Fox News’s Kilmeade Says Vets Don’t Deserve Webb’s GI Bill Because They Volunteered To Serve
Fox News’s Kilmeade Says Vets Don’t Deserve Webb’s GI Bill Because They Volunteered To Serve
After garnering 256 votes in the House, Sen. Jim Webb’s (D-VA) 21st Century GI Bill passed the Senate last week with 75 votes. Yesterday, on Memorial Day, the New York Times criticized President Bush and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — who skipped the vote — for opposing the bill, writing that Bush and McCain “would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.”
Discussing the op-ed this morning, Fox and Friends’s Brian Kilmeade defended Bush and McCain, saying their position is “just a different emphasis.” He insisted that current circumstances are “different” than after World War II, when the original GI bill was passed, because today’s veterans volunteered to serve:
This is just a different emphasis. … After all this is different. People point to, ‘Well, look what they did after World War II.’ Well after World War II, people were conscripted. They said, ‘You’re joining.’ They said for doing that and winning the war, here’s a college education. Now, people are saying, ‘I want to be a military person. I am signing on in a volunteer force.’
Watch it:
In reality, Bush and McCain’s stance on the GI Bill is not just a “different emphasis.” McCain’s watered-down alternative reserves the most generous benefits to those who serve at least 12 years. Furthermore, soldiers would not “jump off to college after three years,” as Kilmeade suggested, because they would still have to complete their enlistment terms.
The Congressional Budget Office report concluded any reduction in enlistment rates is made up for in recruitment increases. And as Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America pointed out, “The GI Bill is the military’s single most effective recruitment tool; the number one reason civilians join the military is to get money for college.”
Fox and Friends’s Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson also took up the White House line, slamming the Times for its “vitriolic” (or, as Carlson said, “vitrolic”) criticisms. Carlson said Bush thinks soldiers “should serve more time before they get a free education.” She quickly added, “Not that he’s against military at all,” to which Doocy interjected, “No!”
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Discussing the op-ed this morning, Fox and Friends’s Brian Kilmeade defended Bush and McCain, saying their position is “just a different emphasis.”
Precisely
The emphasis being placed upon “NO” as opposed to “YES”.
What a dipshit………..
May 27th, 2008 at 1:57 pmIf they go AWOL like Shrub did, do they only get a partial edumacation like Shrub did?
May 27th, 2008 at 1:58 pmStupid, evil, sycophantic paid water-carriers for Evil, Inc.
May 27th, 2008 at 1:58 pmWhy do the self-annointed patriots at FOX hate the troops?
May 27th, 2008 at 1:58 pmHe insisted that current circumstances are “different” than after World War II, when the original GI bill was passed, because today’s veterans volunteered to serve
If that’s true , how come the entire garbage GOP and their media network , FAUX , keep trying to compare WWII and Chimpy’s Idiotic and Illegal Iraq Adventure ?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:01 pmYou’ve Got to love this. The troops are good enough to go through hell, and die for this country and this country, in return, will give them barely adequate reward for this service. You’ve Got to admire the naked idiocy and total lack of decency by everyone fighting this. What a wonderful reason for fighting too, “Hey, you fu(ked up. You trusted us”. You absolutely, positively Cannot make this stuff up!
May 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pmImpeach Cheney and Bush and Save the Constitution!
Abu Ben Hussein Leporello.
Imagine for a moment that Webb was still a Republican and that it was the Dems opposing his GI Bill. Those people on that awful Fox morning program would be bursting blood vessels expressing all of their fake outrage.
But since it’s a Democrat putting this bill forward…
I thought Fox and all of their Repug friends were all about supporting the troops!
May 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pmAll you have to do, is look at that logo in the lower left of the screen. It really should be a BushCo NeoCon symbol, but Murder-och won’t go QUITE that far.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:04 pmFox and Friends’s Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson also took up the White House line, slamming the Times for its “vitriolic” (or, as Carlson said, “vitrolic”) criticisms. Carlson said Bussh thinks soldiers “should serve more time before they get a free education.” She quickly added, “Not that he’s against military at all,” to which Doocy interjected, “No!”
These people are not “against the military,” just the people who serve in it.
http://progressiveworldreview.com
May 27th, 2008 at 2:04 pmWonder how many of those 3 Faux shills have military experience?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:04 pmWhen John McCain received his free education from the Naval Academy I do not think he had to complete a 12 years hitch with the navy as payment for the education. Someone needs to ask him why he should have such a priviledge but not the men and women he wants to keep in Iraq for a lot of years!
