The non partisan veterans group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) has ranked members of the House and Senate based on their votes on troop support issues. Like several other milbloggers, I was notified of this via email from Phil Carter, a founding member of the non partisan group who is now serving as the Obama campaign's Veterans Director.
They did that back in 2006, too. Tabulated scores for the Senate can be found below (click continue reading...)
IAVA doesn't actually reveal the political Party affiliation of the various Senators on their web page (because the group is non-partisan), so you have to search for Senators by name or State to discover whether yours is a good troop supporter like Harry Reid or a big phony like John McCain. Fortunately for us, in 2006 Bob Geiger took the time to compile the data above. He says:
...careful scrutiny by the Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) shows that by a ludicrous margin, it is Senate Democrats, not Republicans, who truly support active troops, Veterans and military families.
Good for Bob! Without his detective work we might never have known the truth!
Although he refrained from partisanly pointing out that all Senate Democrats were better than all Senate Republicans, Paul Rieckhoff, Executive Director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America first announced the 2006 results on the non partisan Huffington Post Blog:
This should be a wake-up call for every American who thinks Congress is doing all it can for our troops. I urge you to check your legislators' scores, and then demand accountability from anyone receiving less than an "A" grade.
Now, before you all start pestering Senator Obama and Biden about why they can't support the troops like Senator Reid does, I should add that Phil Carter has already explained in his email:
Senators Obama and Biden would have likely received higher scores from the IAVA report card, but for the fact they were absent for several of the votes during their campaign.
This year, ultra-right wing Republican McCain stooge Blackfive is having a tizzy:
I received an email from the head of Veterans for Obama (inside the Obama Campaign).
<...>
Now, if you go and look at IAVA's Founding Members page, you find Phil Carter (Veterans Director of Obama for America).
<...>
So what the @#$% is this?
How do I know he's an ultra right wing McCain stooge? Because he's
attacking the messenger, that's how. That's what Republicans do this year: attack, attack, attack. Matt even links to another ultra right wing Republican who thinks there's some sort of bullshit going on with the way IAVA scored this, and who
attempts to use so-called "facts" to make his point.
Good luck, fellas. The score card says all you need to know.
Update/disclaimer: I should point out that Phil, Matt, and I (along with C.J. Grisham) all sat on a panel at blogworld expo this year. As you can plainly see, both Phil and Matt are to my right, though obviously Phil and I are in the center.
Phil and I (and John 'the Armorer' Donovan) also did a brief interview with Stephen (Vodkapundit) Green for Pajamas TV, but if that's ever been made available online I'm not aware of it.
Update: I don't have time to do the whole Senate, but even though I'm non-partisan too I've checked out this year's IAVA "A-List" and "D-List" Senators. This year, all non-partisans will be glad to know 10 Republicans have joined the 45 Senate Democrats who scored an "A" from IVAW:
And here's the list of shame - those Senators who got a "D" (but that doesn't mean "Democrat") from IAVA this year:
Oddly enough, about the same time I heard from Phil on this, a comment was left on an unrelated post at Mudville:
This is completely off topic, but I received this by way of e-mail and it disturbs me greatly. I know that the left will destroy this country, but I have a hard time refuting what appears to be the fact that Republicans refuse full mandatory VA funding.
Any help on answering this challenge is appreciated.
http://www.veteranreportcard.org/reportcard.pdf With this added note: (If you're a veteran and don't like the message, I'm listening. If you didn't serve, well, you know...)
Well, I'm not a veteran, but you are, or will be.
Posted by Clairice at October 7, 2008 10:22 PM
Good to know that even non-veterans had immediately figured out that it was Republicans who don't support the troops. And obviously there's a big push to get that word out via blog comments and email.
*****
Lastly: the landmark veterans legislation passed this year was the New GI Bill - which, like nearly all such legislation, was tucked into a larger bill with tons of additional spending - because that's how congress likes to f#$& America (and afterwards, political parties can play bullshit games like IAVA is as described above). But veterans won, and it was a bill we in Mudville pushed hard for. (This post probably got some attention...) Further details here.
And oh, by the way...
All done!
