Chuck Reed Is A Pansy

Citing "security" concerns, San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed has announced that he will not attend this year's Vietnamese New Year parade.

The whole affair, of course, is wrapped up in the ridiculous controversy over officially designating a section of Story Road the "Saigon Business District." The local Vietnamese community, as fractious now as they were in their homeland (one of the reasons the North won) couldn't agree on an "official" name. Councilwoman Madison Nguyen, the first Vietnamese to be elected to the City Council, proposed the "Saigon Business District" name as a compromise. Mayor Chuck Reed supported Nguyen's compromise proposal, and the City Council approved it. The supporters of "Little Saigon" remain unmollified, denouncing Nguyen as a Communist, demanding she resign, calling for her recall, picketing City Hall weekly, etc.

So, here we are. When he was running for mayor, Chuck Reed's campaign literature made much of the fact that he and his daughter were the first father-daughter cadet wing commanders in the history of the US Air Force Academy. Reed served in Thailand during the Vietnam War, while his daughter flew A-10s in combat in Iraq. Apparently it's fine to fly over people's countries dropping bombs on them when they've never harmed or threatened your country, another thing entirely to confront them face-to-face.

What a wuss.