May 27th, 2008 at 2:05 pmI think that troops are getting one hell of an education particurally as they watch their world implode at their expense.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:05 pmWhat a cesspool of ignorance.
I could never watch Faux without killing my TV.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:05 pmmary, I thought the exact same thing.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pmWhen you “volunteer” for something, you don’t get paid. When you enlist in the armed services, deferred compensation includes tuition. And the military doesn’t get hit up for that compensation when soldiers die in Iraq before ever getting to go to college.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:07 pmWhy does Fox News hate our soldiers?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:08 pmBush is “not against the military” the way a pig farmer is not against the pigs.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:08 pmHeh. If our troops were TRULY volunteers – they could quit any time they wanted to.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:09 pmThis goes over the top.
Adda this to the outrageous treatment of our military from the Bush administration:
* sending our troops MULTIPLE times, as many as 5 for tours of duty in that hell hole. Vietnam, the limit was 2 tours of duty
* Sending the national guard, those that joined to serve their community, over seas to the hell hole
* deny health benefits for the returning
* asking physicians not to diagnose PTSD properly
And this group of morons, wearing the flag pin, claim to support the troops?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:11 pmCarlson said Bussh thinks soldiers “should serve more time before they get a free education.”
Oh ?
And do those who go AWOL get the same treatment , or does the hypocrite Chimpy want to have them arrested and court martialed ?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:12 pmWhat it comes down to is that for the current regime and the proposed regime of McSame, the soldiers are nothing more than tools, to be used when appropriate, and then put away in a box for next time, or if damaged, thrown away with the garbage.
They never see the ‘military’ as people.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:13 pmWhat if Bush called for a war, and nobody came?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:17 pmFollowing Kilmeade’s logic, we should deny our troops paychecks. Because, after all — they VOLUNTEERED. We should also deny them health benefits, room and board, and we should make them buy their own uniforms and weapons. They DID volunteer, didn’t they?
Whether a soldier is conscripted or volunteers, he/she gives a tremendous amount to this country. We need to give something back — for two reasons. First, it’s the decent thing to do. Second, if we treat our troops like crap, people aren’t exactly going to be volunteering in great numbers, are they?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:18 pmralph – that’s cuz you’re cool like that!
May 27th, 2008 at 2:18 pm:)
Some might say that those that enlist should be given MORE benefits if they enlist voluntarily!
Seems like twisted logic to me to suggest that those troops deserve less benefits than those that were basically forced into it.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:22 pmI suspect that Bush and his merry men figure the economy has tanked so badly that young people will be forced to sign up. After all, they can’t get a job anywhere else.
Why bother sweetening the pot when you can just push people into it from the other end?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:25 pmSo let me get this straight. According to Fox & Friends, our brave men & women are fighting overseas to “protect our freedoms and promote democracy in the Middle East.” And we can lose eight billion in cash over there, and we can supply no-bid contracts for friends of George and Dick ad nauseum, and that’s all sunshine and daisies. But the cost of college educations for our troops while they are still in their twenties is just too high a price to pay for freedom and democracy?
Support the troops!
May 27th, 2008 at 2:26 pmSince Bush was a little boy (a few days ago), he never treated anyone – or anything with respect. He pulled the wings off flys, and blew frogs up with firecrackers. He failed at every business he started, and was continually bailed out by his dad’s friends. He was a legacy placement at Yale, and didn;t do so well there either. His National Guard record is an embarrasement to anyone who has even thought about wearing a uniform. He has no standing with regard to an opinion on the troops he abuses on an hourly basis. For he and McSame to chime in on this subject is just awful. Awful still is the idiots on Faux News who stay as far away from the shooting and the truth as they can. What’s with the couch?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:27 pmMaybe McSame’s thinking (and I use the word “thinking” very loosely…) is that after all the stop-loss orders that are being shoved down the throats of our GIs, a single enlistment tour is probably going to last 12 years anyway…
Besides, he’s gonna need 100-year (or forever) enlistments to fulfill his Iraq wet dream, isn’t he?
May 27th, 2008 at 2:30 pmOops. I wonder how many of these undeserving volunteers are Republican AND watch FAUX news? FAUX should prepare for a little backlash from this one. Idiots.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:31 pmIf this bill is not passed, we are not supporting the troops no matter how man little yellow ribbon magnets there are around. Brian can sit in comfortable NY and have the nerve not to want to provide educational benefits for our military!
