Chickenhawk – n. – A person enthusiastic about war, provided someone else fights it; particularly when that person’s enthusiasm is undimmed by personal experience with war; most emphatically that person’s lack of came in spite of ample opportunity in that person’s youth.
It’s late and I’m angry and still hurting from a bad fall couple of days ago that didn’t just hurt my leg but resulted in broken bones (toes) in my foot so deep thought is beyond me right now. However, the President came out throwing punches at the GOP and Trump earlier and it got me to thinking. Yes, there are some veterans including combat vets in the GOP who support either Trump or the current GOP nonsense about our military or both. But for the most part the GOP has long been a Party of Chickenhawks. Since the title might have covered up the definition I included it at the top.
Watching Lawrence O’Donnell show segments of President Biden’s speech, especially parts about his friend John McCain got me more and more pissed. Hey, I had plenty of issues with McCain but he served with honor and much more expression of duty and fidelity to his country and oath of office than most who have survived war. Yet, led by draft-dodging Trump his name is now mud in the Republican Party! WTF?
So we’ve had the specter of the guy Senator Tammy Duckworth (amputee from her service as an Army helicopter pilot in war) calls Cadet Bone Spurs trashing Trump and calling veterans, even those buried in National Cemeteries “suckers and losers.” And NOT be not just called out but RIPPED by other Republicans for doing so. Or Tommy Tuberville who never served and seems to have bestowed a measure of what’s called stolen valor on his dad’s service in WWII to burnish his “I know lots and have lots of respect for the military” bullshit.
These are but a couple of examples of guys who talk the talk but, if you go back to the definition COULD have served but went out of their way to avoid doing so. I still get pissed over memories of so many GOPers (many of them in the NH Gazette’s Hall of Shame too) working themselves up to a tear down the cheek saying of President Clinton “He (sob) never served a single day in uniform.” It was it seemed all they could do not to break out in primal screams and rend their garments. The thing is however that Bill Clinton never once pretended to be a “tough, badass” dude ready to go to war. He freely (and from the get go) admitted he didn’t agree with our being in Vietnam and since there were deferments he could use he went ahead and used them.
He did NOT pretend. He did NOT play the “well, if I’d really been needed” or some other bullshit “if not for this or that” excuse. Like say former GA Senator Saxby “trick knee” Chambliss who trashed the patriotism of then Senator Max Cleland who gave up three limbs on the battlefield in Vietnam. But doing so won him election against a genuine hero and patriot. (Full disclosure, I met Cleland twice and even had the honor of sitting with him during one of Kerry’s debates with Bush 43 with a group of Democrats in Martinsburg, WV)
For those who don’t know what the title is about, the NH Gazette was a twice a month publication that had long billed itself as the nation’s oldest newspaper. I don’t think they’ve published anything for a while now, but once upon a time someone there created a page that turned into an entire section devoted to Chickenhawks which became known as the Hall of Shame. It was not exclusively, but overwhelmingly made up of conservatives. And boy was it an eye opener! Politicians, pundits, leaders of various organizations – you name it. It was quite the collection. Rush Limbaugh (anal cysts) was a favorite entry. I already mentioned my personal grudge against Chambliss. Yes, Bush 43 too.
For you young folks back during Vietnam the surest ticket NOT to wind up there was being in the National Guard or the Reserves! Waiting lists for a slot got up to years long in some places including TX and their Air National Guard but Baby Bush “magically” vaulted over almost a thousand people and got in. And then went what was then called AWOL within a year of completing his flight training and being assigned to a squadron. Never completed his tour. Others of course, especially having gotten what was then a million dollar flight education would have wound up in prison. But decades later all that, especially parties like a few I attended when I was underage for guys who’d wrangled a slot in our local Guard (celebrations) were forgotten. And with Bush 41 using Guard and Reserves for Desert Storm thirty years ago Guard and Reserve service means something very different than it did during Vietnam.
So cynical, hypocritical a-hole GOPers exploit the hell out of it!
Here’s the thing though. The Gazette website’s Hall of Shame section wasn’t widely known but known well enough. It was robust and allowed anyone to nominate a person for membership. And then it all seemed to crash. I recall years ago (when it was apparent he’d be the GOP nominee) spending a couple of hours looking up (online) all the details to complete nominating form for Trump. It didn’t “go through.” Hey, this kind of thing can happen so I went through it again, and faster since I knew just where to go for various details. Again, it wouldn’t go through. I would come to believe I wasn’t the first, and that for its reputation for being stubborn they’d been threatened with a lawsuit if Trump’s name was added. A tiny operation like that simply couldn’t fight back and they caved.
