The age old question: Who served?

So what?

So should it be a pre-requisite for public office?

I expected low numbers but not this low. Interesting indeed.

I would expect the offsping of these people will reflect even lower numbers.

I always felt military service should be a requirement for elected officials since it is one of the largest budget items and the most important.

I think the reason for this post of McG's is that back during Kerry's candidacy there were several threads purporting to show how so few republicans in office had actually served in the military as compared with the democrats. The point of those threads (if I remember correctly) was basically that democrats are more patriotic when it comes to military service as opposed to the cowardly republican leaders who avoid military service.

I personally don't see or care whether a politician was in the military or not. Does not necessarily qualify him for office.

Thank you CoastalRat. That is indeed the reason.

I thought we were talking about Presidents who served during the campaign season?

So people actually said on these threads that democrats were more patriotic because they had more people who served in military? I somehow doubt it.

That was the inference that was made. At least that is what I got out of it, Revel. I didn't much get involved in those threads because, again, whether someone was in the military or not had little to do with my vote decision.

OK, costalrat. It never made much difference to me either.

Actually, I believe the list of Republicans that served or didn't serve was to show the hypocrisy of those pushing for war and claiming it to be "patriotic."

Note that McCain wasn't considered a hypocrit because he wasn't calling for war and had served. That was the distinction being made. The high number of those calling for war, fixing the facts and being so zealous to send our soldiers into battle that had no idea what they were sending them into becasue they had never served, was the purpose of the list, NOT "Democrats are better because more of us served."

It was the hypocrisy, not the service.

Also, I don't have a list, but I would imagine there are fewer democrats that have served because there are more older women serving as representatives in the Democrats aisle than that of the republicans. Older women would not have been drafted or allowed to sign up for service 40+ years ago. Given that fact, I would also imagine the 13% vs. 17% comparison would make the Republican side look a bit lworse by taking out the female representatives.

The numbers don't look accurate to me based on my recollections. This is a biased website. They don't have any individual breakdown. I would like to see the numbers from a credible source.

*sigh*

It's not a biased source. The numbers are there, but you may actually have to click on the links to find them.

I wonder why I bother sometimes.

Firstly, I don't care about military service of elected officials until they start making decisions to go to war.

Secondly, I took a gander at the site and I want to be sure that we all are clear about what those numbers mean. The pie charts that McG is quoting from cover all the members of the Senate and the House. In the senate, it says that 13% of the members are Democrats who served in the military (5 of which served in combat). 17% of the senate members are Republicans who served in the military(5 of which served in combat). This translates to ~30.3% of Republicans in the Senate serving and ~29.5% of Democrats serving. Not a very big difference there.

In the House, however, there truly is a greater percentage of Republicans who served than Democrats -- roughly 28% to 19%.

What's important to keep in mind is that the Republicans are the majority of the pie. So, if you broke up the part of the pie that represents those who did not serve, they would lead there also. So lets not go using misinterpreted numbers to make a case for more political division.

The goal of this thread was to provide an unbiased source so as to avoid the propaganda from various past sources in the future.

That's it.

No hidden agenda's, no hidden messages.

No? How do you interpret the data, McG? I think that is the question. As it stands, it's just data. What conclusion do you draw from it?

Breakdown of the 108th, which is the one Democrats would have been referring to in the aforementioned Republican "who served."

House: 227 Republicans, 210 Democrats, 1 Ind.

Senate: 51 Republicans, 48 Democrats, 1 Ind.

77 women served in the 108th, 63 in the House and 14 in the Senate. Of the 63 in the House, 42 are Democrats. In the Senate, 9 of the 14 are Democrats.

153 members of the 108th had some form of military service. The House had 117 veterans, with 69 being Republican and 48 Democrats. The Senate had 35 veterans, with 19 being republican and 16 being Democrats.

(Source: http://www.senate.gov/reference/resources/pdf/RS21379.pdf)

Hee hee

Problem is, that site doesn't weight the fact that there are many more Republicans IN the House and Senate than there are Dems these days. A substantial percentage more.

Therefore,



This doesn't mean that 17% of Republicans in the Senate served; if you look at the pie chart, it means that 17% of those who served, from the Senate, were Republican. Given that they have a ten-seat advantage in the Senate it looks like the percentages are about equal when weighted correctly.

Squinney makes a good point about Female representation, and the lack thereof, on the Republican side.

Next poll question: How many of our gov't employees actually have KIDS serving, RIGHT NOW? I can name you a few prominent families in power that don't, and should, for sure....

Cycloptichorn

Damn, that's what I get for not previewing

Good morning all

Cycloptichorn

I interpret this as a counter to posts like this one.

It presents current information in an easy to understand format.

Well, this post doesn't counter the assertion at all that MOST of the top Republicans, including the War Hawks who got us into this mess, didn't serve in the military.

Which was the point of the post you linked to.

Cycloptichorn