Bias against veteran candidates

On February 12, Stuart Rothenberg, a contributing writer for Roll Call attempted to write about the latest crop of veterans seeking office in 2010. Instead, he merely beclowned himself;

My first meeting of the year (and the cycle) was with Kinzinger, and to be totally honest, I was dreading it. Another Iraq War veteran running for Congress? Oh, brother. Given the track records of veterans who have nothing else on their résumés, I wasn’t optimistic.

Then I saw Kinzinger. I thought he looked old enough to vote, but I wasn’t sure.

Yeah, that’s the way a supposed unbiased reporter begins an unbiased report to folks making up their minds about their choice for office. Let’s look at Rotherberg’s résumé on Wikipedia, shall we?

Rothenberg, currently a resident of Potomac, Maryland, lived in Waterville, Maine while attending Colby College before relocating to Connecticut to earn his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. For a time, he settled in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, to teach political science at Bucknell University, a subject he has also taught at the Catholic University of America.

In addition to his writing, he has been frequently featured in news broadcasts and worked with CNN as a political analyst for over ten years. Last election cycle,[vague] he also served as a political analyst for CBS News and for the Voice of America. He is also a guest contributor for Political Wire.

Rothenberg is married and the father of two children.

Whew, impressive, huh? Of course, I’m biased against people from Maine, but somehow Ph.D. doesn’t say experience to me, neither does being a teacher. Classroom isn’t real life.

Now, the guy Rothenberg is writing about in this instance was an Air Force pilot…I don’t care if he flew trainers, it says a lot about his demeanor and his ability to reason in a tight situation. It says he ha more real world experience than a pointy-headed teacher whose toughest decision was whether he had time between classes to get a muffin at the student union.

But Kieran Michael Lalor, a Marine Corps veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and chairman of Iraq Veterans for Congress Political Action Committee says it much more eloquently than I could;

We expect a reflexive dismissal of the value of military service to appear in Department of Homeland Security reports, not in a “nonpartisan analysis of American politics and elections.”

But it has been clear for years that most “analysis” of House races involves looking at Federal Election Commission fundraising totals and ensuring that candidates fit the narrow template that the pundits have developed for House candidates.

Rothenberg’s analysis of Iraq vet candidates is equally superficial and couldn’t be more wrong.

Veterans have already demonstrated selfless service to country, a credential sorely missing in Washington, D.C. The current generation of veterans is pure volunteer. They joined up when there was no draft, when military service was the exception rather than the rule as it was in previous generations. Many Iraq vet candidates enlisted after 9/11, knowing combat was inevitable. And each candidate led troops in the most arduous of conditions.

Now, who has the thin résumé, Mr. Rothenberg?

Category: Media, Support the troops