“Two-Bit Security Guard”

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), described by Wikipedia as “a fervent war supporter who has never served in the military”, recently visited the troops in Iraq. From the sounds of it though he was more concerned with his lush lodging at a Saddam palace because afterwards he gave a little talk about his “adventure”.

Do me a favor: If you skipped the Youtube vid above go back and pay special attention to the above clip from the :40 mark to the 1:09 mark. That “two-bit security guard” McHenry’s complaining about? Yeah, that’s the guy making sure his photo-op vacation goes smoothly.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that McHenry was half-right, that the news reports were wrong and this guard was, in fact, a guard and not a soldier. That still doesn’t excuse McHenry’s remarks, as Lt. Nixon over at VetVoice comments:

…he was probably not talking about a US soldier, but one of the Peruvian Triple Canopy sentries who guard various checkpoints in the IZ. The guys are private security, but they are very professional, only make about $1,000/month, and I would hardly call the people protecting me at night from trouble “two-bit”. I mean c’mon, it’s Iraq, did he think security was going to be lax?!?

Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report mentions a by now well known game in progressive circles: “Imagine If A Democrat Had Said This”:

Somehow, I have a hunch that if McHenry were a liberal Dem, and he called an American serviceman or servicewoman serving in Baghdad a “two-bit security guard,” it’d be quite a while until we heard the end of it.

[...]

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that if McHenry and Issa were Dems, Fox News would talk about nothing else for the foreseeable future.

He’s absolutely right. We are, after all, talking about the party that wore Purple Heart band-aids to mock Kerry in 2004. It doesn’t matter how much a flag-waving blowhard might scream that he’s “for the troops” when his actions say otherwise. You can find find McHenry’s primary challenger’s response at Carolina Politics Online. Here’s a sampling:

“The more McHenry talks, the more I like it,” said Sigmon, McHenry’s opponent in the May 6 Republican primary for Congress. “When he belittles others publicly and attempts to bolster his image through these kinds of exaggerations, voters can see his true character.”

“Besides his obvious contempt for a guard’s assigned duties, his belief that being a congressman makes him immune to the rules and his exaggerated claim of exposure to hostile fire, what really bothers me is the Iraq trip itself,” Sigmon added.

“According to McHenry’s own quotes in the media,” the challenger observed, “he only spent a few hours with the soldiers and, suddenly, he now understands their deep commitment to their mission.”

“I don’t have to spend thousands of taxpayer dollars traveling to Iraq to understand our troops’ sacrifice and commitment. I spent 21 years on active-duty; I know from personal experience the sacrifices my comrades-in-arms and their families make both at home and abroad.”

“This level of understanding cannot be acquired while staying in Saddam’s former palace within a fortified 10-square mile area during a two day ‘photo-op’ tour,” he said.

Far be it from me to stick my nose in a Republican primary but I’ve got to say: Sigmon’s spot on.

(editorial blessing by DrGail)

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