I love the smell of mendacity in the morning. It smells like Markwayne Mullin. The Oklahoma senator has been vociferous in defending the Iran war. He’s a self appointed expert on war, suddenly. As a matter of fact, to hear him talk, you would expect that he might write a novel on the subject, because he sounds so learned on every nuance and texture of war. And that is precisely why it’s been shoved in his face that he’s a phony and he’s never been in a war. Whoops.
pic.twitter.com/G53eqdmv7N Mark Wayne Mullin: War is ugly. It smells bad. If anybody has ever been there and been able to smell the war and taste it and fill it in your nostrils and hear it, it's something that you'll never forget. Fortunately, we have President Hegseth. President…
— Lavy (@Lavy02) March 2, 2026
His mendacity about a war which he’s never been in is bad enough but then he fumbles on President Hegseth. God help us if this government ever works down the line of succession to get past J.D., the president pro tempore of the Senate, the Secretary of State and the others in front of Secretary of Defense.
Not to mention thinking Khomeini and Khamenei are the same guy. 🤡
— Hoover (@Hoover5454) March 3, 2026
The tragedy is that there probably are a lot of Oklahomans who are proud of this fantastical farce that Mullin is pulling from thin air.
I’ll give him at least some credit for going to the middle east in an attempt to get to Kabul and rent a helicopter to get some people out he thought should have a chance for a new life here.
That being said he was born in 1977. He took over his dad’s plumbing business and got a community college technical degree making him the only Senator without at least a Bachelor’s degree. I mention that because he’d have been in his early 20s during the first gulf war – Operation Desert Storm. And, when so many even his age (31-32) signed up in the aftermath of 9/11 Mullen took a pass.
So, when he wants to talk about war this ole jarhead grunt will take a pass. Saigon fell a month before I graduated from high school although by the time I was a Junior I and my friends knew we’d wind up not having to go. When I did join up at age 26 Beirut was raging but Reagan wimped out and pulled our forces out of Lebanon before I could be deployed there. An accident of timing kept me out of Desert Storm so I never earned a Combat Action Ribbon. I want to be upfront about that. As for times I was put into danger (can’t talk about it) it still wasn’t what troops go through in full on combat.
But because I’m someone people open up to many who have, including a guy who got kind of famous in Hollywood as a consultant have opened up to me. And at grunt school in Camp Pendleton every one of my troop handlers had served “ass in the grass” in Vietnam. When they’d roust us out in the middle of the night for training that wasn’t part of the actual schedule I didn’t bitch about it. One Sgt. in particular would explain what he was teaching us out there in the field in the middle of the night and cite his own experiences. I was grateful he (and others) gave up his own sleep while taking mine to teach me how to keep myself and Marines I’d lead alive when it mattered.
Mullen doesn’t have any of that. He’s just a dude who plays on his Cherokee heritage like that imbues him with warrior status. I call bullshit.
“That being said he was born in 1977. He took over his dad’s plumbing business and got a community college technical degree making him the only Senator without at least a Bachelor’s degree. I mention that because he’d have been in his early 20s during the first gulf war – Operation Desert Storm. And, when so many even his age (31-32) signed up in the aftermath of 9/11 Mullen took a pass.”
Um, Denis, I think you might need a new calculator or brush up on your basic math. Doing a little checking, he was born in July of 1977 which means Desert Shield began just weeks after his 13th birthday. As for 9/11, there’s a little less excusing his “pass” as it happened just a couple of months after his 24th birthday (especially considering Pat Tillman, who was born a little more than 6 months before Mullen, gave up a pro football career to join up).