable current situation. If anyone has an even better proposal, I wish to hear it, because the current arrangement appears to be headed toward an desirable outcome.
The relevance is that the same point of hypocrisy tossed at liberals (because, apparently, some employees wish to share sacrifice with others) is at least as aptly aimed at conservatives (whose hypocrisy has much more severe consequences, unless acts that maim, kill, orphan and dislocate unnecessarily are to be tolerated so long as others are doing the suffering). Again, it strikes me as remarkable that conservatives would invite the comparison.
Now you say that Bush and Cheney aggressively promote unnecessary military action and then leave the fighting to others. Presumably you intend that by aggressively promoting unnecessary military action Bush and Cheney are presenting themselves as having some intentional state X involving this and that by leaving the fighting and dying to others, they are showing that they do not have this state. But what could X possibly be? Are they showing that they like unnecessary wars? That they like military action whether necessary or not? But these both miss even the first condition of being an admirable trait. And even if Bush and Cheney actually were trying to present themselves as being in favor of unnecessary wars, this would not be inconsistent with leaving the fighting and dieing to others.
But maybe you just mean that Bush and Cheney present themselves as being concerned about the good of the country, but that they aren't willing to risk their own lives in that area. If so, then this is still not inconsistent with their past actions, even putting the most negative possible spin on their actions as you will no doubt insist on.
And even if you could find some X satisfying the criteria that 1. it is admirable, 2. Bush and Cheney have presented themselves as having it, and 3. starting the war in Iraq was inconsistent with this X, you would still have to show that 2 and 3 were contemporaneous. If for example, Cheney took a family exception to his draft forty years ago and now is opposed to family exceptions, that would arguably be inconsistent (and arguably not) but Cheney could just say that he has changed his mind in the intervening years. Changing your mind is not hypocrisy.
But since you haven't even come up with a way that their words and actions are inconsistent, you haven't even gotten to the point of debating whether they have changed their minds over the last 40 years.
Cheney, too, supported the Vietnam war, at least so long as others were responsible for the dying and killing. He pursued deferment and deferment, perhaps even to the extent of having a child to avoid putting his spine where his mouth was. He pushed for the invasion of Iraq, framing it as essential to America's national security, yet no one in his family served. In fact, at least one of his daughters followed in his chickenhawk tracks.
They were chickenhawks decades ago, and their feathers haven't changed. They corroded by example, talking tough and sending others to die while they and their families engaged "other priorities." Their actions belie their asserted beliefs. They are hypocrites,
When one person pays summer camp tuition, the expense is not deductible and is not a charitable contribution. When his neighbor fund a church and in exchange can send a child to summer camp, the payment is deductible but strikes me as a fee for service instead of a charitable contribution.
When one person buys a Bruce Springsteen ticket, the cost is not deductible and the performance is not publicly subsidized. When another person buys a symphony performance, the cost is not deductible but the performance is publicly subsidized. When a third person puts money into the offering basket while a rock band plays at a church, the payment is deductible and the performance is subsidized. Bruce and his fans pay their own way, which is admirable. The society crowd lets others foot part of its high-end entertainment bill, which is objectionable. The church band and its patrons are socialists with respect to funding entertainment, which is immoral.
Some donations to churches fund legitimate charitable activity. Others fund day care, counseling, entertainment (movies, services, musical performances, summer camps, facility rental), education and many other services that do not seem to involve charity -- except, of course, for the government's charity in permitting such expenses to be deducted from income by some (but not all) when calculating taxes.
Literally, this is quite true, but seems a bit disingenuous. I have not found the word "hypocrite" at all in Mr. Bernsteins post. But it seems to be strongly implied in when the post explicitly points out that leftists who tire of writing about their commitment to egalitarianism do not volunteer for pay cuts.
For what it's worth, I'm usually unimpressed by accusations of hypocrisy. It seems to me that "leftism" or "libertarianism" or any other "-ism" is right or wrong regardless of whether their advocates are hypocrites. I suppose that hypocrisy can sometimes be relevant if it demonstrates the inherent difficulty of living up to whatever ideal the "ism" in question prescribes. Still, calling (or implying) people are hypocrites usually doesn't do it for me.
