Because he read about it over his morning Caramel Macchiato
On the March 17th episode of Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO, actor Richard Belzer argued that he knows more about war than the soldiers who are actually on the ground fighting the war. Why does this detached-from-reality Hollywood Liberal think this? Because “they don’t read twenty newspapers a day†like Belzer does. Belzer also contends that most soldiers are just ignorant, uneducated dupes who didn’t have any non-military alternatives in their poor, pathetic lives.
Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R–FL) mocked Belzer: “Yeah, you know because you’ve been there.” Belzer rudely lashed back: “What, I don’t fucking read!? Don’t do that!” He went on to argue: “It’s this patronizing thing that people have about if you’re against the war everyone’s lumped together. You know, the soldiers are not scholars, they’re not war experts.” That was too much for host Bill Maher: “You’re going to lose even me…â€
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Belzer apparently didn’t read the Heritage Foundation research, which found that a higher percentage of middle-class and upper-middle-class families have been providing enlistees for the war on Islamic militants since the September 11 attacks on the United States.
And if the USA Today was one of the newspapers that Belzer read daily, he would have known that 98% of military recruits joined with high-school diplomas or better. By comparison, 75% of the general population meets that standard.
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Ironically, Belzer is less educated than the average soldier. Belzer was kicked out of every school he ever attended, including Dean Junior College.
According to the Wikipedia article on Belzer, he unsuccessfully attended junior college and later enlisted in the Army. He soon realized it was a mistake and tried to get out.
Belzer was discharged from the Army on July 22, 1964. It would be very, very interesting to find out exactly how Belzer tried to “get out” of the Army. And probably even more telling to find out the nature of his discharge — honorable, less than honorable, or dishonorable. I’m betting on one of the last two. Which would help explain his disdain for the Soldiers serving today.
From the USA Today article that Belzer missed:
Maintaining the strength and size of our all-volunteer military isn’t always easy. But Americans step up when their country needs them. To suggest the system is failing or exploiting citizens is wrong. And to make claims about the nature of U.S. troops to discredit their mission ought to be politically out of bounds.
Unless you’re a (proudly) out-of-touch with the maintstream Hollywood Limo-Liberal. Then it’s quite fashionable to descredit our troops and their mission.
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OTHERS:
- ALa at Blonde Sagacity
- Michelle Malkin
- Doug Powers at MND BlogWonks
- Sister Toldjah
- ChickwithBrain writes, “Shut up and act.”
The other day I was watching a St. Pat’s day parade in some city and the parade was honoring one of the units (sorry I don’t know what proper name is) just returned from Iraq. It struck me how good this was compared to the terrible treatment that vets returning from Viet Nam got. Even though a majority of Americans don’t agree with this war, there doesn’t seem to be a backlash against the young men and women who are fighting in it, except of course by a few mean spirited people like the Fred Phelps clan and hateful and ignorant people like Belzer.
Maybe we learned something from Viet Nam; at least I’d like to think so.
Yeah, he really made an ass out of himself. I stopped watching all the L&O shows quite a while ago because of the dumbass political comments that had nothing to do with the plotlines.
I quit wathing them (L&O and its myriad offspring) almost immediately after I started watching — them because they sucked.
[...] ADDED: More stuff that us lazy people are willing to find over at UrbanGrounds, including this tidbit: [...]
Everybody should read this related piece by Ben Stein:
Missed Tributes
By Ben Stein
Published 3/6/2006 2:08:21 AM
Now for a few humble thoughts about the Oscars.
I did not see every second of it, but my wife did, and she joins me in noting that there was not one word of tribute, not one breath, to our fighting men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan or to their families or their widows or orphans. There were pitifully dishonest calls for peace — as if the people we are fighting were interested in any peace for us but the peace of the grave. But not one word for the hundreds of thousands who have served and are serving, not one prayer or moment of silence for the dead and maimed.
Basically, the sad truth is that Hollywood does not think of itself as part of America, and so, to Hollywood, the war to save freedom from Islamic terrorists is happening to someone else. It does not concern them except insofar as it offers occasion to mock or criticize George Bush. They live in dreamland and cannot be gracious enough to thank the men and women who pay with their lives for the stars’ ability to live in dreamland. This is shameful.
The idea that it is brave to stand up for gays in Hollywood, to stand up against Joe McCarthy in Hollywood (fifty years after his death), to say that rich white people are bad, that oil companies are evil — this is nonsense. All of these are mainstream ideas in Hollywood, always have been, always will be. For the people who made movies denouncing Big Oil, worshiping gays, mocking the rich to think of themselves as brave — this is pathetic, childish narcissism.
The brave guy in Hollywood will be the one who says that this is a fabulously great country where we treat gays, blacks, and everyone else as equal. The courageous writer in Hollywood will be the one who says the oil companies do their best in a very hostile world to bring us energy cheaply and efficiently and with a minimum of corruption. The producer who really has guts will be the one who says that Wall Street, despite its flaws, has done the best job of democratizing wealth ever in the history of mankind.
No doubt the men and women who came to the Oscars in gowns that cost more than an Army Sergeant makes in a year, in limousines with champagne in the back seat, think they are working class heroes to attack America — which has made it all possible for them. They are not. They would be heroes if they said that Moslem extremists are the worst threat to human decency since Hitler and Stalin. But someone might yell at them or even attack them with a knife if they sad that, so they never will.
Hollywood is above all about self: self-congratulation, self-promotion, and above all, self-protection. This is human and basic, but let’s not kid ourselves. There is no greatness there in the Kodak theater. The greatness is on patrol in Kirkuk. The greatness lies unable to sleep worrying about her man in Mosul. The greatness sleeps at Arlington National Cemetery and lies waiting for death in VA Hospitals. God help us that we have sunk so low as to confuse foolish and petty boasting with the real courage that keeps this nation and the many fools in it alive and flourishing on national TV.
Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He also writes “Ben Stein’s Diary” in every issue of The American Spectator.
I really hope that no soldiers heard this show or saw the reports of what was said – even though Belzer isn’t persuasive or intellectual the fact that this man was given air time to bash our soldiers is sickening. Further, I’ve actually read posts by soldiers who are currently serving and they provide great insight to what is actually happening in Iraq. Just read their online posts and you feel like you’re getting a real picture, not one filtered through the media. In fact, I suggest to everyone, including Mr. Belzer, that you check out some of these sights – soldier’s Angels Blogs (sablogs.com), Grandma in Iraq (frontier.cincinnati.com), etc.
I was stationed in Japan with Belzer, from 1962 to 1964. He was a different breed of cat. He was super witty and cocky, and I remember that I couldn’t figure that out because he was so ugly, with his skinny body and his pocked marked face. He was completly insane as he is now. He fits right in with the hollywood liberals.
I knew Richard Belzer when he was in the Army in Japan. I remember that he was super witty and cocky, and we couldn’t figure it out, because he was so ugly. He wa super skinny, with that pocked marked face. I was in Japan from 1962 to 1964 and I remember that he was kicked out of the army for some reason. We were not friends. I don’t think he had any. I can understand his position on the military or anything else, because he was a failure in all these things. The on way he could survive is live in the fake world called Hollywood, where he could be around other misfits.
I knew Richard and Sam stationed in Japan in about ‘63-’64. Richard got out on a psycho discharge for bedwetting I think. Sam use to always get caught masturbating and almost got a psycho discharge himself except his dad was some colonel and had him shipped to some supply duty stateside.