alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

February 22, 2008

Wingnuts. Feh.

by AltHippo @ 7:04 pm. Filed under Uncategorized, 2008 Elections, wingnuttia

Jake Tapper did the right thing. He called up the Obama campaign, got in touch with the captain mentioned in the debate last night, and got the facts right.

I figured that this would shut up the right-wing attack blogs. (Here I can’t help but observe that “blogs” rhymes with “dogs.” In deference to KCinDC’s comments, I’ll note that the phrase “mongrel hordes” is somewhat apt.)

Then, I saw this on the WSWS (with apologies to Sadly No!):

Obama, last night:

They were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief.

Obama’s source, an Army captain, to ABC’s Jake Tapper today:

“The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,” he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or “Dishka”) on one of their humvees instead of their 50 cal.

Wasn’t the point of Obama’s anecdote that our troops in Afghanistan were so poorly equipped, they were forced to capture weapons because they didn’t have enough?

If you had read the WSWS excerpt you might have thought: well, it’s not really clear that Tapper resolved the issue about Iraq diverting support from Afghanistan. But the Tapper post makes it entirely clear that Iraq diverted attention from Afghanistan. Including the paragraph right before the WSWS excerpt:

“It was very difficult to get any parts in theater,” he says, “because parts are prioritized to the theater where they were needed most — so they were going to Iraq not Afghanistan.”

So, why did the WSWS attempt to weasel out of their metaphorical dog house using a quote taken out of context? It’s because that’s what these people do. They don’t care about the truth or getting the facts right. This is about winning at all costs. This, for these folks, is about the ends justifying the means.

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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