A charge of hypocrisy is not a logical move; it is a rhetorical device for countering another rhetorical device. Furthermore, an honest charge of hypocrisy is intended to make a debate more open and honest, and to fight the desire of the other side to obfuscate and deceive. Unfortunately, like other techniques intended to bring openness and honesty to a debate, a true charge of hypocrisy seems entirely wasted on the Left. They refuse to see it as anything more than another rhetorical trick, as much a trick as the original dishonesty, and they immediately jump to counter it with other rhetorical tricks often by making baseless and unrelated charges of hypocrisy against one of their political enemies. The effect of this is to change the argument into a shouting match and thereby cover over the evidence of their own dishonesty.
Of course, the word 'chickenhawk' has a third meaning prior to the other two. See here for pictures of a chickenhawk and the exact opposite -- I will leave it to others to judge whether the second picture adequately captures the quality of Arthur Kirkland's argumentation.
I presume no one has taken Professor Duncan up on this? Is it because no one seriously thinks that Professor Duncan or any other Professor for that matter, could meet minimum standards for janitorial work? I mean, really, what makes him think he is qualified for the job?
I wonder whether Arthur Kirkland knows that another meaning of 'chickenhawk' is an older man on the prowl for teenage boys to have sex with with. If he does, he is using the same cheap rhetorical trick as all the people who called the Tea Party protesters 'teabaggers', and ought to be ashamed of himself. If he doesn't, he ought to be ashamed of his ignorance. Either way, I hope he'll apologize and stop using the term.
I don't think anyone should be ashamed to be ignorant of vulgar slang.
neurodoc says:
Apparently not, particularly in cases where the faculty are members of the American Association of University Professors, and their contract has the standard contract terms, involving "financial exigency". For example, Wayne State. Google the words wsu aaup financial exigency for lots of discussion.
Ditto!
For the record, because I teach high school I already knew that 'teabagging' has an obscene meaning but hadn't felt any need to know what. Now I can't help knowing. (Thanks a lot, journalistic creeps.) I still don't know the obscene meaning of 'tossed salad', but I know it has one. If I ever need to know, Google will tell me in about 15 seconds.
Of course, lefties have been calling Bush supporters 'chickenhawks' for 7+ years now, and many of the latter have pointed out the second meaning. I have yet to see one of the former apologize or withdraw the imputation when called on it. We'll see if Arthur Kirkland is the first.
Some other worthwhile chickenhawk references are found here, here, here, and most especially here.
Even slight research reminds that Sen. Frank Lautenberg made a forceful presentation of chickenhawkery on the Senate floor a few years ago, and included the apt point that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney are particularly cowardly speciments of chickenhawk because, after strenuously dodging combat, they used surrogates to slur the military service of men such as John McCain and John Kerry for political purposes.
'tis Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, and those who regard these losers as heroes, who owe apology.
With all due respect, don't hold your breath, at least not waiting for an apology from me and, I suspect, many others.
Also, I would hardly, when it comes to military service, mention John McCain and John Kerry in the same breath.
1. Cheney's "strenuous" efforts to avoid combat involved filling out a form that said he was ineligible for the draft due to family commitments. Course leftist speculation has it that he deliberately had a child to avoid service, but, of course, that's nothing but course leftist speculation. Until someone can show that Cheney simultaneously supported the draft for other fathers of young families, the only thing that one can make of this is that Cheney seems to have been more committed to his young family than to personally fighting the communists. It is an absolutely shocking incidence of hypocrisy that people who supported illegal draft dodgers would pretend to have a problem with Cheney's legal deferment. I don't see how you can look at yourself in the mirror after something like that.
2. George Bush joined a unit that was, at the time he joined, scheduled to go to combat in Vietnam. Due to factors very much outside his control, the unit was never sent.
3. John Kerry joined a unit that, at the time he joined, was not scheduled to be involved in anything dangerous. Due to factors very much outside his control, he was later assigned to dangerous river-patrol duties for a term of 1 year, but he managed to get out of it in three months by acquiring three purple hearts and applying for a special leave on that basis. None of his injuries was serious, and two of them were reportedly not combat-related and due to his own carelessness with grenades, although the records are vague, and one can draw ones own conclusions about just how heroic Kerry could have been in the service of his country when his later actions showed contempt for his own country and fellow soldiers and sympathy for the enemy.
4. There has never been any evidence that George Bush was behind any of the revelations about the war record of John Kerry or any of the (few and widely ignored) rumors about John McCain.