This is just so wrong!
May 27th, 2008 at 2:32 pmGrampy McSame says – My friends back in the day we would never think of entering college at age 18, no, no, all of us would wait till we were 30, that’s when you go to college, age 30, when I was age 30 we had to share our classes with dinosaurs, that’s right, stinky dinosaurs, we would have school yard fights with them too, I have a really sharp spear, but the volcano would go off and we would head back to class, the dinosaurs didn’t do well in the tar pits though, I would bring fire and we would cheer on the dinosaurs, but they lost…30 that’s the age to start college, when you get smart, not before….I think I sat in some baked beans…it that a chunk of bacon?
Why not just give em the college funds when they are 50 gramps, it will do about as much for them as at 30…time for you nap.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:42 pmThe new GI Bill is being put forward by the man Ronald Reagan chose to be Secretary of the Navy.
It means nothing, if course. Saint Ronnie’s blessing doesn’t mean a thing if the (R) isn’t there. All that matters is the promotion of the Republican party. That’s who bought them. Conservative causes? Patriotic causes? They’ll repudiate them in a inute if it does not work to the domestic political benefit of the Republican Party.
May 27th, 2008 at 2:45 pmBuckie Boy’s TELLING ONE OF HIS FAMOUS STORIES!
May 27th, 2008 at 2:54 pmBy their own logic, Kilmeade, Doocy and Carlson should not get health insurance or other benefits for working at Fox because they volunteered to work there instead of being conscripted or forced to do so. Sheesh.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:03 pmold stevie boy should have his son enlist and go to Iraq. The one that ask that dumb question about Clinton at Masanes rally. How many of the fox and friends have military over in Iraq?
May 27th, 2008 at 3:04 pmHmmmm. Steve Doocy’s kid is prime military material. How about HE head off to Iraq? No worries – he can go back to college when he’s 30! Yeah!
May 27th, 2008 at 3:11 pmThis is the ultimate expression of the Republican elites plan for the United States.
1. It is not whether an individual provided a unique service to the United States or made a personal sacrifice to defend their country. The recruit is merely an object, labor bought and paid for at the lowest possible price.
2. The recruit should not expect any concrete showing of appreciation for their service. (Not that I have ever seen a veteran ever ask for it with the exception of McCain.) This is a capitalist society and we give nothing to those who did not bargain for it up front. Showing any appreciation or providing any benefit that was not bargained for merely increases the desire of those from a lower social order to be rewarded in accordance with the value of their effort.
3. It is easy to forget that the draft was not initially required at the beginning of WWII. Those who had volunteered for military service prior to initiation of the draft were also provided the same GI Bill benefits. But the whole purpose of the GI Bill was to recognize the sacrifices by our citizen’s during WWII. Nothing in the debates over the bill, in public discourse or other forum suggested that there was a difference between volunteer and draftee. FOX seems to take the position that if you are stupid enough to serve your country, then you are entitled to no gratitude for your service.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:14 pmFair enough.
Let’s make this the program. With one caveat — let everyone who wants to leave the service early do so.
Or better, require everybody to “re-volunteer” immediately. Anyone who doesn’t like the new dispensation can hit the bricks.
Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:14 pmMost countries that have nationalized oil, utilities and health care also provide free college tuition.
Think about that.
The powers that make money off of education strongly oppose free tuition.
Some of these are the same entities ripping off young students through inflated interest school loans.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:16 pmSupport our Troops! Keep them uneducated & willing to kill!
“Well after World War II, people were conscripted. They said, ‘You’re joining.’ They said for doing that and winning the war, here’s a college education. Now, people are saying, ‘I want to be a military person. I am signing on in a volunteer force.’
So…they don’t deserve a college education because they aren’t winning the war?
The above is simply verbal diarrhea spewed by a shit-for-brains animated turd,
Conscription was introduced at the beginning of US involvement in WWII and expanded during it. The US had plenty of volunteers throughout the war but relied on the draft to maintain the numbers needed for the fight.
Volunteers and conscripts were denied the opportunity of a college education because of national need. Millions were only high-school graduates and much of what they learned in the war couldn’t be applied to domestic employment.
The GI Bill wasn’t a “reward” as much as it was a moral and economic necessity.
The Vietnam War made clear the extreme inequity of the draft system as it was executed where the wealthy and politically connected (Cheney and Bush for instance) either avoided service altogether or were subsidized to ‘play soldier’ without any significant contribution.
