Another fake anti-war vet exposed
Posted by Richard on May 16, 2009
This revelation comes as no surprise to me. And of course, it comes far too late to matter:
Rick Strandlof, executive director of the Colorado Veterans Alliance and the man most colleagues knew as Rick Duncan, was front and center during the 2008 political campaigns in Colorado.
He spoke at a Barack Obama veterans rally in front of the Capitol in July, co-hosted several events with then- congressional candidate Jared Polis and attacked Republican Senate candidate Bob Schaffer in a TV ad paid for by the national group Votevets.org.
And the mostly Democratic candidates he supported — looking for credibility on veterans issues and the war — lapped it up appreciatively.
Mostly Democratic? Care to name a Republican candidate whom Strandlof campaigned for or supported, Mr. Riley? I didn't think so.
Now, politicians are dealing with news that the man they believed to be a former Marine and war veteran wounded in Iraq by a roadside bomb, in fact, never served in the military — but did spend time in a mental hospital.
There've been so many fake anti-war vets over the years, I swear there must be a secret training center churning them out. It's probably funded by the Heinz Foundation.
CVA wasn't registered as a political organization until well after the campaigns were over, and then only at the state level despite being active in federal campaigns.
And although he claimed to represent 32,000 veterans — the biggest post- 9/11 vets group in Colorado — Strandlof always showed up at events with the same small number of supporters, and there were few concrete signs he represented more than a close circle he had gathered around him.
"Nobody really fully trusted any of those numbers. . . . He had a few dozen people who were helping him out. He claimed to have a huge mailing list that no one ever saw. The VFW, the American Legion, none of those traditional veterans groups had ever heard of him," said one prominent veterans activist who worked for Democratic candidates during the campaign and who spoke on condition of anonymity.
They didn't trust the numbers, huh? Well, the Dems sure bandied them about a lot during the campaign to show how much support they supposedly had among vets.
Political candidates and activists cynically manipulating public opinion with false information, and journalists accepting everything an anti-war Democrat says at face value, no matter how suspect or improbable — those come as no surprise to me either.
Alan R said
Dems who went the distance for that fake vet are no less angry at being burned by Duncan the douchebag than anyone else. So what if that slob didn’t spew his false history for GOP candidates? That one party has a lock on supporting vets is hogwash & boulder-dash. Three letters and a host of phone calls to my Republican Congressman, now nominated to the the Sec of the Army, generated zero help with my VA disability rating. One three minute phone call and one follow-up email to my Dem Senator and my problem was solved.