Saluting Walter Jones
2012-03-22 - by
Nothing explodes on Twitter like a real or perceived gaffe. Just yesterday, we had Mitt Romney’s Etch-a-Sketch, the John Locke Foundation’s controversial image of President Obama and Walter Jones’ “Uncle Chang.”
“Uncle Chang” did have the ring of offensiveness. It was also baffling. So I had to see what the notoriously unpredictable maverick congressman had to say. Turns out he was talking about borrowing money from China (“Uncle Chang”) to pay for war in Afghanistan.
Then it turns out that Jones had made a pointed and poignant statement about the war that deserves attention:
“We are spending $10 billion a month that we can’t even pay for….What is the metric? How do you know when it’s time to go? When does the Congress have the testimony that someone will say, we have done all we can do? Bin Laden is dead….
“I hope that sometime in between now and 2014, if things are not improving or they are fragile like they are now, somebody will come to the Congress and say the military has sacrificed enough. The American people have paid enough. And somebody would shoot straight with the American people and the Congress.
“We can declare victory now. But there’s one thing we cannot do, and that is change history, because Afghanistan has never changed since they’ve been existing.”
That’s no gaffe. That’s downright profound. Well said, Congressman.
Saluting Walter Jones
2012-03-22/
Nothing explodes on Twitter like a real or perceived gaffe. Just yesterday, we had Mitt Romney’s Etch-a-Sketch, the John Locke Foundation’s controversial image of President Obama and Walter Jones’ “Uncle Chang.”
“Uncle Chang” did have the ring of offensiveness. It was also baffling. So I had to see what the notoriously unpredictable maverick congressman had to say. Turns out he was talking about borrowing money from China (“Uncle Chang”) to pay for war in Afghanistan.
Then it turns out that Jones had made a pointed and poignant statement about the war that deserves attention:
“We are spending $10 billion a month that we can’t even pay for….What is the metric? How do you know when it’s time to go? When does the Congress have the testimony that someone will say, we have done all we can do? Bin Laden is dead….
“I hope that sometime in between now and 2014, if things are not improving or they are fragile like they are now, somebody will come to the Congress and say the military has sacrificed enough. The American people have paid enough. And somebody would shoot straight with the American people and the Congress.
“We can declare victory now. But there’s one thing we cannot do, and that is change history, because Afghanistan has never changed since they’ve been existing.”
That’s no gaffe. That’s downright profound. Well said, Congressman.