John Ervin: JEAN SCHMIDT: QUEEN OF THE CHICKEN HAWKS

In addition to what we normally pay respects to on Thanksgiving - slaughtering, stealing land from and introducing chronic alcoholism to American Indians - we must not forget that the holiday also involves the electrocution, stuffing and consumption of another member of the American population, the turkey. Seeing as these proud creatures of ornithology get such star treatment, it seems fitting to tender homage to another species of bird. I’m talking about the “chicken hawks” those mongrels who (wisely) avoided service in one war, usually thanks to financial or collegiate connections, only to (unwisely, needlessly and greedily) start another war, and (sanctimoniously and hypocritically) accuse those who oppose that campaign, or avoid service themselves, of “cutting and running.”
Those last two words were recently, and infamously, uttered in Congress by Ohio Representative Jean Schmidt. Though too young to be a “chicken hawk” herself, the former President of Right to Life for Greater Cincinnati proved herself to be a consummate advocate for rich, powerful wannabe Rambos who were once closet Rebeccas. With a squawk worthy of the seagulls who attacked the seaside hamlet in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, the Junior Congresswoman, who narrowly beat an Iraq war veteran to gain her seat in a special election last summer, took full advantage of her golden opportunity to make a name for herself with Christian right and corporate buzzards everywhere. “Mean Jean”, as she is affectionately known in her district, did so by spewing a message transmitted to her from a right wing carrier pigeon with the most ornithological name of Colonel Danny Bubp: 'He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message: that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.' The response to her harping bird call was a chorus of boos from the Democrats, a charge down the aisle by Harold Ford of Tennessee, and a roar of “You guys are really pathetic!” from Martin Meehan of Massachusetts. This was a heartening sight to see: the Democrats, after spending so many years acting like chicken littles, soaring like eagles and giving the Leona Helmsley of Ohio and her Congressional cronies knockout punches with the strength of Rocky in rounds one through five (with number six on the way!).
The most impressive of these Comeback Kids, of course, was the object of the barking and mauling from the honorable bitch from Ohio, Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania. Murtha had made his remark in response to the pseudo-resolution the Republicans proposed to withdrawal the troops -- a resolution that everyone in the House knew they were going to offer and then immediately reject through a nearly unanimous vote to give the appearance they gave a rat’s ass about bringing the soldiers home. Murtha is also the latest politician who served in the Vietnam War to be accused of being an unpatriotic service-dodger by those who actually DID steer clear of service in that same campaign but now are only too glad to send poor white, African-American, Hispanic and, sure, American Indian citizens to be killed or permanently disabled for those bullet-dodging billionaires’ right to make billions off of oil rigs in Iraq. Those rigs, one should be reminded, were immediately rendered useless by operatives sent out by Saddam Hussein to burn and destroy them shortly after the American forces landed in the country.
The last veteran the chickens laid an egg on was, of course, unfortunate Presidential candidate John Kerry, a wealthy son of privilege who chose to serve in Vietnam even though he could have handily avoided it, and ended up being accused, thirty-four years later, of being a “traitor” and a “layabout” for his trouble. Those who flung these words at that Ivy League, blue-blooded preppy boy, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, obviously felt that a truly patriotic American should have served his country by getting drunk and doing coke on those stateside bases which was clearly under threat by North Vietnamese forces - you know, like that Ivy League, blue-blooded preppy boy George W. Bush did as a brave member of the National Guard.
If the chicken hawks were disgusted by Kerry’s disgraceful avoidance of partying and wenching in 1960’s Boston, they were even more outraged by the refusal to pursue the Austin Powers lifestyle during that swingin’ time by Georgia Senator Max Cleland. No wonder the hawks were ready to stand by the ads of Cleland’s opponent, the truly ornithologically named (if of the Donald Duck variety) Saxby Chambliss in the 2002 election. Those ads, of course, successfully convinced Georgians that Max Cleland was in league with Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Ladin for his questioning of America’s initial entry into Iraq. And did they have good cause to link his name to our enemies, ‘cause, damn it, this hippie Communist acid-dropping love-freak won a Bronze Star and Silver Star in the battle of Khe Sahn! To top it off, this lazy Deadhead has the temerity to show up at public events and Senate hearings in a wheelchair -- all because he lost a lousy arm and both legs picking up a live grenade in 1968!
