Tears, No Laughter

Many thanks to Yukio Ngaby at Critical Narrative for an early alert about Barack Obama's intention to make wounded warriors (and their wives) pay for medical treatments related to their injuries, including buying their own prosthetics to replace limbs blown off by (what's the administration's latest term for terrorists?). I greatly respect Yukio and other bloggers who were able to get the word out using coherent sentences, something that I certainly was unable to do for hours after hearing this news.

Just want you to know, Yukio, that I did manage to leave a few choice words for my senators and representatives (all Democrats), then alerted my local newspaper, as you suggested. The President's plan was news to all but one senator's office, where the person who answered the phone admitted to having had "a few calls" on the subject.

Investor's Business Daily, however, was aware of the travesty and managed to quote a "furious Commander David K. Rehbein of the American Legion," who, together with representatives of 11 veterans groups, met with Barack Obama on Monday:

[The President] refused to hear arguments about the moral and government-avowed obligations that would be compromised by [the plan].

According to CNN, at that meeting, Barack Obama challenged those veterans "to come up with an alternative way to raise revenues."

I'm getting sick again. If American veterans want medical treatment for their combat injuries, their Commander in Chief thinks it's up to them to figure out where the money should come from?

For people who chose to believe it, Obama had a different story way back in October:

• Barack Obama will restore our sacred trust with our nation's veterans:

  Obama and Biden are committed to creating a 21st Century Department of Veterans' Affairs that provides the care and benefits our nation's veterans deserve [italics mine].

Yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that "the Obama administration" is abandoning the plan. And a whole lot of Democrat back-pedaling was going on, including by the head of the Senate Veterans Affairs committee, Daniel Akaka, and his counterpart in the House, Bob Filner, who decided that the plan was "DOA."

Obviously, some career politicians have managed to grasp that Obama's slap-every-veteran-in-the-face plan would come with a certain political price tag. Surprise! Not every American hates the military! This little plan might even make it hard to get Americans to empty their pockets for free health care for illegal aliens still waving the flags of foreign nations in public demonstrations on U.S. soil. These politicians have recommended a retreat.

This is a sad, slim, and probably temporary victory of sorts. If victory can be defined as finding out that not every politician in Washington has totally and completely vacated his or her sanity.

But I am not comforted. I will never forget.