Death From Within!

As the resident VFW member-at-large (our local post is still on the books, but it's deader'n a carp) around here, I see this as a microcosm of the right wing eating its own.

MoJo

They've made it through Tarawa, Chosin, Khe Sanh, Desert Storm, and a whole lot more. But the Veterans of Foreign Wars are waging a new battle for survival this year: They're fending off a mutiny by tea partiers.

"Stand by to repel boarders! Man yer walkers!" Heh.

[...] In all, at least 11 GOP tea party candidates (see a list below) with solid military credentials have been passed over by the VFW, even as it's endorsed incumbents like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, and Jesse Jackson Jr. (The VFW's also proven friendly to incumbent conservatives like John McCain, Chuck Grassley, and Joe "You Lie!" Wilson.)

Meanwhile, there are a handful of astroturf right-wing groups, seeded by big conservative money and interests, for vets who've started to endorse the tea partiers—and they stand to gain clout with disaffected VFW members. West's website boasts that he's been "endorsed by Freedom for Vets PAC." (Actually, he meant Vets for Freedom, a PAC run by former soldier and Bear Stearns banker Pete Hegseth that has deep GOP and Swiftboater ties.) Besides Vets for Freedom, there's also Move America Forward, Combat Veterans for Congress, Gathering of Eagles, and others—all ready to cater to the military tea partier. "VFW CONTINUES BAD ENDORSEMENT BINGE," Move America Forward's PAC blog gleefully points out. "Shouldn’t groups like the NRA and VFW give preference to endorsing it's [sic] own members wherever possible?"

Wolf's not ready to defect just yet. While he personally is threatening to leave, "I don't want to see the VFW get broke up," he says, gruffly. And he's not crazy about the alternatives: While he admires Hegseth's group, he takes issue with Vets for Freedom's political stridency and its legislative scorecard. Lilyea agrees, saying VFF's right-wing litmus tests are ridiculous. "They're gonna vote against a good bill that gives funding to veterans because it has some amendment for, I don't know, $4 million for a NAMBLA monument or something," he says, conjuring an extreme example of how VFF caricatures its political opponents.

If that's the alternative, Lilyea says, he hopes the VFW will get out of politics altogether. He likens it to Afghanistan: "I'm not anti-war, but if you're not in it to win the thing, then get the hell out of there." But a withdrawal from the political theater is unlikely until the VFW gets some fresh blood. "Have you seen these guys? These members of the board of the PAC look like they rode with Pershing," he says. "They don't know what's going on."

That 'Pershing' crack is real similar to the attitude a lot of Vietnam vets faced when they tried to join the VFW. A lot of the mostly WWII and Korean vet members, aka "the tailgunners", didn't see Vietnam as a 'real' war and Vietnam vets as 'real' war zone veterans, probably because we lost, and resisted them joining. Cooler heads prevailed as the tailgunners started to die off and membership shrank. Now the Vietnam guys are in the majority and are the dinosaurs to the younger vets.

The VFW is an old-line conservative outfit, but they do a lot for veterans. While I'm not thrilled to have to give them any credit at all for supporting yingyangs like McCain, at least they're resisting the whackjob teabaggers in their midst. It might tear them apart. Again, they do a lot for veterans and in that regard it would be a loss.

As the teabagger shit passes, and it will, they'll probably recover.

I wish Fixer'd join the VFW. I betcha he'd liven up his post's meetings. I'd go to New York just to go to a meeting and watch. Heh.