when ya get drafted
You have to laugh to keep from weeping or pushing your thumbs into your eyes:
Attack of the College Republicans
Reporting from the frontlines of the College Republican National Convention, Max Blumenthal profiles young conservative patriots who are making the ultimate sacrifice for their country during wartime, forsaking a chance at adventure and glory in Iraq to do the tough work on the ground here at home:
By the time I encountered Cory Bray, a towering senior from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, the beer was flowing freely. "The people opposed to the war aren't putting their asses on the line," Bray boomed from beside the bar. Then why isn't he putting his ass on the line? "I'm not putting my ass on the line because I had the opportunity to go to the number-one business school in the country," he declared, his voice rising in defensive anger, "and I wasn't going to pass that up."
And besides, being a College Republican is so much more fun than counterinsurgency warfare. Bray recounted the pride he and his buddies had felt walking through the center of campus last fall waving a giant American flag, wearing cowboy boots and hats with the letters B-U-S-H painted on their bare chests. "We're the big guys," he said. "We're the ones who stand up for what we believe in. The College Democrats just sit around talking about how much they hate Bush. We actually do shit."
Such as? Such as selling "Bush Country" tshirts in bulk. And putting his ass on the line against Saddam, Osama, and John Kerry via this crappy web game he developed. Or, as this excerpt from an August 2004 piece in Philadelphia Weekly suggests, eating a lot of meat:
A big Texan, he's wearing a weathered Houston Astros baseball cap and a Bush/Cheney T-shirt. He has seven--one for each day of the week. Bray chugs his beers and brags of the large amounts of meat he can eat.
More from Steve Gilliard:
You know, normally, I'd be inclined to humor these selfish fucks, but between seeing Bush's audience last night and reading the Daily News this morning, I'm just not in the fucking mood.
Ramona Valdez was 20 years old and she died as a Marine, in combat. Her family had none of the advantages of these people, her age, have had. And they do not even comprehend that the world is not just about words. Valdez's husband desperately wants to go back to Iraq, I guess to avenge his wife's death. Everything good about her is now just a memory.
She could have gone to school, she could have been drinking beer in a hotel. But instead she joined the Marines, just like thousands of other ambitious, but poor kids.
I'm tired of their excuses and their selfishness. I don't think anything but ill comes from Iraq. I wouldn't recommend anyone enlist to fight there. But these kids are utter and contemptible cowards. They think they can win a war by cheerleading and no one disabuses them of this notion. They are being coddled into thinking that a good speech is the same as going to Scout/Sniper school or being an MP and it isn't even close.
Their excuses are so palid, so insulting, so vile that it makes me ill. They want someone else to win a war they cheerlead. They think that all it takes is a good speech.
Here is the aptly named Cory Bray's website.
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