Measure The Spin
By Mitch Berg
Check out this piece by Paul Demko in the Minnesoros “Independent”, re Ashwin Madia’s campaign to try to replace Jim Ramstad in the Third Congressional District.
Note the many, many references to Madia’s time in the Marine Corps.
Forget, for a moment, that military service in Republicans is something about which Democrats are at best silent, and at worst scabrously defamatory or (in the Mindy’s pages, no less) ignorantly mocking.
What does this constant spin tell us about the DFL’s appreciation of this issue?
Discuss.
August 5th, 2008 at 7:18 am
Apparently, serving with the Marines in Iraq makes you a good candidate with lots of foreign policy experience, in addition to [list of awful Dem stereotypes for American Armed Services personnel]. Who knew?
August 5th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Maybe in context this made sense, but not in the article:
“I think it takes a different kind of a person to go do your service where not only are there a lot of people who aren’t lawyers, but there are a lot of people who didn’t even go to college.”
Yeesh, is it common for lawyers to never come in contact with people who “didn’t even” go to college? Nice to know we all live in the same world, isn’t it?
August 5th, 2008 at 9:01 am
“After earning his law degree, while many of his classmates from the top-rated school were going on to prestigious clerkships, Madia enlisted in the Marines.”
This narrative is repeated over and over again, but it’s false. Madia went to Officers Candidate School (joined the Marines) and then went to Law School.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:17 am
MoN – you have a source on that?
I’ve run out and check a couple different Madia biographies, and they all say he did law school first.
I’d love to believe it went down the way you said (and to call Demko on it even more), but everything I’ve seen so far says “law school, then marines”.
August 5th, 2008 at 9:24 am
In an on-line interview
Madia: I didn’t join through ROTC. At the end of college, I just decided I wanted to do it, so I went through a program that let me go through Officer Candidates School, then go through law school, and then go on active duty immediately afterwards and report to The Basic School.
http://www.sepiamutiny.com/sepia/archives/004909.html
I was going to write about this on my own blog jackofalltradesblog.com
but I’d rather somebody reads it.
August 5th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Write it, send me the link.
People will read it.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
I’ll work on it.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
MoN,
Actually – do work on it. And so will I. Your post caught me at a bad moment. But let’s hit it with both barrels.
August 5th, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I’ll send you a link to the preview tonight.
August 5th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Yeesh, is it common for lawyers to never come in contact with people who “didn’t even” go to college?
I’d guess people who go out of law school into corporate law where the money is don’t spend a lot of their time with non-college graduates. Criminal law, of course, is another matter.