5. Clinton actually did use quasi-legal means to avoid service in Vietnam, and people on his campaign really did malign the record of a real war veteran. And Clinton also sent other people into wars even though he never served himself, nor did his daughter. But you won't find any of the usual suspects calling Clinton a chickenhawk. That's because "chickenhawk" doesn't really mean any of those things. It really means "you support George Bush and I hate you" (or in one particular case it means "you are George Bush and I hate you").
There, Arthur, congratulations on your successful thread jacking. I'm not planning to respond to any of your subsequent lies about this, mostly because it's boring, but also because your dishonest debate tactics are so juvenile and transparent that I doubt it will be necessary.
Still, to continue my lessons on the meaning of "hypocrisy": unless you have called Clinton a chickenhawk, then you can get a clearer idea of what a hypocrite is by looking in the mirror.
Thank you. I was debating about whether or not to point out the facts in response to Mr. Kirkland's tired attacks, but you saved me the trouble and did it far better than I would have done.
I will add that Mr. Obama is sending ever more troops to Afghanistan and may very well have to deploy them somewhere else in the world during his term. Is he a chickenhawk and unworthy of deploying our troops? I don't recall his service. We could end this argument for all future generations by changing the law so that only veteran's could serve. I doubt you would like that idea, Mr. Kirkland.
President Obama's contribution to our military personnel was a quickly shot down attempt to dismantle the VA health system and to charge all active duty Military 10% of their medical bills. Hardly the strong support of our Military we could hope for, veteran or not. However, you have hijacked this thread and I won't comment on this anymore either.
I will remind you that Bush is no longer the President. You really should find someone else to hate. Thee are lots of Republicans out there. You should not have a problem. Can't help you with the need to hate.
I respect draft-dodgers more than I respect someone who cheerleads for war but engages in educational and family gymnastics, timed with exquisite convenience, to avoid combat, or pulls family strings to avoid combat, then maligns political opponents who served as part of a campaign to reach office, from which office he pimps the Project For A New American Century agenda at remarkable cost in blood.
I suppose it is possible to conclude from the record that John Kerry is a traitor, George W. Bush a success and hero, Dick Cheney an honorable and successful public official. I'd cap the number of Americans who could reach that conclusion, after eight years of the record established by George Bush and Dick Cheney, at between 15 and 20 percent.
The dead-enders, Mr. Rumsfeld would call them.
I am not surprised that he refuses to apologize for (inadvertently or otherwise) using the sexual slur, partly because he slyly repeats and extends it with his suggestion that those arguing with him have more "familiarity with certain aspects of homosexual conduct or culture". My familiarity with the term is purely theoretical and linguistic.
I've lost count of the number of lefties who have felt entitled to accuse me of being gay and therefore contemptible because they were losing arguments with me -- a very odd tactic for those who profess to find nothing wrong with being gay in the first place.
Maybe in an ideal world, people wouldn't engage in childish namecalling in political discourse on either side (I've seen the term "libtards" thrown around a few times here in the comments).
I'd call it vacuous whataboutery.
So choosing a nickname that also means 'phallus' means that one must also accept a nickname that means 'predatory pervert' and 'hypocritical coward'? Nice try, but totally unconvincing.
Of course, no one has yet offered any evidence that Bush and Cheney were cheerleaders for Viet Nam at the time. That seems to be a necessary prerequisite to calling them 'chickenhawks'. Did they go around cheering on the war at the time and encouraging others to enlist, or did they, like most Americans, have a sinking feeling that neither Johnson nor Nixon had a clue as to how to actually win it, and wonder what the point of continuing it was?
It would not be at all surprising if some who were not particularly eager to participate in a bloody and useless fiasco were much later willing to wage a war they thought needed to be won. I imagine many Brits who turned 18 in 1917 were not at all eager to be sent to fight in the trenches, since it had become clear by then that that war was a horrendously bloody fiasco. If such people later thought that fighting Hitler was a useful and even necessary job, were they therefore hypocrites, or were they just sensible people judging two very different wars by the same consistent standard?
berating fellow web rats
relevance is lost
Dr. Weevil,
Excellent point.
Those folks should be prepared to enjoy a richly deserved political irrelevance for a while, because relatively few of their countrymen can square those positions with the evidence already available, let alone that yet to be revealed.
They also are free to heed Dick Cheney's advice that the Republican Party should resist calls for moderation and instead cling to the hard-right edge of American politics.
In that circumstance, they should expect the period of irrelevance to be unusually long, and that the Republican Party that regains its footing will likely do so without them.