The change to an “all-volunteer force post–Vietnam showed that many volunteers joined up not out any great sense of patriotism but out of desperation driven by local economic conditions and employment opportunities. As the hardware and organization of the services grew more sophisticated the quality of the recruiting pool remained the same—poorly motivated and poorly educated.
The Army, Navy and Air-Force have promoted the promises of degree-education as a recruitment tool for the last 25 years to not only ensure a quality fighting-man but to maintain a competent officer class.
And the fact is that the Army in particular isn’t getting the recruits it should have because even the traditional pool of the option-deprived are learning that the military will not commit to the soldier as the soldier commits to service.
A GI Bill written by Congress provides the GI not only with a deserved benefit but the legal protections so clearly required rather than the one-sided contracts provided by the Pentagon that if challenged, can only be decided in favor of the Pentagon.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:21 pmok, first of all, that dumb*ss girl on the show didn’t even know what “vitriolic” means.
2nd, they’re talking at the end about how people only read the headlines and get the wrong idea of what the “truth” is. all the while the words at the bottom of the screen say: “WH Slams Media, accuses NY Time and NBC of bias”… what a bunch of horse sh*t
3rd, these people have no emotions, feelings, or empathy.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:36 pmI noticed that Brian Kilmeade’s official biopage mentions nothing about him serving in the military. His opinion on what vets deserve or don’t deserve should count for less than the opinion of those who have served.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:37 pmChickenhawks say what?
May 27th, 2008 at 3:39 pmWhat do you expect? These are Roger Ailes and Ruppert Murdoch’s “Three Stooges”–3 dopes who are so ignorant and stupid that they couldn’t find their ass with both hands.
These people live in a different world than the rest of us–because it is safer for them.
They are pathetic and should be pitied and not watched under any circumstances. If I want news or to be educated on anything, the last place I would even think of would be Fox News. It is a joke.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:51 pmSomeone needs to remind this wanker that 40% of all troops serving in Iraq didn’t “sign up for this”. They are Guard & Reserves that never expected to be activated and send over seas… let alone held against their will FOR YEARS by “Stop Loss”.
May 27th, 2008 at 3:52 pmhahaha….thanks kilmeade…..you’re doing the Democrats work for them.
next….tell us how the elderly don’t deserve healthcare because they choose to live too long
May 27th, 2008 at 4:04 pmVacant skulls! That’s all they hire at Faux Nooze. Vacant skulls!
May 27th, 2008 at 4:14 pmMugsy…
Even signing up as National Guard and Reserves they are at the disposal of the Pentagon. (Many National Guard soldiers were called-up and fought during WWII). Expectations of individuals don’t count when a war is to be fought.
But I think get what you are getting-at. The NG and Reserves are part-time soldiers, to be deployed for vital national need and as Iraq certainly wasn’t a war of need (except for the neocons) in that respect many of them certainly didn’t “sign-up” for it–they were coerced by the terms of their contracts and certainly taken advatnage-of.
Worse perhaps, is that even if willing and prepared to serve body and soul for the military’s needs, their sense of honor, discipline and devotion is so demonstably ignored by the Pentagon apparatchiks and this venal administration. The NG and Reserves, forced to give up jobs and families for a war that even if they believe in the cause, are treated like trash once they have served their purpose. They surely didn’t ’sign-up’ for that.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:18 pmThese “people” make me ill.
This is the official Republican propaganda channel parroting this crap and not even flinching. Kilmeade is nothing but a soulless puppet in service to his paycheck.
Fox’s duplicity and dishonesty is why they (all Fox affiliated channels) are blocked in my magic sparklebox.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:23 pmWell we now know that Bush and McCain believe this, as all Bush tools need to be instructed as to what to think!
May 27th, 2008 at 4:34 pmI guess he’s too stupid to realize that educational benefits are a recruitment tool for our all volunteer army. If it wasn’t a recruitment tool, our army would not be made up of mostly poor kids who are hoping for a way out of their poverty.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:34 pmSo, the tens of thousands of Americans who flocked into the recruiters offices after Pearl Harbor did not deserve the GI Bill either, because they volunteered?
May 27th, 2008 at 4:34 pmZimzoe @ 3:16
In other words,
theirs is not to reason why, but to re-up and die.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:38 pmThank you #44. The balls of Fake News to complain that “the headline is misleading” and people need to educate themselves about the issue … well, except the other 99.9% of the time when the headline is in their favour. Then you should just listen to them and take it at face value. F-ing clowns.