Worse, it wasn’t long before the whole Hall of Shame section was no longer available if you went to the NH Gazette website. There was a point a couple of years later when someone created a watered down, not nearly as slick version but it too went by the wayside.
I say it’s time to bring it back. Some rich Democrat or someone who at least supports our country and the troops needs to put up the money to recreate the Chickenhawk Hall of Shame it all its former glory. And then some. GOPers including and especially Trump will howl so loudly you can hear them on Pluto but there’s got to be someone rich enough and with no f**ks to give that will do it.
Yeah, I know many of you will say GOPers no longer have any sense of shame. Hell, I’ve said it myself more than once. I think for all their anti-science crap they funded creation of a pill they can take every day to suppress any feeling of shame. But some might be able to feel a little bit. More importantly, the public at-large and especially independents will learn about it, and see just how awful and shameless so many GOPers are. And also start calling or emailing GOPers in elected office asking why they are NOT standing up to their Chickenhawk Brigade!
Lots, and in fact these days most people have never served in the military. Quite different from when I was growing up as a child of the WWII generation. For decades the burden has been borne by less than two percent of Americans. But with the Republican Party meekly following the Chickenhawk in Chief Trump it’s long past time to provide the means to call them out. To make it easy to call up a website (even at work) and say “See for yourself!”
I know I’m not the most widely read author but I’m told folks at the Lincoln Project keep tabs on our little site. Perhaps they know a rich Democrat who will step up and acquire the rights to the domain name and recreate something this country increasingly needs. Hard hitting material with which to embarrass Republicans. Every vote will matter and even if it only gets one percent of people who might have voted for Republicans to if not vote for a Democrat then vote for some wackjob or write in a name then that can make all the difference all the way up to the state level when it’s time to award electoral votes.
“Yeah, I know many of you will say GOPers no longer have any sense of shame.”
You can tell from their behavior.
Sorry to hear of your fall; us old farts tend to break bits when it happens. While you’re recuperating, I suggest you read “Chickenhawk” by Robert Mason, a classic book on the filthy Vietnam war, as told by a helicopter pilot. They defined themselves as Chickenhawks, because they were both: scared shitless but waging war.
Thanks for the suggestion. I seem to remember once hearing about that book. It’s up to me to buy my own gifts so when the holidays approach and I head to the used books website where I can score four or five good condition used books I’ll put it on the list. (Meant to get A Rumor Of War for my birthday last month. But still got five other good ones for thirty bucks!) I’m sure you recall the days when “Hawks” and “Doves” got a lot of use which I think is what gave the NH Gazette the idea. You also recall Republicans back during the Reagan years beating their chests about their “support” for all things military when “Cap the Ladle” was throwing every federal dollar Reagan could get for him (a LOT of dollars I might add) into the pockets of defense contractors. Us troops? We didn’t see it of course. Hell, money for things as basic as time at the rifle range was in short supply and forget about grunts like me being able to even once a year practice killing tanks with actual anti-tank missiles which we’d have been expected to do if the big red bear had come rolling through the Fulda Gap. But the point is that the GOP hammered themselves as tough on national security (Hawks) and Democrats as wimps (Doves) and the contrast between Reagan and his VP Bush 41 and what they did (or in Reagan’s case didn’t) during WWII meant trying to polish the Party’s rep. Yet by then the WWII generation was retiring including from politics and fewer & fewer politicians had military service under their belt. AND an awful lot of GOPers who like to talk tough had dodged the draft with deferments (I forgot DICK Cheney who got five because he “had other priorities”) – IOW they chickened out when it came to putting their own asses on the line. Yet they LOVED attacking Democrats who’d gotten deferments even though they (Clinton being the example I cited) never tried to claim support for Vietnam!
Like I said, it just pisses me off to no end that these a-holes keep getting away with this stuff. For a while there we had a resource we could go to and send others to that would provide a great illustration of this crap. We need it again.
I hope you have a quick recovery!!! My five uncles were in WW2. My dad was a veteran of Korea. My other uncle was an original green beret wounded in Vietnam. They never said a word about any of it. Some turned to alcohol. Some just shut down. I am a vet. Nixon pulled the college deferment my second year in college and I got a lottery number. You know from my history here, I have ZERO tolerance for all the lazy traitors this country is presently housing, when so many thousands of BOYS LIE IN THE PHUCKING GROUND. The fact we had one as president, and also have them making laws, is something I blame the goddamn American public for. 73 million voted for a criminal traitor and still support this nazi. I don’t believe in violence, having grown up with my dad’s rage. That being said, I won’t live under fascism, nor allow my children to do so. Read that any phucking way you want you pampered assholes who think YOU can keep power by threats of violence. Be phucking careful what you promote. Hitler, and the German people thought they were invincible. You see how that worked out. At 70, I have less time to lose than those boys who died under 30. This is already a goddamn war for democracy in my opinion. The comfortably numb better get their collective heads out of their asses. VOTE OR BE PREPARED TO FIGHT!!!
