Chickenhawk (politics)

For other uses, see Chickenhawk.

Chickenhawk (also chicken hawk and chicken-hawk) is a political epithet used in the United States to criticize a politician, bureaucrat, or commentator who strongly supports a war or other military action, yet who actively avoided military service when of age.

The term is meant to indicate that the person in question is cowardly or hypocritical for personally avoiding combat in the past while advocating that others go to war in the present. Generally, the implication is that "chickenhawks" lack the experience, judgment, or moral standing to make decisions about going to war. The term is not applied to those who avoided military service without subsequently adopting a hawkish political outlook.

The term was first applied to vocal supporters of military action who were perceived to have used family connections or college deferments to avoid serving in previous wars, particularly the Vietnam War. In current usage, the label is used almost exclusively to describe ardent supporters of the Iraq War who have themselves never been in combat; it is less often used to describe supporters of the more broadly supported war in Afghanistan as such. People who use the term have not necessarily been in the military themselves; people labeled "chickenhawks" have sometimes served in the military, but have not seen combat. Although it is possible to have a military career and never be at war, the term is often used in the context of someone who has been in the military in time of war but made efforts to steer clear of combat.

Origin of the term

In political usage chickenhawk is a compound of chicken (meaning coward) and hawk (meaning someone who advocates war, first used to describe "War Hawks" in the War of 1812). The earliest known print citation of chickenhawk in this sense was in the June 16, 1986 issue of The New Republic. (The magazine used the term in a way that suggests it was already in usage.)^[1] An association between the word chickenhawk and war was popularized several years earlier in the 1983 bestselling book Chickenhawk, a memoir by Robert Mason about his service in the Vietnam War, in which he was a helicopter pilot. Mason used the word as a compound oxymoron to describe both his fear of combat ("chicken") and his attraction to it ("hawk"), a slightly different use of the term which nonetheless might have inspired the current usage.^[1]

Previously, the term war wimp was sometimes used, coined during the Vietnam War by Congressman Andrew Jacobs (Democrat–Indiana), a Marine veteran of the Korean War. Jacobs defined a war wimp as "someone who is all too willing to send others to war, but never got 'round to going himself". This example has often been attached to former Vice President Dick Cheney, who in his youth received five draft notices but sought deferment to all of them claiming he had "more important business,".^[2]

History of the term's usage

The use of the term chickenhawk to describe a "hawk" who has never been in combat became more popular when members of the "Baby Boom" generation who had not served in the Vietnam War began entering national politics. Dan Quayle, a "hawkish" conservative Republican, was George H. W. Bush's running mate in the 1988 presidential election. In the campaign, Quayle was criticized for having used family connections to get into the Indiana National Guard in 1969, allegedly in order to avoid going to Vietnam. As Vice President, Quayle became the object of frequent ridicule in popular media; one popular joke from this time, playing on the fact that "Quayle" and "quail" are homophones, was:

Question: what do you get when you combine a chicken with a hawk?

Answer: a Quayle.^[3]

In the 1992 presidential campaign, conservative critics^[who?] of Democratic candidate Bill Clinton claimed that he had avoided service in the Vietnam War. This criticism continued throughout Clinton's presidency, particularly on right-wing talk radio.^{[citation needed]} Liberals^[who?] countered with the argument that many of Clinton's conservative critics were "chickenhawks" who had themselves avoided being sent to fight in Vietnam while still maintaining a hawkish perspective, whereas Clinton was openly against the war that he did not serve in.

