alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

June 15, 2007

The Old Democrats Hate the Troops Canard

by AltHippo @ 4:10 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

I’d like to make one important addition to Glenn Greenwald’s typically excellent post on Reid and his discussion with liberal bloggers, one of whom apparently narced on him to the Drudge-friendly Politico.

As Glenn points out, there’s never been a policy against criticizing military leadership in a time of war. It’s possible that there’s a policy against Democrats criticizing military leadership. On the other hand, when died-in-the-wool Republicans do it, it’s all for the good.

Glenn cites examples of the National Review, the Weekly Standard, and Republican senators criticizing generals. True, in those cases, military leaders were criticized to defend the president. Am I to understand that it’s wrong for Democrats to criticize military leadership, but okay for Republicans, as long as you’re defending a prominent Republican in the process?

As we know from watching Fox News, Democrats hate the troops, blame America first, want to cut and run, and provide aid and comfort to the enemy. Even when the Democrats are the troops, as in the case of John Kerry, they still hate the troops. Republicans, on the other hand, are good to the troups, love their country, and are true patriots. Even when the Republicans go AWOL, as in the case of Bush during his National Guard service, they’re still good for the troops. Even when they avoid military service, as in the entirety of the Bush White House, they’re still true patriots.

But that wasn’t my point. My point is one of the context of Reid’s remarks, and how it differs from the way it was reported in the Politico, and later repeated by Tony Snow:

We are a little bit concerned about some reports on the Internet that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in a conversation with liberal bloggers, had referred to General Pete Pace, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, as incompetent, and apparently, again according to the reports, had said disparaging things also about General David Petraeus.

We certainly hope it’s not true, because in a time of war, for a leader of a party that says it supports the military, it seems outrageous to be issuing slanders toward the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and also the man who is responsible for the bulk of military operations in Iraq.

The mental picture Snow was trying to paint: Reid, in a fit of bragadocio, tossed out some thinly sliced red meat to the hounds of the leftie internet, during one of their closed-door conspiracy sessions.

It makes it sound like Reid was bad-mouthing Pace behind his back. And did so in one of those elitist blogging clubs. As we now know, Reid was reporting on what he told Pace to his face.

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