This list was mentioned on the BBS for the video game Civilization: of course, one of the fans said that Muhammad Ali should be on it, too: https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/chickenhawk-hall-of-shame.544218/
I used to regularly check it out and recommend others do so. It was interesting, appalling and fun all at once. It had mostly Republicans that were “honored” but a handful of Democrats were in there. I think you misunderstand the term Chickenhawk in this context and what the N.H. Gazette’s Hall of Shame was all about. It was to call out the hypocrisy of the chest beating, tough talking ‘man’s man’ with a ‘send in the troops and kick ass’ attitude who, when THEY could have served avoided doing so. Often in some pretty appalling ways or for humorous reasons. Think GA Senator Saxby Chambliss who was a tough guy but avoided service during Vietnam due to his “trick knee” trashing the service and patriotism of Max Cleland (who I had the honor of knowing slightly) who gave up THREE LIMBS on the battlefield. Or Rush Limbaugh and anal cysts keeping him out. Or Ted Nugent living in the same jeans for two weeks, shitting and pissing in them before reporting for his draft physical to get a Psych deferrment. And then baby Bush who jumped over 900 places on the TX Air National Guard waiting list. Being a college grad he got to become a pilot so he could pretend to be like his dad. But after training he bailed on years left on his committment. Basically he went what was then called AWOL but never faced any consequences.
What makes people like these Chickenhawks and got them into the Hall of Shame wasn’t avoiding service – it was doing so but later in like talking like they’d lived lives of being badasses and eager to send OTHERS to fight. And die. That’s why Ali doesn’t count. He never from the moment he officially refused induction claimed a willingness to serve. He was open on his opinion that we shouldn’t be involved in war in Vietnam and despite being a prize fighter he thought it was wrong to go to a foreign land and kill people. He never, ever tried to claim warrior status or that “if needed I would have served.” Same for Bill Clinton who never denied working the deferment system to avoid the military because he didn’t believe we should be involved in that war. That’s why those two and others who made an active effort not to serve, or took advantage of some lame-ass “medical condition” but later in life talk like they WOULD have if really needed, or “wanted too” but those gosh darn rules/doctors had to have MPs drag them away and toss them out into the street ARE Chickenhawks.
Having your dad pay some low-rent podiatrist to write a letter about bogus bone spurs and him using his power and influence with the right people to keep from serving (and Donald’s dad had enough money and influence in NYC) is what makes Trump a Chickenhawk (he’d also had four deferments before that) and if a person came from wealth that kind of thing happened more than people knew during Vietnam. Contrast that to WWII and Joseph Kennedy, the patriarch of Kennedy dynasty. His oldest son and namesake Joe was being groomed to head the family and even the entire country as President. Joe Jr. flew bombers and volunteered for a secret and VERY hazardous mission. And was KIA which is why so few know about him. JFK grew up with health problems and wouldn’t have passed any legitimate draft physical. But though his father had objections JFK convinced his father to pull strings to get him into the Navy. JFK got HIS dad to bribe authorities to get him IN to the miliary. It took more string pulling to get him into PT Boats, a dangerous as hell thing despite the antics many of us recall from the TV series McHale’s Navy. JFKs heroism is of course well known.
It’s a shame the Chickenhawk website was taken down. I’m pretty sure I know why. The NH Gazette was more a periodical than a newspaper but it was an institution that would take on anyone and everything. Hence the Hall of Shame. The HOS wasn’t widely known but folks knew about it. AND it was possible for anyone to nominate a famous person for ‘membership’. It was no easy thing filling out a nomination. It took way over two hours (closer to three) for me to look up and verify all the details needed to nominate Trump back in 2016. Then when I hit “Enter” to submit the lengthy form I got an error message! I was determined enough to try again because it was June and Trump by that point was the presumptive nominee. AGAIN I got an error message. You will never convince me that someone in Trump’s orbit knew about the Hall of Shame and the tiny publication which had teetered along, barely staying solvent wasn’t threatened into blocking attempts to nominate Trump. And eventually discontinuing the Hall of Shame altogether!