And for those who believe "chickenhawk" is not to be used to describe birds or the likes of Dick Cheney because of the third-listed meaning: How is a proper speaker to refer to the recently discarded junior senator from Pennsylvania, whose surname's second meaning is peculiarly foul (see "Savage Love") and third meaning (a dubious, effective and humorous Latin translation) also is vulgar?
In any case, most of us do not choose our surnames, so obscene second meanings have no moral bearing at all. Poor Arthur Kirkland would be better served by silence if the best he can do is warmed-over lies and hypocritical insults.
(a) if you search for "Santorum" (Arlen Specter has not been the junior Senator from Pennsylvania for decades, I suspect) in connection with "Dan Savage" I believe you will discover a definition that will surprise you as much as the third-listed definition of chickenhawk surprised me
(b) I believe it was Senator and Medal of Honor winner Bob Kerrey who was quoted as observing, "Santorum -- that's Latin for assh*le."
Sen. Kerrey was awarded the Medal of Honor for his service in Vietnam, and Vietnam is the first point of evidence with respect to Dick Cheney's decades of chickenhawkery. Cheney called Vietnam a "noble cause" (which apparently means "worth dying for so long as it isn't me" in his mind) but ducked combat as strenously, in his own way -- deferment after deferment, relying on school and wife and child as needed because he had "other priorities" whenever military service came into view -- as Bob Kerrey fought for his country.
A one-party system is good for no one, but unless Republicans free themselves of Cheney and Bush and Limbaugh and Hannity, one-party rule is likely to be with us for some time. I'd prefer to see Republicans reclaim a worthwhile position in our national debates sooner than later, but the price of admission is likely to be abandonment of the defense of Yoo, Cheney, Addington, Bush the second, the invasion of Iraq, beating the shackled to death in secret prisons, and the like. One would expect the self-preservation instinct, if nothing else, to resolve this problem.
You really should be ashamed of what you have written here.
By the way, having lost all his seniority, Specter is now arguably the junior senator from Pennsylvania.
With respect to "chickenhawk," it is a perfectly acceptable word, particularly in circumtances -- referring to a type of bird or to a particular pernicious breed of warmonger -- in which no reasonable observer would misunderstand the intended meaning. The term was used effectively on the Senate floor by Frank Lautenberg:
Sen. Lautenberg, a World War II veteran, labeled Dick Cheney "the lead chickenhawk cackling."
Most lefties, while opposing Bush's liberation of Iraq, claim to have supported his liberation of Afghanistan. Did you? If so, did you go down and enlist in October 2001? At the time, most people thought overthrowing the Taliban would take hundreds of thousands of troops and years of brutal fighting, with thousands of Americans dead, if it could be done at all. People remembered the Soviet experience well, and I was surprised as anyone that Kabul fell so quickly and easily. So, did you enlist in October 2001? If not, and if you support the overthrow of the Taliban, how are you not a 'chickenhawk' yourself? Obama is sending 20,000 more troops to Afghanistan. Will you be one of them? If not, why not? You voted for him, didn't you?
I would be more impressed by Frank Lautenberg's opinion if he hadn't used a compliant NJSC to get himself elected to a seat he was and is blatantly ineligible for. He's just another sleazy New Jersey pol, and his opinion of Cheney is irrelevant as well as crudely unSenatorial. Are you really impressed by the use of such rhetoric on the Senate floor?
Finally, since you were too lazy to follow the link the first time, here it is again. You will see that a chickenhawk is in fact a bird, and quite an impressive one.
As I understand the disparaging use of "chickenhawk," it is not intended to convey that only those who served are fit to opine regarding military matters, or that one can not advocate military action without concurrently enlisting.
Instead, it describes a subset of warmongers who cheer ardently for military action (especially in suspect circumstances, such as a push to invade the wrong country, as part of an ideological march that began long before the ostensible precipitate to military action occurred), claim to be exhibiting personal strength and courage by advocating that others die and be killed in dubious military actions, ascribe weakness and cowardice to those who do not share their current belligerence-from-afar, and worked to avoid military service.
With respect to Afghanistan, I did not support "war" or "liberation" with respect to Afghanistan. I supported identifying, pursuing and apprehending (or killing) those who attacked the United States -- in Afghanistan, Pakistan or anywhere else. Had the United States undertaken and accomplished that mission, and that mission alone, the entire world -- most prominently Iraqis and Americans -- would have been far better off.
