Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Reply to Colonel Hollister

Are these Wing-Wipers all alike?

The other day, the Pueblo Chieftain published a letter to the editor that caught my attention.

I decided that it needed to be addressed.....and fisked.....

The letter is from a retired United States Air Force colonel, who currently resides in Colorado Springs.

The first half of the letter seems to have been a trip down memory lane for the good colonel. He fondly remembers the salad daze of his youth. It’s not important that he visited this, that or the other church. Not as far as I am concerned.

Rather, I am interested in his outlandish support of Senator McCain for the presidency.

“Of all the candidates, Sen. John McCain of Arizona stands out head and shoulders above the competition with the ability to answer this call.”—Colonel Hollister

He certainly does stand above all the other candidate. He’s the only one I know of who willfully broke his oath of office as a commissioned officer in the Armed Forces of the United States.

Let me relate that oath to you.

I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.  So help me God.

It’s the one I took upon being commissioned as a lieutenant in the United States Army. And, based on what I know, it’s identical to the one that Senator McCain took when he received HIS commission.

And, I suspect its the same one that the good Colonel Hollister took as well.

Do you see that business about defending the Constitution of the United States? Against ALL enemies? Foreign AND domestic? And the additional part about bearing “true faith and allegiance to the same”?

Interesting stuff that. But, what does it mean?

Most reasonable people would get the idea that it would not involve doing things that destroyed the Constitution of the United States. Don’t you think?

However, Senator McCain has done exactly that. He, in his infamous act titled the McCain-Feingold Bill of Election Reform struck a blow at the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States. How so? Well, this legislation bans people like you and me, or anyone else, from criticizing members of Congress in the days prior to an election in which they are running.

Why, on God’s green Earth, would someone who has sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States do something like that?

Was he beaten so severely during his stint in the Hanoi Hilton that he completely forgot his oath as an officer in the United States Armed Forces?

“From his time in a prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam to his willingness to take on the Washington establishment on porkbarrel politics and prosecution of the war in Iraq, John McCain has the experience, intellect, passion and vision to carry on the efforts of great Americans who were taken from us prematurely.”—Colonel Hollister

All that business about taking on “the Washington establishment” and “prosecution of the war in Iraq” is all well and good. But it does not, in my honest and professional opinion, alleviate the gross malfeasance of striking at the Bill of Rights while protecting his incumbent fourth-point-of-contact.

“Sen. McCain is the leader our country needs at this critical juncture in our nation’s history.”—Colonel Hollister

I think that the good Colonel Hollister has suffered from the same loss of memory that Senator McCain suffers. He seems to have forgotten the oath of office he took and the necessity of upholding the Constitution of the United States, against all enemies; foreign and DOMESTIC.

And for the truly obtuse, a reminder....

....the Bill of Rights is part and parcel of that Constitution.

Anyone who would willfully attack our cherished freedom of speech is obviously an enemy of the Constitution of the United States. And, therefore, not the sort of person to make the supreme executive of this nation.

P.S. Maybe it has something to do with that thin, canned air these wing-wipers breath doing multiple machs. Probably affects the little gray cells.