Why America Needs Mike Gravel to Be at Every Debate

The distinguished former Democratic senator from Alaska, the senior statesman who sometimes shares a stage with party superstars Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, is perhaps the most out of touch major candidate in the show.

In a competition with Dennis Kucinich, who vows let wrecking crews have at the Department of Defense to make way for a Department of Peace if elected, he would give him a run for his money. But despite the fact that he's been out of political office for a quarter of a century, despite the fact that he is unelectable and garners next to no support for his campaign, on Monday's 'YouTube' debate, Sen. Gravel proved why his presence is required.

In the past, Mike Gravel has gone on the record stating that the 50,000 U.S. men and women who laid down their lives in Vietnam, all of their families, and all of those bear detrimental emotional and lasting physical scars and disabilities as a result of the war, all of them made their sacrifices in vein.

Some might think that this would be a fairly obvious statement, but that is not so.

During the debate, a video by John, from West Virginia, asked a question of the often ignored candidate. He challenged Gravel to stand by his views on Vietnam, adding "or will you just flip-flop."

The maverick senator, who three decades earlier stood alone against the corrupt Nixon administration, fired back, "I've never flipped flopped before."

"You can now, John, go to Hanoi and get a Baskin Robins ice cream cone, that's what you can do." Adding, that Vietnam now has favored nation trade status with the United States.

Not only did Gravel make a firm defense of his stance, but added that the young service members in Iraq are also dying in vein. Today, that rate is roughly 100 per month.

"There's only one think worse that a soldier dying in vein," responded Gravel, wagging his finger in a lecturing manner, his voice emotionally heightened, and with tears bellowing in his eyes, "It's more soldiers dying in vein."

Senator Obama had a chance to answer the question of whether our soldiers in Iraq are dying in vein following Gravel's comments. Obama offered no emotion, no tears. Coldly, calculatingly, and almost despicably, he ignored the plight of our troops, who are indeed fighting a war in vein, and unleashed a full throated attack against rival Hillary Clinton.

John Edwards who had the next chance to answer the question didn't fare much better, saying he feels that no death of a soldier who dies while following orders is in vein before he turned to the important question of what should be done to end the war.

It is understandable that candidates are reluctant to admit candidly that our children who are dying in Iraq do so in vein, if only for the sake of the families who bear such a great and eternal loss.

However, in a war predicated on lies, in which victory, as it was defined, was never an obtainable objective, if their deaths and the deaths of those who died fighting against a government in Vietnam that is now an American trade ally are not in vein, then perhaps we should find another adjective to define the act, because each sacrifice has been needless.

Mike Gravel, the candidate with nothing to lose because he never expects to win, is not afraid to say what's unpopular.

In a contest when the most popular candidates (Obama and Clinton) are apparently more concerned with personal attacks than they are with IED attacks against the kids in Iraq who wear an American Flag on their uniforms, then Gravel's weathered voice is not only welcomed, but is necessary to remind the American voters what courage is all about, and the difference between speaking true beliefs and only speaking when one thinks what they have to say will steal votes away from an opponent.