Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

I don't know about anyone else but I had no idea that the Department of Defense under Rumsfeld allowed soldiers to be deployed to Iraq without weapons.  After all, what our our troops going there for...  to be sitting ducks?

So as I watched the campaign ad, the thought occurred to me that the narrative might say, "Simmons realized upon hearing such news that Rumsfeld and the Bush administration were exercising a malfeasant policy of arming troops and that he had raised this to the national debate."

But that's not what the narrative claims.  No, it says Rob made sure this unit got arms! 

To me, this entire narrative sounds like negligence on Simmons' part and buffoonery of the life threatening kind on the part of the military.

So I called Simmons' office and they said that this woman's son requested a boutique weapon called the M4 instead of the standard issue M16. 

This only adds to the confusion.  Simmons claims that his military experience better qualifies him to represent the district yet he has acted like a cheerleader for all of the shockingly bad decisions that have mired us in Iraq.  Whatever he learned in the military certainly hasn't translated into foreign policy wisdom.

But even at face value, one would think Simmons would be aware of the fact that most of our soldier's deaths and dismemberments are the results of vulnerable supply convoy IED incidents.  Common sense might dictate that specialty requests might increase the need for more such convoys and even field combat shortages because of such well-intentioned congressional interventions.

Am I the only one who feels less safe with these guys running the war?