The conservative bubble around the Boy King of Crawford

[samq79]

We are living in difficult times, perhaps the most difficult of my relatively short lifetime. We are waging war on a sovereign nation that did nothing to wrong us other than embarrass our nation's leader's father in the early 90s. We are losing more troops and more respectability as each day passes. Countless innocent Iraqis are cut down by sectarian or insurgent violence in the civil war that just won't be declared.

The media is slanted heavily right, and those that are crowing the loudest are blaming the liberal media, which can't even seem to get a word in edgewise above the din of misinformation and propaganda. Rational liberals are being painted as traitors “to the crown” for their insistence that our troops should be brought home from the morass of Iraq, opposing with every fiber of their being the troop surge that Bush has suggested. Liberals, you see, are not supporting the troops because they want them to be safe and sound. The very definition of supporting the troops has been co-opted by those who would send more targets into the war zone, and yet they feel quite at ease cutting the necessary health benefits of those returning home after serving.

These media mongers are even relying on dubious and sometimes even fully false quotes of great former presidents to make their point. For the past week a quote that has been erroneously attributed to Abraham Lincoln has been bandied about on cable news channels, newspapers, and has even made its way to being quoted on the floor of Congress. No one who used it thought to check its veracity. Here is the incendiary quote:

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged."

In fact the quote was not just misattributed, but completely fabricated by J. Michael Waller, a Conservative writer, who claims it was a mistake that quotation marks were put around the sentence. Mistake or no, it does not excuse the ridiculous saturation of this quote through the media since the first printing. Some editor should have caught this in the fact checking process, and put an end to it right there. That didn’t happen, however. Instead, Don Young (R-AK) perpetuated the fraud by bringing the quote to the floor of Congress as a way to try shaming the majority voters away from voting for the nonbonding vote of no confidence in the troop surge. Now Young won’t retract the statement, citing that he got it from Frank Gaffney’s Op-Ed in the Washington Times, and that the Times had yet to print a correction. So as long as a completely fabricated quote hasn’t been corrected by the person who published it, there is no reason for an upstanding congressman to come forward and retract. I mean, it’s not like his statements go into public record…

Finally, much has been made of the “cut and run” democrats and their need to see the troops “suffer” at home with their families rather than in the comfort of the desert in Iraq. Meanwhile, the heroic and patriotic republicans plot to send more of our troops that they love so much to the comfort and serenity of Baghdad, and if that weren’t enough, they’re also going to save much-needed tax cut funds for the top 1% by cutting these cushy medical benefits for these club med soldiers. I'm sorry, Bush, but you and your cronies are going to have to do something much more hypocritical to top this one. I can't imagine how you can sleep at night knowing that you're going to try to accomplish a balanced budget while the troops you support are not getting the care they need. They will suffer, more of them will succumb to their depression, and you will continue to live your charmed life of oblivion

[solara]

1. Very well said.. k&r