Of course, his description of Cheney is a tendentious lie. When did Cheney (e.g.) "claim to be exhibiting personal strength and courage by advocating that others die and be killed in dubious military actions"?
Did the former vice president disclosure his sense of morality and reveal his sense of courage and sacrifice when, asked about the 4,000 Americans he and Mr. Bush sent to unnecessary deaths in Iraq, he responded: TThe president carries the biggest burden, obviously"?
Did he sneer at those who "don't have the stomach for the fight?"
Is Dick Cheney the tough guy who laughed off waterboarding as "a dunk in the water?"
The questions answer themselves.
Isn't it about time for release of that 100-page memorandum that contraverts the claim that torture prevented terrorism? I only hope its release is timed well, because 100 pages is a lot of material and it would be a shame were any of it to get overlooked consequent to release of legal analysis indicating that the torture-blessing lawyers should be subjected to professional discipline.
But it is worthwhile to review the record, to discourage recurrence of the failures and to discredit those who failed -- especially those whose big mouths are attached to small spines. Let's not forget this one from a former Commander in Chief:
Who would have guessed that a man's position on combat would switch from "do not volunteer" to "fantastic . . . exciting . . . romantic?" What regret such a man must feel, after such a transformation, for being to persuade his children, or his son-in-law, or anyone of enlistment age is his family to take advantage of the "fantastic, exciting, romantic" opportunity to serve.
If anyone genuinely continues to struggle with the concept of chickenhawkery, here is a useful primer.
When reading the Washington Post's observation that Dick Cheney has become the "Old Faithful of Nonsense," I was struck by the sense that some among the former vice president's dwindling group of supporters not only idolize him but indeed have taken flattery to the point of emulating him.
And who would imagine that Arthur Kirkland is unable to admit that he is, by his own definition, a chickenhawk himself. He seems to think that if he pretends not to notice the evidence, it will cease to exist, so I ask again: why has Arthur Kirkland not enlisted in the military or CIA to hunt down and kill bin Laden and his friends?
I linked to articles and transcripts, not disjointed snippets. You want context? Here's your hero, in detail:
Cheney's Five Draft Deferments During the
Vietnam Era Emerge as a Campaign Issue
By Katharine Q. Seelye
NY Times
May 1, 2004
WAASHINGTON -- It was 1959 when Dick Cheney, then a student at Yale University, turned 18 and became eligible for the draft.
Eventually, like 16 million other young men of that era, Mr. Cheney sought deferments. By the time he turned 26 in January 1967 and was no longer eligible for the draft, he had asked for and received five deferments, four because he was a student and one for being a new father.
Although President Richard M. Nixon stopped the draft in 1973 and the war itself ended 29 years ago on Friday, the issue of service remains a personally sensitive and politically potent touchstone in the biographies of many politicians from that era.
For much of Mr. Cheney's political career, his deferments have largely been a nonissue.
In an increasingly vituperative political campaign, Mr. Cheney this week again questioned the credentials of Senator John Kerry and his ability to be commander in chief. Mr. Kerry, who was decorated in Vietnam and has made his service there a central element of his campaign, fired back.
Putting Mr. Cheney's record in the spotlight, Mr. Kerry said that he "got every deferment in the world and decided he had better things to do."
Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, dismissed the criticism, saying that Mr. Kerry was delving into a subject that he had said he would not touch. Mr. Schmidt said that Mr. Kerry was trying to divert attention from what the spokesman said was Mr. Kerry's reversals on other topics.
While Mr. Cheney's deferment history was briefly an issue when George W. Bush picked him as his running mate in 2000, the Democrats did not focus on it after Al Gore, the Democratic presidential nominee, who had served in Vietnam, picked as his running mate Senator Joseph Lieberman, who also had not served.
The issue also received little attention during Mr. Cheney's Senate confirmation hearings as defense secretary in 1989 under the first President Bush, largely because the Armed Services Committee had just completed a bitter and protracted battle over the president's original choice, John G. Tower. Mr. Tower had faced questions about philandering, drinking and conflicts over defense contracts before he was rejected.
Senators of both parties were so eager to confirm Mr. Cheney quickly that they were relatively undemanding, not pressing him on the draft but merely asking him if he had anything to say about it.
He said he "never served" because of deferments to finish a college career that lasted six years rather than four, which he attributed to subpar academic performance and the fact that he had to work to pay for his education.
