peers

A letter was written by Doug Hampton to FOX’s Megyn Kelly last week. Hampton is the former aide to Senator John Ensign, and also the husband of the woman Ensign was having the affair with. Jed has the entire letter posted here, but something really interesting is this part:

The unethical behavior and immoral choice of Senator Ensign has been confronted by me and others on a number of occasions over this past year. In fact one of the confrontations took place in February 2008 at his home in Washington DC (sic) with a group of his peers. One of the attendee’s (sic) was Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma as well as several other men who are close to the Senator.

What makes it so interesting is that Tom Coburn, one of the leading conservatives in the senate, knew about his for 18 months. As Jed points out, once the news broke about Ensign’s affair Coburn, who is Ensign’s roommate, was pleading for people to forgive Ensign and commended him for fessing up – something Ensign did not by choice, but rather by the risk of the news coming out.

These are key members of the Republican party. The same party that preaches “family values” and so quickly went after Bill Clinton. And they wonder why no one trusts them on anything?

While I do not believe these few soldiers represent the greater United States military, I fear that Iraqi's will not want to distinguish them from their peers as easily:

U.S. soldiers stepped outside the law when they murdered three Iraqi detainees "in cold blood," a prosecutor told a U.S. military hearing on Friday.

"U.S. soldiers must follow the laws of war. That's what makes us better than the terrorists, what sets us apart from the thugs and the hitmen," said Captain Joseph Mackey, closing arguments for the prosecution of the four U.S. servicemen.

"These soldiers did just the opposite. They cut them loose and murdered them in cold blood," he said.

The hearing into the deaths on May 9 during a raid on a suspected insurgent camp on an island in the marshy fringe of Thar Thar Lake, southwest of Tikrit, will determine whether the four soldiers should be court-martialled for the killings.

If found guilty of premeditated murder, they could face the death penalty.

Another defendant in this case should be the United States government, and in particular their "stop loss" program. You can't help but wonder if this crime would have never happened if certain key issues were different.

The first issue that could lead a soldier to act like this is the stop loss program. Just last week we heard of another 3,000 soldiers who were on their way home. Those orders were changed and they are now stuck in Iraq for at least another six months. Combine that, along with the recent NYT's article about soldiers feeling like their only mission is to drive around Baghdad and not get blown up, then you are left with soldiers going to extremes.

This week, President Bush decided to once again show his family values. While walking away from reporters, he did something that is starting to become a trade mark, he flipped them the middle finger.

I am not a prude by any means, but for the leader of the most powerful nation in the world to act this way really shows his mentality. Bush talks about family values and devotion to his religion, yet he finds humor in this show of discontent towards the media.

While some stand the ground of it “only being a finger”, others do find insult in it. Road rage has been caused by this gesture, and fights have broken out over it. It can be considered humorous or cute, but not when it is done by the President of the United States.

I am now waiting to hear stories about children getting kicked out of school for flipping the finger to their peers or teachers. I can hear their argument now. “The President does it”. This will lead to some very interesting arguments. Is the President not supposed to lead by example? Well this is his example.