XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, mn.politics, alt.fun   
   XPost: talk.politics.guns, sac.politics   
   From: X@Y.com   
      
   American Traitor Tom Cotton’s Staggering, Shameful Hypocrisy Over Trump’s   
   Arlington Debacle   
      
      
   IS NOTHING SACRED?   
      
   Cotton is either deceiving himself, or seeking to deceive everybody else,   
   about Donald Trump’s motives in politicizing Gold Star families’ grief.   
      
      
   In his 2019 memoir, Sacred Duty: A Soldier’s Tour at Arlington National   
   Cemetery, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) recounts the 16 months, beginning in   
   early 2007, he spent as an Army officer assigned to The Old Guard, the   
   fabled unit that oversees a grassy expanse made holy by American heroes.   
      
   During this time, Cotton periodically filled in for his commanding   
   officer and personally supervised several interments in Arlington   
   National Cemetery’s Section 60, where the dead from the wars in   
   Afghanistan and Iraq are buried.   
      
   “I understand why some people call this bucolic patch of land the saddest   
   acre in America, but I prefer to think of Section 60 as the noblest acre   
   in America,” he writes in Sacred Duty. “The nobility of Section 60 runs   
   deep in the soil of Arlington and in the soul of our nation.”   
      
   “Over the years, I have noticed something about Arlington. Although a   
   sign welcomes visitors to ‘our nation’s most sacred shrine,’ no rules are   
   posted. Yet visitors somehow understand a proper code of conduct,” Cotton   
   continues. “Arlington elicits instinctive reverence from citizen and   
   soldier alike because this land is more than a cemetery… Arlington truly   
   is sacred ground for our nation.”   
      
   One recent exception to this decorum came during former President Donald   
   Trump’s visit to Arlington this week for a wreath-laying ceremony marking   
   the third anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 13 American   
   service members at Kabul airport amid the withdrawal of U.S. troops from   
   Afghanistan in 2021.   
      
   The dead included Marine Staff Sgt. Taylor Hoover, who is buried in   
   Section 60. Trump accompanied Hoover’s parents at the ceremony.   
      
   ”I gave my permission,” Hoover’s mother, Kelly Barnett, later told NBC   
   News. “My son was murdered under the Biden-Harris administration.”   
      
   Gold Star parents are free to say whatever they want in such   
   circumstances. But such hard-won exemptions do not apply to others,   
   including Trump, who was accompanied by an entourage that included a   
   photographer. (In a graveside photo, Trump was joined by Hoover’s parents   
   in giving a thumb’s up—but he was ultimately honoring only himself, as   
   always.)   
   Donald Trump leaves Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 26,   
   2024.   
      
   Donald Trump leaves Section 60 of Arlington National Cemetery on Aug. 26,   
   2024.   
   Kevin Carter/Getty   
      
   The Army had anticipated that this might be one of those rare instances   
   where visitors needed to be explicitly informed of the proper code of   
   conduct. Trump’s campaign had been told in advance that electioneering   
   and other partisan political activity at Arlington was against federal   
   law.   
      
   That law did not change because a Gold Star mother had invited Trump.   
      
   A cemetery official correctly surmised that the Trump crew intended to   
   film scenes for political purposes. She moved to intervene and was   
   “abruptly pushed aside,” the Army’s public affairs office said in a   
   statement released Thursday. “Consistent with the decorum expected at   
   [Arlington National Cemetery], this employee acted with professionalism   
   and avoided further disruption.”   
      
   A Trump spokesman crassly proposed that the official was “suffering a   
   mental health episode.” Trump himself pleaded ignorance—even after the   
   cemetery footage appeared on social media with his narration.   
      
   “I don’t know what the rules and regulations are,” he told NBC. “I really   
   don’t know anything about it… All I do is I stood there and I said, ‘If   
   you’d like to have a picture, we can have a picture.’”   
      
   He later outdid himself, claiming during a political rally in Johnstown,   
   Pennsylvania, on Friday that “I don’t need publicity,” and raising the   
   possibility that “this was a setup by the people in the administration.”   
      
   Imagine how young Lt. Cotton of The Old Guard—and a Harvard Law School   
   graduate—would have responded to people acting as if the law did not   
   apply to them in a place where almost everybody seemed to understand the   
   rules without having to be told.   
      
   “Old Guard soldiers follow these rules scrupulously; I cannot recall a   
   single infraction during all my time in the cemetery,” Cotton writes in   
   his book.   
      
   But in response to a former commander in chief violating the law along   
   with simple decency in the most sacred section of holy ground, Cotton   
   tweeted his approval: “Good for President Trump to honor the service and   
   sacrifice of those fallen heroes and their loved ones.”   
      
   “The scandal is not that Pres. Trump honored 13 brave Americans killed in   
   Afghanistan,” he added. “The scandal is Biden and Kamala sent those   
   heroes into a needlessly dangerous situation.”   
      
   In truth, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris could have   
   done more to comfort the families. Biden, in particular, could have taken   
   more responsibility for the deaths, even though the bombing occurred   
   during a withdrawal whose timing had been set by Trump before he left   
   office. That said, it should be noted that an extensive Army   
   investigation found that nobody could likely have prevented an attack by   
   a fanatic wearing a 25-pound suicide vest.   
      
   But wherever the ultimate responsibility lies, Cotton is either deceiving   
   himself or seeking to deceive everybody else when it comes to Trump’s   
   intent on the ground The Old Guard takes such pride in protecting.   
      
   Another Gold Star parent with a son in Section 60 told the Daily Beast   
   this week that he sees Trump as a manipulator with an ever-hungry ego.   
      
   “He manipulates and he lies and he misguides,” Khizr Khan, father of   
   fallen Army Capt. Humayun Khan, said.   
      
   It’s not the first time Cotton has debased himself to cover for Trump. He   
   also defended the indefensible two weeks ago, saying Trump had been   
   “taken out of context” when he told a golf club gathering that the   
   civilian Presidential Medal of Freedom he presented to GOP megadonor Dr.   
   Miriam Adelson was “much better” than the Medal of Honor.   
      
   “Everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers,” Trump   
   said. “They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many   
   times by bullets or they are dead.”   
      
   In Sacred Duty, Cotton writes movingly about stopping beside the grave of   
   a Medal of Honor recipient in Arlington.   
      
   “I paused, came to attention, and saluted,” he writes. “The Medal of   
   Honor is the nation’s highest decoration for battlefield valor. By   
   military custom, all soldiers salute Medal of Honor recipients   
   irrespective of their rank, in life and in death.”   
      
   If Cotton ever stops there again, he will do so as a Trump accomplice, a   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)