He added that he "would have obviously been happy to serve had I been called."
Away from the hearing room, he told the Washington Post that he had sought his deferments because "I had other priorities in the 60's than military service."
"I don't regret the decisions I made," he added. "I complied fully with all the requirements of the statutes, registered with the draft when I turned 18. Had I been drafted, I would have been happy to serve."
But others contend that Mr. Cheney appeared to go to some length to avoid the draft.
"Five deferments seems incredible to me," said David Curry, a professor at the University of Missouri in St. Louis who has written extensively about the draft, including a 1985 book, "Sunshine Patriots: Punishment and the Vietnam Offender."
"That's a lot of times for the draft board to say O.K.," Mr. Curry said.
In February 1962, when Mr. Cheney was classified as 1-A " available for service " he was doing poorly at Yale. But the military was taking only older men at that point, and like others who were in college at the time, Mr. Cheney seemed to have little concern about being drafted.
In June, he left Yale. After returning home to Casper, a small city in east-central Wyoming, he worked as a lineman for a power company.
At that point, the Vietnam War was still just a glimmer on the horizon. In 1962, only 82,060 men were inducted into the service, the fewest since 1949. Mr. Cheney was eligible for the draft but, as he said during his confirmation hearings in 1989, he was not called up because the Selective Service System was taking only older men.
But by 1963, ferment in Vietnam was rising. Mr. Cheney enrolled in Casper Community College in January 1963 " he turned 22 that month " and sought his first student deferment on March 20, according to records from the Selective Service System. After transferring to the University of Wyoming at Laramie, he sought his second student deferment on July 23, 1963.
On Aug. 7, 1964, Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, which allowed President Lyndon B. Johnson to use unlimited military force in Vietnam. The war escalated rapidly from there.
Just 22 days later, Mr. Cheney married his high school sweetheart, Lynne. He sought his third student deferment on Oct. 14, 1964.
In May 1965, Mr. Cheney graduated from college and his draft status changed to 1-A. But he was married, which offered him some protection.
In July, President Johnson announced that he was doubling the number of men drafted. The number of inductions soared, to 382,010 in 1966 from 230,991 in 1965 and 112,386 in 1964.
Mr. Cheney obtained his fourth deferment when he started graduate school at the University of Wyoming on Nov. 1, 1965.
On Oct. 6, 1965, the Selective Service lifted its ban against drafting married men who had no children. Nine months and two days later, Mr. Cheney's first daughter, Elizabeth, was born. On Jan. 19, 1966, when his wife was about 10 weeks pregnant, Mr. Cheney applied for 3-A status, the "hardship" exemption, which excluded men with children or dependent parents. It was granted.
In January 1967, Mr. Cheney turned 26 and was no longer eligible for the draft.
Of the 26.8 million men who were eligible for the draft between 1964 and 1973, only 2.2 million were drafted while 8.7 million joined voluntarily, according to "Chance and Circumstance: the Draft, the War, and the Vietnam Generation," a 1978 book by Lawrence M. Baskir and William A. Strauss. Mr. Cheney was among the vast majority of 16 million men " about 60 percent of those eligible " who avoided the draft by legal means.
The deferment process proved controversial, discriminating against men who were black or poor, and a lottery was introduced in 1969. President Nixon did away with student deferments in 1971 and the draft ended in 1973.
But the deferments left such a bitter after-effect that the Selective Service says on its Web site (www.sss.gov) that if a draft were reinstituted, it would be conducted much differently and there would be fewer excuses for people to get out of it.
At the time of his confirmation hearings as defense secretary, Mr. Cheney said that he had not taken any action either for or against the military during the Vietnam War. But, he told an interviewer at the time, "I think those who did in fact serve deserve to be honored for their service."
Of American involvement in Vietnam, he said: "Was it a noble cause? Yes, indeed, I think it was."