May 27th, 2008 at 4:40 pmStratRat says;
What if Bush called for a war, and nobody came?
______________________________________________________________
PEACE
May 27th, 2008 at 4:45 pmFox News blows. Ignore ‘em.
May 27th, 2008 at 5:10 pmHere’s a big yellow “Support our Troops” ribbon for Faux news.
May 27th, 2008 at 5:13 pmIt is as simple as this:
May 27th, 2008 at 5:43 pmRepugs need a contiuous supply of recruits, without which, they must draft or end the war (even THEY are too smart to try to reenact the draft). Weighing the risk of each, they must feel recycling troops to death is their safest bet, and keeping recruits from advancing is the safest way to keep them fighting.
Should these criminals decide to read between the lines, however, they would understand that the lack of NEW recruits directly reflects the utter disdain for this pointless war, and the lack of support for it.
That has to be one of the dumbest things to come out of these fools mouths ever.
Don’t give benefits to veterans because THEY volunteered to serve their country!!!! What the hell kind of logic is that??? I would think that you would want to reward volunteers more than you would want to reward people who were dragged into conscription.
This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard.
May 27th, 2008 at 6:01 pmI love how this is all scripted and they read it off the teleprompter.
“Is is vitrolic?”
“Vitriolic.”
“Oh. Vi-tri-o-lic. Got it.”
May 27th, 2008 at 7:13 pmThis issue in particular shows how “Support the troops” is really just a political slogan to right-wingers which means “Support Bush and Republicans”. They put on their flag lapel pins and wave their made-in-China American flags around, but it really means nothing to them.
Right-wingers don’t even seem to KNOW why they oppose this bill. They only know and parrot the party line. Even the White House does not seem to have a real reason to oppose Webb’s bill, so they play attack the messenger.
If the shoe was on the other foot, and the Democratic Party was against the S-CHIP expansion (childrens’ health), would Democratic voters just fall in line and stop wanting children to have health coverage? I can’t see that happening. That is what Republicans are now doing on the GI Bill expansion.
May 27th, 2008 at 10:47 pmSince these fools on Fox & Frauds “volunteer” their opinions supporting a President who is a glorified mouth piece for his advisers and Mrs. John McCain, because we all know Cindy is the man in their relationship (and gives him his weekly allowance). How about when Obama manhandles the latter and kicks the former out of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. that these schmucks voluntarily leave the airwaves and that they go see if their “talents” can provide them with a warm meal and a non-RNC bi-weekly paycheck. Well, maybe Gretchen will be okay…she can always take her own upskirt pics and put them online. But Doocy’s face looks like a handbag and Kilmeade can’t rely on walking off another set as a “shock” piece…well, maybe if he worked for Entertainment Tonight or The Insider and it was off a plank and into a pit of hungry Star Jones’. These guys are screwed once the GOP loses control and they are stumping for the true minority.
May 28th, 2008 at 12:05 amNone of the Faux Friends served, did they? They work for Roger Ailes, one of Nixon’s dirty tricksters.
May 28th, 2008 at 1:44 amDoes Doocy seem drunk?
May 28th, 2008 at 1:49 am.
I’m sorry, did Brian KilLmeDead ever put his life on the line for this nation? I know he didn’t just do it…!
… he put his reputation on the line.
.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:39 am#60 enough Says:
Made in China with lead paint. It’s fine as long as you don’t lick it.
May 28th, 2008 at 2:43 am“Fox News’s Kilmeade Says Vets Don’t Deserve Webb’s GI Bill Because They Volunteered To Serve”
Same goes for government staff and free healthcare? Mr. Cheney (and the rest), you owe the USA Treasure a couple milions by now…
May 28th, 2008 at 5:58 amAfter six years as being mistreated as political punchingbags by the current waaahhhhpublican administration, the G.I. bill should send each member of the military to ivy league colleges and give them a new house and a car.
It would be fair compensation for being sent to Iraq without the appropriate body armor, being deployed for three and four missions, not given enough “down time” and then having it shoved up their asses with a “backdoor draft”.
Oh, and tickets to sit in the audience at faux and friends with a complimentary set of brass knuckles.
May 28th, 2008 at 6:11 amFox and Commrades?
Lets face it. This is a propaganda station. When I do listen to them I am amazed about how biased they are. It is so blatent.
Say yes to IMPEACHMENT!!!!
May 28th, 2008 at 4:27 pm