When your opponents begin to howl and call you every name in the book, it’s a surefire way to know you’re onto something. The bigger the howls, the bigger the something.
In the past few months, the entire Washington establishment, from the President of the United States to the Senate Majority Leader have called Senator Tommy Tuberville a host of names. They’d have you believe he’s stupid, racist, misogynistic, homophobic, uninformed, misguided, and completely alone fighting the Pentagon.
What they fail to mention: he’s right.
Coach is onto something, and it’s something bigger than taxpayer-funded abortion.
Alabama’s senior senator is demanding a vote on each and every general and admiral nominated to lead our nation’s military. Outside of the Beltway, most Americans probably assume this is what the Senate does anyway when high-ranking officers are put before the Senate for confirmation. After all, it’s a duty and power granted to that body by the Constitution itself. Wouldn’t we want a healthy examination and debate on the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the next Chief of Naval Operations?
Not if you’re the average U.S. senator. What Tuberville’s moves threaten to reveal is that senators don’t actually evaluate our nation’s military leaders. Nor do most of their staff. For decades, the Senate has simply coasted along, rubber-stamping the nominees from the Pentagon without a second thought.
“It would take too long,” bemoan senators who will soon be departing work for six weeks of paid recess.
The source of the impasse began last year—Senator Tuberville warned the Biden administration not to inject third-rail domestic issues into the military. The president pushed the DoD right out onto the tracks anyway, breaking 40 years of bipartisan agreement by turning the Pentagon into an abortion travel agency. So true to his word, Tuberville followed through with his threat to slow down promotions for military officers at the rank of O7 and above.
The resulting onslaught of name-calling, floor speeches, nasty press releases, and even hit pieces on his staff (me) didn’t work. Coach simply soldiered on with a shrug.
“I’m a former college football coach. Try losing a game and hearing what they call you afterwards. This is nothin’,” he told me on the walk back through the Capitol after a heated exchange on the floor.
But a Washington Post story this week sinks to a new low, even for the swamp. In a piece on Tuberville’s late father, Charles Tuberville, the Post’s “fact checker,” Glen Kessler, digs through the elder Tuberville’s military record. The goal? To discredit Tommy Tuberville by casting doubt on his honesty and character.
Tuberville, in public and private, speaks of his father with reverence and obvious love. “My dad fought in World War Two, driving a tank through Europe, where he earned five bronze stars and a Purple Heart.”
Coach told me that in his makeshift cinderblock office in the Senate basement the first day he hired me. He wasn’t bragging, but rather, using the story to illustrate the price of freedom and the kind of service he expected from me, others, and most importantly, himself.
“My dad’s service is why I ran for the Senate,” my boss told me late one evening as we sat under a framed photocopy of his father’s DD214, the discharge papers all veterans receive when they leave active duty, “I didn’t serve and this is my way to give back.”
After scrutinizing war records, newspaper clippings, and even the elder Tuberville’s tombstone, The Post confirms that Tuberville’s father did, in fact, drive a tank across Europe, did fight in Normandy, and did earn a Purple Heart. The paper found so little daylight between the son’s stories and the father’s record that it admits it “will not be issuing a Pinocchio rating.”
The big gotcha is that the senator’s father didn’t earn five bronze stars. The elder Tuberville earned five bronze service stars. Charles Tuberville earned those service stars for campaigns including the Battle of the Bulge, which was some of the fiercest and deadly fighting America faced since the Civil War.
The very same paper that told the American public Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” takes issue with Senator Tuberville’s characterizing his father’s five bronze service stars as “five bronze stars.” Noted.
Military records and history are Byzantine. Will my own son know the difference between my Defense Meritorious Service Medal with one gold star and my Meritorious Service Medal with two gold stars? Doubtful. Would the distinction change his love of me and respect for my service? I hope not.
The Post failed to mention one important fact, probably deliberately: Charles Tuberville died on active duty with the Army of a heat stroke during training. He gave his life for his country at just 53 years old.
Any son would be rightfully proud.
Morgan Murphy is a former National Security Advisor to Tommy Tuberville. @morganwwmurphy
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