If Cleland were a real man, he would have kept busy in the States finagling five deferments and getting arrested twice for drunk driving, like the mastermind of the war that he and those pantywaists dare to cast aspersions on, soon-to-be-retiring Vice President Richard Bruce (!) Cheney. Or he would have gotten student deferments and learned the art of spreading phony rumors about his boss’ opponents, like the architect of the two illegitimate elections of the President who went into this war to show up his old man, soon-to-be-jailed Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Christian (!) Rove. In fact, so many able bodied young men who steered clear of the Vietnam Death Train have ended up being ardent supporters of another needless, costly, divisive and seemingly endless military campaign that it must be comforting to die hard supporters of “Johnson’s war” to know that for every flower-flailing protester who risked imprisonment for refusing to take part in that conflict, there was a bold young stud who rooted for those Vietnamese villages to be burned and jungles to be napalmed ... as long as he got to watch from the sidelines.
Now, I’ll be the first to admit the chicken hawks don’t attack the service record of literally every Vietnam veteran who poses a threat to them. Senator John McCain’s service in that war and his five-and-a-half year ordeal in a prisoner of war camp in Hanoi have never been cast in doubt. Then again, during the 2000 primary contest between McCain and Bush, Karl Rove and his boys were too busy calling up voters in South Carolina and asking them if they were comfortable with the idea of the Presidential candidate from Arizona having sired a black daughter out of wedlock ... never minding that the “black” daughter was in fact a child from Bangladesh adopted by McCain and his wife ... and never minding that that very state’s most popular and longest serving Senator, Strom Thurmond, actually did sire a black child out of wedlock (and with a woman he might have raped), and successfully encouraged that child to keep quiet about her relationship to him until the lecherous old segregationist finally croaked.
And, hey, the Hawks do honor and recognize soldiers who are wounded or killed in battle. After all, they were the first to tell the world about former NFL defensive Pat Tillman having been killed in Afghanistan while storming a hill to take out the enemy, even as he personally provided suppressive fire with an M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon machine gun. Then again, five weeks later, the not-so-ornithologically named Lt. Col. Matthew Beevers (!) , who had provided this description of Tillman’s death, admitted it was a load of horse feathers blown at the public at the pecking of the chicken hawks. Under pressure from Tillman’s parents, widow, and chocolate-lovin’ John McCain, the Army had to fess up that Tillman had, in fact, been killed by friendly fire. A common occurrence in wars both honorable and dishonorable, the fact that Tillman was killed by his own side was an embarrassment that the Bush Administration, whose leader never admits to having ever made a mistake in his tenure as the only sitting President to lose both elections, felt would further tip the scales of public opposition to the Iraq campaign.
Well, they were right about that, at least!
And now the Kings, Earls, Dukes, Princes and subjects of the Chicken Hawks have a Queen in Jean Schmidt. The new Queen of Mean has already earned stripes with her own smear campaign against her opponent for the House seat, Paul Hackett, by portraying his military record in Iraq as being exaggerated. She even has a nice little financial scandal flapping her wings, with her connection to rare coin scammer Tom Noe, who is under investigation for a money laundering scheme, and whom she claimed to never having known despite the fact that the lead suspect of “coingate” testified before Schmidt when she chaired the Higher Education Subcommittee of the House Finance and Appropriations Committee. So, Jean, with these feathers on your cap, as well as your religious fanaticism, your lack of social niceties and your attacks on opponents whom you don’t bother checking the backgrounds of, you are well on your way to being a true Republican representative of our country’s interests -- a proud, strutting peacock on the surface who is, in fact, an ostrich with its head in the sand. With right wing roosters like you cock-a-doodle-doodling about your adversary’s patriotism and morality, with the same humiliating results as those for lovestruck Professor Rath of “The Blue Angel” - who is forced by Lola Lola, the nighclub singer he is infatuated with, to go onstage before his pupils in a bird costume and make cock crows - the public’s support for the war will eventually be reduced to the size of the average bird dropping. And with de jure President Bush’s approval hitting the low thirties and getting lower, and de facto President Cheney’s approval ratings slipping to an unbeatable low of the twenties, they and the rest of the chicken hawks will be nothing more than what they’ve been since the day they were hatched ... chickenshits.