Blake Hall
Remember this post from Monday?
The one about the finding (from United States Senator Jeff Flake) that the United States military paid the National Football League millions of dollars to “salute” troops at their games and events over the past few seasons?
Well, apparently it’s even more money than was originally reported. According to ESPN’s Keith Olbermann in the clip above, the Pentagon spent a whopping $49 million on their “Hometown Heroes” program which in part put on the phony showings of gratitude to America’s servicemen and women.
And it wasn’t just the NFL. Most of the other professional sports leagues were in on it as well.
As you’ll see, Olbermann lambasts the project, saying that the military disingenuously used their personnel as “props” in a large-scale, grandstanding “stunt” and kept it hidden from the general public so as not to disrupt their ruse of valor, honor and authenticity.
To make matters worse, the National Guard opened their mouth about the controversy and didn’t exactly extinguish the flames.
“This isn’t, as some might think, payment for unfurling a flag or to welcome a soldier home on the field,” National Guard spokesman Rick Breitenfeldt told ESPN reporter Darren Rovell. “This is more about spending for marketing and advertising, for signage, for website takeovers.”
Right.
The National Guard spent $32.2 million alone to sponsor Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s NASCAR racing team.
Flake makes the valid point in his battle against “pork” (wasteful government spending): the government is more or less taking money out of your pocket, getting you to stand up and salute and pay your respects to the fact that you just paid to do so.
Critics (Olbermann included) are asking the question that, really, shouldn’t it just be organic? Real? Veritable? They’re arguing that, sure, recruiting needs to be done — however — it doesn’t need to be done in such a clandestine manner. The wool doesn’t need to be over the eyes of the American public in order to get them to support our military.
Check out the video for more. Most notably, his closing remarks.
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