You have still offered no evidence that Cheney was beating the drums for war back in the 1960s, which is what it would take to prove him a hypocrite, as you so desperately wish to do. When did he say Viet Nam is "a noble cause"? From the NYT quotation, it appears to have been 1989, roughly a quarter-century later. Any idiot can see from the sequel -- specifically the millions murdered by the Communists after the U.S. abandoned its allies there -- that Viet Nam was in fact a noble cause, that it would have been far better if the U.S. and its allies, with all their faults, had won (assuming that was possible). At the time, we were told by many decent and supposedly intelligent people that we were on the wrong side, that the South Vietnamese government (and Lon Nol in Cambodia, too) was corrupt and incompetent (true), that the people there preferred Communism (arguable), and that they would be better off if we withdrew and let them get on with their lives in peace (shamefully false). Of course, it didn't happen that way, did it? Millions were murdered, and tens of millions were, and still are, enslaved. So, has there been a time in his life when Cheney supported sending others to fight in a "noble cause" while at the same time declining to do so himself? Or did he, as I have already suggested, possibly grow up and realize the nobility of the Viet Nam effort only later?
By the way, do you think Viet Nam was a "noble cause"? It's a simple question, and I'd appreciate a direct answer. I suspect you can't or won't give one.
The Cheney comparison is easy. I have never cherry-picked intelligence to cheerlead for preemptive military action, never sought one (let alone five) deferments based on exquisitely timed family and educational conduct, never claimed that unnecessary combat I dodged was a "noble cause," never claimed that those who disagreed with my warmongering were "cut and runners" or "lacked the stomach for the fight," never claimed that I (or the royal "we") showed courage by "taking the gloves off" and sending others to fight and die as part of a "stay the course" strategy, never advocated torture. (I also never used the phrases "greeted as liberators," "six months, tops," "the ties between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda," or any of the other serial inanities uttered by Mr. Cheney in his exztended "who can be more wrong about Iraq" contest with Bill Kristol, but those are just grace notes, as is my record of refraining from questioning the desire of decorated veterans to safeguard our nation.)
The United States' intervention in Vietnam, much like its intervention in Iran, Iraq, Central America, South America, Grenada and a half-dozen other locations, was not a noble cause. The American government's decisions and conduct involved too much immorality, flawed ideology, misery, and counterproductiveness to qualify as noble.
He also clearly implies that he has never "question[ed] the desire of decorated veterans to safeguard our nation", an inept choice of phrasing: technically, George W. Bush is a veteran, and I believe he received a minor decoration or two while serving. Has Arthur Kirkland never questioned Bush's desire to serve our nation? I think he has, repeatedly. Oops. If he'd only thought to write "combat veteran" he wouldn't look so stupid.
His last paragraph is particularly ignorant. He might want to look up what (e.g.) Grenada was like before and after the U.S. intervention before he denies that that was a noble cause. He might want to think about how the corrupt and incompetent rule of the South Vietnamese generals and Lon Nol in Cambodia compared to the openly genocidal regimes that replaced them. He might, . . . well, he might just want to grow a brain and a conscience, but I suppose it's too late for that.
"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators."
"I think it's not surprising that people make that connection [the connection Cheney suggested between Saddam Hussein and the September 11 attack")
"To suggest that we need several hundred thousand troops there after military operations cease, after the conflict ends, I don’t think is accurate [in response to a suggestion in 2003 that the United States might require substantial manpower in Iraq 'for several years' -- in 2003]"
"Well, you’re going to get into a debate here about—talking about several years, several hundred thousand troops for several years. I think that’s a non-starter. I don’t think we have any plan to do that, Tim. I don’t think it’s necessary to do that . . . And I still remain convinced that the judgment that we’ll need “several hundred thousand for several years” [after 2003] is not valid."
In response to a suggestion that the invasion of Iraq could generate a "long, costly and bloody battle with significant American casualties: "Well, you’re going to get into a debate here about—talking about several years, several hundred thousand troops for several years. I think that’s a non-starter. I don’t think we have any plan to do that, Tim. I don’t think it’s necessary to do that . . . And I still remain convinced that the judgment that we’ll need “several hundred thousand for several years” [after 2003] is not valid."
In response to a suggestion that the invasion of Iraq could generate a "long, costly and bloody battle with significant American casualties: "Well, I don’t think it’s unlikely [sic] to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators."
[2005]: "I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
[2006, asked whether he still believed the "last throes" assertion to be accurate]: "I do."
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us"
[2003] "what I think has been fairly significant success in terms of putting Iraq back together again, the price that we’ve had to pay is not out of line, and certainly wouldn’t lead me to suggest or think that the strategy is flawed or needs to be changed."
[March 16, 2003] "I think it'll go rather quickly . . . weeks rather than months"
[March 29, 2003] 'too early to dismiss Cheney's predictions about the conflict' -- Cheney spokeswoman
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