An example of this response was liberal satirist Al Franken's 1996 book Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot, which included a chapter called "Operation Chickenhawk." The story details the exploits of a fictional Vietnam War squad made up of Quayle, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Pat Buchanan, Phil Gramm, Clarence Thomas, and George Will—all conservative Republicans who were of draft age during the Vietnam era yet did not serve in the conflict. In the story, the cowardly and incompetent squad bungles a surprise attack on a North Vietnamese Army company and ultimately extricates itself from the battle by fragging its gung-ho lieutenant, Oliver North (a conservative Republican veteran of the war).^{[citation needed]}

"Operation Chickenhawk" illustration (by William Bramhall), from Al Franken's Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot (1996)

Subsequently, in the 2004 campaign, Vice President Dick Cheney criticized the voting record of Democratic nominee John Kerry, a Vietnam veteran, suggesting that Kerry's positions on national defense made him unsuitable to be commander-in-chief.^{[citation needed]} Democrats responded by highlighting Cheney's comment that he himself had not served in the military because he had had "other priorities," with Senator Frank Lautenberg calling Cheney "the lead chickenhawk" in criticizing Kerry.^[4]

Generation Chickenhawk was a documentary film by Max Blumenthal that was filmed at the 2007 College Republican National Convention in Washington, D.C. This film featured interviews with convention attendees, focusing on why they, as Iraq War supporters, had not enlisted in the armed services.^{[citation needed]}

A 1989 issue of MAD Magazine made a reference to chickenhawks in an article called "Did You Ever Notice the Same People Who...?" which showed those contradicting themselves, such as people who do not seem to be baseball fans usually end up with tickets to the World Series. One was asking "Did you notice the same people who avoided service in Vietnam?...", which shows a young, nervous Dan Quayle saying to his father "Dad, I got my draft notice today" to which his father replies that he knows a doctor who can state Quayle has asthma, thus rendering him unfit for military service. The rhetorical question ends with "...are among some of the most gung-ho war hawks today?", then shows a panel with Quayle now as Vice President saying to his father "We ought to invade Iran! Following that we need to go to Central America and kick some Commie butts!" and his father chiming in "Right you are Junior! We have to stop those commies!"

Bill Maher also covered the topic in a segment of his television program Real Time.^[5]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "Chicken Hawk" entry from Word Spy
2. ^ "Leading the charge from behind a desk" by Lionel Van Deerlin, San Diego Union-Tribune, September 4, 2002
3. ^ Comedy/Cinema/Theory, edited by Andrew Horton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991, ISBN 0-520-06997-8), p. 27.
4. ^ Washington Times, US News wire, Lautenberg's comments from cnn.com
5. ^ Chicken Hawk Down

External links

General information

• "Chickenhawk Vs. Chicken Little", by Terry M. Neal, from washingtonpost.com, September 6, 2002
• Defending Kerry, senator blasts 'chickenhawks', cnn.com, April 28, 2004
• Dem Calls Cheney A 'Chickenhawk', cbsnews.com, April 29, 2004

Advocates of the term

• "Leading the charge from behind a desk" by Lionel Van Deerlin, San Diego Union-Tribune, September 4, 2002
• Operation Yellow Elephant
• The Chickenhawk Database
• "Recruit the Chickenhawks" by Michael Moore
• "What makes someone a 'chicken hawk'?" by Glenn Greenwald
• "Chickenhawk" by Roy Zimmerman

Critics of the term

• "A Fighting Chance" by Jonah Goldberg, Jewish World Review, August 7, 2002.
• "Chickenhawk? The general trump-it-all insult", by Michael Kelly, October 30, 2002. Kelly called himself an "honorary chickenhawk" a few months before his death while covering the Iraq War as a journalist. (retrieved via the Internet archive)
• "Armchair General: The ugly idea that non-soldiers have less right to argue for war, by Christopher Hitchens, Slate, November 11, 2002.
• "The Chickenhawk Slur" by John Hawkins, rightwingnews.com
• Why the 'chickenhawk' argument is un-American by Ben Shapiro, August 18, 2005.
• "Playing 'Chickenhawk': Left-wing platitudes" by Jonah Goldberg, National Review, August 17, 2005.
• "Bad Moves: Can't do it? Don't back it." by Julian Baggini, Butterflies and Wheels.
• "Are you a 'chicken hawk?'" by Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe, July 23, 2006
• Shape Up, Shut Up, or Ship Out by Erik Svane
• Anti-war rant — "Chicken Hawk!" by Larry Elder