NEWS FROM:
ANDY MARTIN
Executive Editor
ContrarianCommentary.com
"Factually correct, not
politically correct"
ATTENTION: ASSIGNMENT/DAYBOOK EDITORS
ANDY MARTIN DEMANDS THAT JIM NALEPA APOLOGIZE TO AMERICA'S REAL HEROES IN IRAQ, WHO ARE NOT PAPER MACHĒ WARRIORS LIKE NALEPA
(CHICAGO)(August 21, 2007) U. S. Senate candidate Andy Martin will hold a toll-free telephone news conference Tuesday, August 21st to demand that "exploratory" senate candidate Jim Nalepa apologize to America's fighting heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Journalists are free to call in from Illinois and around the United States.
"I am distressed that Jim Nalepa can't tell the difference between peeling potatoes and carrying a rifle in combat. His attempt to inflate his own resume, by comparing his paper shuffling in the peacetime Army and the teapot operation in Granada to the war in Iraq shows that Nalepa has no more of an ear for military honor than he does for telling a joke (Springfield State Journal Register story follows below).
"If Nalepa wants to know what real combat is like, he should go to the WashingtonPost.com:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/18/AR2007081801270.html
"Congressman Lipinski made light of Nalepa's 'warrior manqué' status, and I do too. Comparing a paper-shuffling press officer such as Nalepa to a combat infantryman in a firefight shows typical West Point contempt for enlisted men and NCO's.
"Nalepa went to college at West Point 30 years ago; he is still trading on his undergraduate degree. What has he done lately? He is in business, but without a public mailing address or phone number. Nalepa ran for office twice and lost, yet the liberal media slather over 'Warrior Jimmy.' Maybe the liberals know something about Nalepa that conservatives don't.
"'Tail Gunner Joe' disgraced Wisconsin Republicans. I hope that Nalepa does not aspire to become 'Tail Gunner Nalepa,' and trade on his military background to the point of self-parody and embarrassment.
"I have seen more combat and more firefights and more danger than Nalepa has ever dreamed of, but I would not think of equating what I did as a civilian with the actions of the brave men I accompanied in battle. I have an Honorable Discharge (copy on request) and a Serial Number (AF 16821011) but I was never a 'Saigon Commando' the way Nalepa was a 'commando' in the peacetime army, drinking beer in Germany.
"Nalepa should apologize to our fighting men and women on the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan for comparing himself as a peacetime paper-shuffler to their service in harm's way today. Like many West Pointers, and I have known a few, Nalepa is a slick talker. Nalepa has been 'exploring' a campaign for the senate for months—not since last week—but he lacks the courage to come out fighting and announce. He stands back, puffs up and fires cheap shots, just like a rear echelon paper shuffler.
"Nalepa, this time the joke's on you."
SPRINGFIELD STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER
Bernard Schoenburg Column:
Published Sunday, August 19, 2007
THAT’S NO JOKE
Some jokes work, and some jokes don’t.
I think it’s safe to say that JIM NALEPA of Hinsdale, who is considering a run against Durbin in 2008, told one that didn’t quite work last week as members of the Republican State Central Committee and Illinois Republican County Chairmen’s Association gathered at a hotel to start off Republican Day at the Illinois State Fair.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’d like to take this opportunity and hush the crowd a bit, and like to take a moment of silence in remembrance of a great American. Dear Lord, please watch over your humble servant whose memory we honor today. He brought a lot to this great nation, and mourn your loss, along with our governor, Roderick (sic) Blagojevich, whose idol you are, Elvis Aaron Presley, on (the) 30th anniversary of your death.”
I would say kind of a shocked silence ensued.
“Well, I thought I was going to get a laugh out of that one,” he said — and at least people chuckled at that line.
“I’m a far better political speaker than I am a joke teller,” he said later, “and I would rather have the former than the latter.”
In his prepared remarks about Durbin, Nalepa, who twice ran for Congress in the 1990s against then-U. S. Rep. BILL LIPINSKI, D-Chicago, took a distinctly tougher tone. He called the Springfield Democrat “a politician who revels in the cheap shot” and “who has become a national embarrassment.”
“Senator Durbin wants to provide scholarships to illegal aliens and send them to our colleges. I want to build the fence and secure our borders,” Nalepa said. “Senator Durbin compares men and women at Guantanamo to Nazis, and I call them heroes.”
Nalepa said in an interview later that he does not condone torture or illegal acts by Americans. But he thinks Durbin’s Senate floor comments in June 2005 comparing the treatment of some prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to that meted out by strong-arm regimes ended up “tarring our every single American man and woman in uniform with the same brush.” And he found Durbin’s apology “lukewarm at best.”
Nalepa, 50, a West Point graduate who now runs an executive recruiting firm, also said he thinks Durbin is “a mouthpiece for the hard-core left.”
Nalepa, who rose to captain and whose six years of active duty included three years in Germany, where he was with combat-oriented units, says he participated in the U.S. rescue mission in Grenada in 1983, where he was public affairs officer. He said Lipinski, during campaigns, made light of that job — but shouldn’t have.
“I don’t want to characterize myself as the heroes that are in Iraq, but whether you’re a cook or whether you’re a mechanic, whenever you put on America’s uniform and you’re in a combat zone, you’re in the line of fire,” Nalepa said.
While Nalepa hasn’t formally announced for the nomination, two announced candidates — ANDY MARTIN of Chicago and Dr. STEVE SAUERBERG of Willowbrook — also spoke. Sauerberg called Durbin “the most liberal and divisive senator in this nation.”
MICHAEL DALY, spokesman for Durbin, said it’s not yet time to respond to specific allegations from possible nominees.
“These people are running against one another, not Senator Durbin,” Daly said. “When they’re finished deciding who’s going to run and who the nominee is, we’ll have plenty of time for this debate.”
ANDY MARTIN NEWS CONFERENCE DETAILS:
WHO: U. S. Senate candidate Andy Martin
WHERE: Telephone news conference:
Toll-free call-in number: (866) 295-5950
Participant code: 2090340
WHEN: Tuesday, August 21 at 10:00 A.M.
WHAT: Andy Martin demands that Jim Nalepa apologize to
America's fighting heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
MEDIA
CONTACT: (312) 440-4124
WEBSITES: ContrarianCommentary.com; AndyforUSSenator.com
E-MAIL: AndyMart20@aol.com
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Chicago-based Internet journalist, broadcaster and critic Andy Martin is the Executive Editor and publisher of ContrarianCommentary.com. © Copyright by Andy Martin 2007. Martin covers national and world politics with forty years of personal experience. Columns also posted at ContrarianCommentary.blogspot.com; contrariancommentary.wordpress.com. Comments? E-mail: AndyMart20@aol.com. Media contact: (866) 706-2639.
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