Background: Tammy Duckworth's mother is from Thailand, but of Chinese ancestry. Her father was a WWII vet who traced his lineage back to the American revolution.
If you're wondering if this gets worse, well: Duckworth herself is an Army vet who flew helicopters in Iraq, which is what she was doing when she was shot down in 2004, and lost both legs in the crash.
Mark Kirk, on the other hand, has been known to exaggerate his service. He's been caught claiming to be a "veteran of the Iraq war." He was a Navy Reservist who served stateside during that time.
I heard about this on the radio this morning. It was explained that about a year ago, this guy had a stroke. He opines now that the resulting brain damage has made him a more "empathetic" politician. As we see here.
I will never understand why the GOP thinks it's a winning strategy to continually denigrate the ACTUAL military service of an ACTUAL military hero like Duckworth. This is like the 5th or 6th time some Republican blowhard shithead has tried to basically make fun of her military service.
It's the old Bush era GOP tactic of establishing themselves as the only true Americans while liberals are traitorous scum. I recently had a co-worker ask me how I could vote the way I do in uniform.
He's desperate and out of time. The polls had this close for a long time, but over the last month he's been trailing by 10-14 points. Nothing else has worked for him, so we get this.
It really has been amazing watching the GOP completely abandon its image as the party that reveres the military. Eight years ago they were basically demanding that John McCain be handed the presidency as a reward for his service, now their nominee mocks McCain for getting captured and no one says a word.
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