Update [2007-9-22 18:3:49 by dlawbailey]: I'm sort of amazed. Apparently my little quest has become news. Well, a news-like tidbit. It's been mentioned in Howie Kurtz's column and, as a responder indicates, on Andrew Sullivan's blog, albeit VERY briefly both places. Nevertheless, I'm going to take a moment before returning to the regularly-scheduled political acrimony to say this both amuses and frightens me. I'm not a military person. No axe to grind here, other than standard politics. A week ago a small item caught my attention and I just thought "Huh?". I asked the question. And then people told me to stop asking the question: literally. MyDD censored a post almost identical to one I posted here and threw me off. And I got really irritated. And when I looked into General Petraeus's medal a little more, I found I was suddenly looking at the Emperor's New Clothes. It's very strange and disturbing. Somebody else - one of you - would have found this. But how crazy is it that between all the "oppo research" folks at the Dems, reasearchers for politcal non-profits and the press corps, nobody looked at this and at least ran the question up the flagpole? It took me 45 fucking minutes at the public library. That's it. There have been articles on "medal inflation" in Iraq, why not look at Petraeus? How have we gotten to a place?
Now for this idiot.
"Columnist" Lorie Byrd writes a "column" for Townhall.Com when her husband gives her permission. When she's not driving the kids to school or eating, she corresponds with all the fun people on the Nazi right and shares her thoughts. Lorie is a particularly sad example of a conservative "equally yoked" to her fantasies of victimhood. Thus Lorie wonders aloud in the title to her "column": "Did Democrats Go Too [gosh darn] Far Going After Petraeus?"
I reprint a large part below because I do not want you to go to Townhall.Com and get sick. You people have been through enough lately. Also, college freshman may find her text useful as an example of how to get a "B".
Let's have some fun and use her transparent little mind to decode the misdirection and make her stupidity into something useful for America - instead of just annoying.
Bush’s detractors would be more successful if they knew when to stop, but many don’t. There comes a point when even a friendly media can’t pull them back off of that limb. I think we may have just seen such a point over the past couple of weeks.
Through the standard analytic of Republican logic reversal, we see the first sentence means: "please stop, we've shot our wad." Since the media have howled as one at the injustice to the poor little Airborne Ranger, the rest is idiocy.
For several months, in anticipation of his congressional testimony, General David Petraeus was attacked with a campaign of accusations that he was a lapdog for the White House. The day the general testified, the liberal activist group MoveOn.org made a huge blunder by running a full page ad in the New York Times referring to him as General "Betray Us." To accuse a well respected general in the U.S. military who was confirmed by a Senate vote of 81-0 of being a traitor was seen my many as outrageous and despicable. Democratic congressmen were asked to comment on the ad and were asked to distance themselves from it and to denounce MoveOn.org.
Here's something a little more interesting. Lorie's like Cindy Brady at keeping secrets. Emotionally she desperately wants to tell us that she "knows people." Thus she relates by analogy the long hours Petraeus spent preparing his testimony with Mitch McConnell. The word "anticipation" is the tip-off. Her poor sentence structure has Petraeus (and the Republicans) anticipating the attack against his planned snowjob. She goes on to tell us that MoveOn ran an ad. Her readers don't get out much. Then she gets to the meat. The Democrats fucked up. You vote for the guy, ya gotta explain to the folks back home why you voted for an asshole. Fair enough. "I had no idea he was SUCH an asshole" is a good explanation.
You might think those on the left would have learned their lesson and would not want to be seen attacking a decorated general, but they didn’t learn. The most recent outrage is an effort to question the medals worn by Petraeus. Unlike the case of John Kerry, whose war record was questioned first by fellow Vietnam Swiftboat Vets, the attacks on Petraeus are coming from liberal bloggers and anti-war groups. In this case the White House does not even have to decide whether or not to weigh in because there are more than a few members of the military and the military blogging community perfectly happy to deliver the smack down. I am confident this will not be a case like that of Joe Wilson where the accusations will overshadow the truth.
It's cute how she writes, isn't it? Like, kinda collegey. Almost like she might let her kids learn science. Once again taking the mirror image of her little word-picture she's saying: "Wow, the Progressives finally started to learn their lesson. They hit our guy HARD." Then she gets to my little pet issue - Petraeus's fraudulent Bronze Star for "combat valor". Kerry's attack came from "vets" and Petraeus is hounded by extremists. Once again, turn it around and it works like a charm. John O'neil, who worked for the Nixon White House and Justice Rehnquist after Viet Mam was a hired politico and real Iraq vets are furious at the way the officer corps has shamelessly been awarding themselves with medals. Petraeus is just the most egregious case.
Her last section is more "I've got a secret" but what she doesn't know is that, having emailed and publicly taunted the military blogging community, I know that they are keeping mum on the medal because they're closeted homosexuals - okay, barely closeted homosexuals - okay, violent, slightly-closeted homosexuals - okay, because the truth will make Petraeus look pathetic. Lorie's last sentence has a hidden warning: they may be rounding up actual fighting soldiers to mouth words of support about Petraeus when his lame story comes out - probably bribing them with decent healthcare for their families or something.
Democrats complaining about their patriotism being questioned have little ground to stand on if they are not willing to distance themselves from MoveOn.org and liberal bloggers engaging in attacks on General Petraeus. The left may have scored political points painting Karl Rove as a boogey man, but General Petraeus isn’t Karl Rove. Those of us on the right have learned our lesson and won’t be sitting by letting baseless attacks go unanswered. Instead we will be reminding voters which politicians thought their best argument on Iraq policy was to attack a highly respected general determined to win the war.
We can stay with the reversal technique here. Attacking Petraeus, who is trading his honor and our national interest for ambition is the right thing to do. We can easily make General Petraeus into as recognizable a figure of perfidy, right-wing extremism and soulless venality as Karl Rove, if we just keep telling the truth - really, really hard - again and again. She's afraid we've learned our lesson and that the voters have as well.
Sometimes a fatuous little housewife can be a hero, too. Thank you, Lorie.
Thank you.
But here's the bad news for your boy Petraeus:
When a general gives an order, that's just responsibility. When men and women in combat bet their blood and bone - that's valor.
Because valor is still handmade - by Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen,
and Marines.