We can be grateful that intrepid political reporters at ABC News are aggressively fact-checking President Obama’s “horses and bayonets” comment.
Fox News, too.
These reporters are killing a good joke. Did you laugh when Obama told the joke? Yes? Then that’s the end of it.
Jesus, it’s almost like these folks have forgotten the famous bayonet charge during the 2004 Battle of Fallujah.
What Obama laid down was more than a joke but a jab to make the point that the function of X number of certain weapons back in 1917 is irrelevant. The complexity of our the DoD choice in weapons systems has evolved. Republicans seem to want to misplace and ignore nearly a century of warfare technology. The hokey talking point is absurd and silly.
It really doesn’t matter because their focus is so foolish, but in any case the use of bayonets has changed considerably. As a matter of fact the facts are arguably on Obama’s side there since bayonets weren’t generally issued in our last 2 wars – Iraq and Afghanistan. They ARE used less. They aren’t the mandatory part of the GI anymore.
From Stars and Stripes:
the British charged the Argentinians with bayonets fixed at Goose Green during the Falklands war!
He forgot horses. Heh.
He forgot horses. Heh.
Obama embarrassed Romney with those comments, people laughed, it all went viral, and now the idiots have to try and salvage Romney’s stupid dignity.
They might as well give up. Nobody gives two shits whether there are actual bayonets in usenow. It WAS a hilarious comment. They just need to let it go.
Romney made the comment to try to make Obama look bad, period. It blew up in his face. Good for Obama, sucks for Romney.
The point that the media is missing, the joke aside, is that the global geopolitical realities dictate the quantities of weapons and personnel that you need. The weapons in 1917 were to fight the First World War. The naval fleet had smaller, less flexible ships with less firepower than the current Navy. Battleships were essentially floating artillery pieces. That navy has changed into aircraft carriers, cruise missile ships, submarines, and supporting vessels. We have a fleet to cover every part of the world. Where exactly in Mitt’s brain is there the need for additional naval power?
My guess is that the “enlarge the navy” is to appeal to certain states with shipyards that could use economic stimulus.
The Republican jobs program always is through military spending.
And the logic spending = toughness or spending = deterrence or spending = readiness all have been proven inaccurate many times in history.
The big issue for both candidates is to describe what their overbloated militaries are intended to do.
Yeah, my husband, Once-a-Marine-Always-a-Marine, was kind of a killjoy about bayonets, too.
There are two things about Obama’s comeback that meant more to me than the “horses and bayonets” joke. First, Obama’s response had to be impromptu because who in their right mind would anticipate Romney coming up with a factoid from 1916 to hurl in his face like that was relevant. So he had grace under pressure there and did some fast thinking. But the line that really zinged to me was, “This is not a game of Battleship.” I thought that implied Romney’s concepts of the military were not only flawed but juvenile. har.
Romney’s talked about 1916 Navy before so Obama probably was prepared. He certainly addressed Romney the way he’d address a 6 year old – very funny and amazing imo
Its not being a killjoy. Its being real. I was taught to use bayonets and bayonets are STILL being taught on Parris Island.
Besides, the gist of the story was that things have changed and Romney doesn’t realize it. By bringing up the bayonets thing over and over, they are NOT helping Romney.
I suspect that the Romney campaign would REALLY like this thing to go away. Hopefully, it won’t.
Obama said there are “fewer” horses and bayonets.
He never said there are “no more” horses and bayonets.
Is that not true then. would the idea that back in that time gun power was NOT the way of combat, so just by that alone, even if we still buy bayonets for training armed forces, we don’t used them for every day combat.
That is the point Obama made and the media is putting words in Obama’s mouth that he did not say.
After months of hearing, you Dems just don’t appreciate humor it has been nice to see that real humor, a real political joke did the job of take down that millions in advertising hasn’t been able to clear.
Well executed Mr. President.
I guess playing that flag football game with the press is already paying off for the Romney team.
What a bunch of idiots the media is to completely miss the point. The point is that technological advances mean we do not need as many boats as we did in the mid-1910s.
Fucking tools.
I must say, that’s the most aggressive fact-checking I’ve EVER seen from the mass media.
I think the San Francisco Police Dept still has officers that are mounted on horses, but they don’t respond to 911 calls.
Bayonet charges are rather rare these days.
The line that the navy has fewer boats than in WWI is yet another Romney lie, but the number of boats are up from Dubya’s years.
On the other hand the U.S. does have more nuclear bombs than they did in WWI.
a whole bunch of cities/counties have mounted police forces.
they’re great for crowd control and generally good pr w/ the public at large when they’re utilized as regular patrols: see nyc and dc, especially the national park service patrols.
As long as its not a riot, horses are GREAT for crowd control.
They are big, non-threatning and the worst that will happen is they’ll step on your foot … painful, but livable.
Kinda like having a kinder and gentler mace pack.
Haha – I missed this one last night. Probably due to the drinking game.
Romney says he’ll balance the budget in “EIGHT TO TEN years”, slams Obama for not doing it in FOUR
How much smaller were U.S. armed forces in 1915? Raw numbers are not sufficient to challenge the president’s claim that “fewer” are used now.
Do the currently utilized bayonets serve the same offensive/defensive capability/role in a currently serving troop’s life? The president specifically noted that our Armed Forces had/needed different capabilities in 2016 vs. 1915.
So unless the ‘sleuths’ at ABC can put their “information” in its proper context, may I be the first to say, “So what?”
ims, that was the marines, and it was primarily for show.
however the brits…more specifically about 20 troopers from the scottish Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders routed a superior force of militia fighters w/ a real bayonet charge.
definitely a ballsy move.
Once again, I’m reminded that if Joe Biden had pulled a fake soup kitchen dish-washing appearance instead of Paul Ryan, we’d be looking at Republican rule for the next 12 years right now.
I thought I read that Marines still train with bayonets but the Army stopped in 2010. Maybe they can sell those 420 thousand bayonets to Hollywood. They are always making movies about wars.
Wrong kind of bayonets.
In WWI and WWII the bayonets were longer. These days, they are more like knives that you can attach to a gun.
The guns were different back then, also.
WWI WWII rifles weighed about 13lbs and had long barrels. When empty, they could be used quite effectively as clubs. Today’s rifles weigh about 6 lbs and are about 16 inches long. You’re better off using an e-tool as a club. It won’t break.
Well, “facts” and “jokes” are two concepts that wingnuts are generally unclear about. So it stands to reason they would try to fact-check a joke.