Re: Tulsi Gabbard

Re: Tulsi Gabbard.
NBCnews: "Russia's propaganda machine discovers 2020 Democratic candidate Tulsi Gabbard"

Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D.-HI, speaks at a press conference on Capitol Hill on July 18, 2018.Win McNamee / Getty Images file

1. She is a veteran, currently a Major in the Hawaiian National Guard. Previously she was enlisted in a medical administration unit. She is now a Military Police officer, which is combat arms but while in a combat zone she did not participate in direct combat. She does not have a Combat Action Ribbon. There is no reason to doubt that she was competent at her duties and served honorably.

2. While she has projected an air of moderation or at least tempered certain erroneous statements by others regarding technical facts that she can claim some credibility on she has reliably supported her party leadership in generally moving the Democratic Party to the left. She has endorsed what could be extreme positions in endorsing the Obama record in both domestic and foreign policies, tempered by dovish criticisms, including accommodating anti-American and anti-Semitic groups in the Middle East, as well as participating in mob-like #metoo attacks and demands for Impeachment. She has effectively endorsed the Putin position on Syria. Her position on Israel parroted the most left wing criticisms of the Netanyahu government, while she joined her party leadership again in supporting an anodyne toothless measure designed to signal disapproval of the embarrassing Gang of Four who push open BDS.

3. She has never held a meaningful private sector job or accomplished anything significant other than get elected.

4. Tulsi Gabbard is unqualified from what we know to be POTUS and it is reasonable to believe that she would be a disaster if elected.

5. In the 2nd Debate she confronted Kamala Harris, and rhetorically speaking drew blood. In response there appears to be a campaign by left wing media, such as NBC, to discredit her using tactics that are reminiscent of the hysterical and irrational means that have been directed at President Trump and his supporters. There is a level of personal animus on display that gives pause and merits consideration.

6. Partly what we see can be considered the expression of a Stalinist model that is in fact part of the cultural DNA of the Left. While this may seem bizarre to most Americans those who have been on college campuses know that the legacy of left wing alphabet party politics that belonged in a coffee shop or cafe near City College of NY or the University of Chicago in the 1930s or in the Monty Python skit from "The Life of Brian" is as much a part of what shapes academia as the GI Bill and the Guaranteed Student Loan programs. The greater venom is directed at a member of the party who threatens the discipline of the group. Gabbard is being treated like Dmitri Shostakovich when the Party declared him to be a Formalist.

7. There may be another reason that some Democratic activists resent Gabbard. She is an attractive woman. The base of activists largely consists of the sexually frustrated and resentful. Picture a Democratic Activist and what comes to mind is an enraged middle aged woman whose ostentatious disregard for an attractive physical appearance makes a statement. This is leavened by sexual politics that have exploited attractive women to benefit men in power and a coterie of unattractive lesbians. The latter may tolerate an attractive woman as useful for publicity, as with actresses who are celebrated but rarely taken seriously, until they age into the apparatchik role or publicly reject the attractive image and, with a few exceptions for major talents, the audience that brought them stardom.