America's Worst Senator® was given a platform on Fox News to spout his ignorance, as Laura Ingraham and others are all too willing to give him one. The usual assortment of garbage was spewed out about liberalism and "wokeness" infecting the U.S. Military, which he uses as justification to block promotions, a practice which secretaries of the Navy, Army and Air Force have called "dangerous."
Tuberville, who has never served in the military himself and has no idea what he's doing for readiness, is somehow allowed to do this by weak Republican leaders who are looking the other way. But Tuberville has a history of disparaging the U.S. Military, stealing from veterans, and lying about his own father's military service, so it shouldn't come as any surprise with his callous, indifferent attitude right now. For some reason, Alabama thought putting a football coach in the U.S. Senate was a good idea. It wasn't.
As for his attack on poetry in the military (as something effete and intellectual, no doubt), I'd remind him that poetry has been used in the U.S. Military since the time of George Washington. That actual soldiers who fought and sometimes died in wartime wrote poems, even on the frontlines. One of England's great writers, Rudyard Kipling wrote some of the most famous war poems after his son (age 18) died in the First World War. Perhaps his most famous, Common Form, from Epitaphs of War was a couplet.
If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.
Source: Huffington Post
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Wednesday that poetry is proof the Navy needs to root out “wokeness.”
“We’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker,” he said to Laura Ingraham on Fox News Wednesday.
The right-wing senator has been widely criticized for blocking military promotions to protest the Pentagon’s policy of supplying service members with paid leave and travel costs to get an abortion in another state.
Tuberville attempted to defend his monthslong blockade by fighting the culture war on “wokeness.”
“Right now we are so woke in the military, we are losing recruits right and left,” he said. “Secretary [Carlos] Del Toro of the Navy he needs to get to building ships; he needs to get to recruiting; and he needs to get wokeness out of our Navy. We’ve got people doing poems on aircraft carriers over the loudspeaker. It is absolutely insane the direction that we’re headed in our military.”
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Tuberville did not specify the instance of Navy personnel reciting poetry on a ship. But he was likely referring to a spoken-word event on the USS Gerald Ford hosted by the Gay, Lesbian, and Supporting Sailors (G.L.A.S.S.) association in November. Tuberville previously griped about a nonbinary junior officer praising that gathering.
Here's the video with more context (h/t Heather).
A former Republican congressman and military vet had this to say about Tuberville's comment.
John McCrae's famous "In Flanders Fields" is still recited every Remembrance Day. Because poetry matters.
