Kathleen Parker - Damn You, You Gave Us What We Sought!
Kathleen Parker's column in today's Star (trust me, it was in the Star, but the link is to Townhall.com, which doesn't require annoying registration) is one of those all-too-common right wing laments about how the news doesn't cover what they want to read. In this case, the specific complaint is that Murtha's criticism of Bush's Optional War has received far more coverage than Joe Lieberman's hypocritical support of Our Leader. Of course, this imbalance of coverage is proof that the media lean left.
She winds up her embrace of victim's mentality with
And why, we might wonder, have the media - always so insistent in denying liberal bias - been so willing to play one story and not another?Fair enough - I'm just answerin'. Because the Republicans went apeshit when Murtha voiced his opinion, and insisted on shutting down Congress until they could hold a sham vote on a doctored resolution misrepresenting Murtha's position. They chose to play with PR, and they were incompetent. Again.
I'm just askin'.
And quit whining about it, Kathleen.
posted by Dan at 12/12/2005 06:54:00 AM
6 Comments:
Interesting that you think Lieberman is a hypocrite. He's one of the few Democrats who has never changed his stance on Iraq, from well before Bush was elected.
He'd be my definition of the anti-hypocrite.
I guess you're determined not to let anything get in the way of your partisanship.
No, my claim of Joe's hypocrisy is based upon his harsh criticism of Bush's credibility earlier compared to his ridiculous "Don't question Our Leader" position now.
The man is clearly hypocritical. It's fine that you like him where he is now, but you should read where he was when it was politically expedient. Lieberman is the sort of democrat that keeps me voting republican from time to time.
Dan,
Why was the house vote a sham?
It seemed to me that every member got their opportunity to express their desire to get out of Iraq.
Oh that's right, the liberals didn't have the political courage to stand up for their "supposed" strong convictions. This vote shined the bright light on what many liberals have become these days and that is political opportunist-void of credible ideas - blame America first complainers
Spalding:
The House vote was a sham for 2 reasons. First, it was not a serious attempt to form policy on the war - it was solely a political act to force a vote on Murtha's position. Second, it wasn't even Murtha's position - he head submitted a resolution, but it was too reasoned and well-stated for the Republicans who control Congress, so they substituted their own, which changed the substance of what Murtha was seeking.
It's funny that your rhetorical flourishes at the end are almost exactly wrong, even when viewed from a nonpartisan viewpoint. First, the vote had nothing to do with "blame America first" - it wasn't blaming America for anything, it was dealing with how to deal with our future involvement in Iraq. And the resolution's very existence came about because Murtha expressed a new, credible idea - one that the "stay the course" crowd objects to, but unarguably a credible idea. Finally, the political opportunism here was by the right wing - they were the ones who pushed a sham resolution to the floor solely to score political points against a war hero who found himself ahead of the majority. They saw an opportunity to beat up on someone, and they took it. And now Kathleen Parker is compaining because they screwed up.
Dan,
To describe Murtha's position as reasoned is laughable. One of his "well-stated" positions was to move our troops to Okinawa and then redeploy them back to the Middle East if violence broke out. I don't think Jane Fonda could even follow that logic. He says the majority of people in Irag do not want us there. Those right wing extremists at ABC took a poll of Iraqis that said 71% of them wanted us to stay.
Secondly, Murtha's comments were not only irresponsible, but plain wrong. To say that our troops are living hand to mouth are outrageous. His statemement that we cannot win this war militarily is being refuted by not only commanders, but the infantrymen
on the ground. In addition, the turnout for yesterday's election says more expose Murtha than anything you or I could ever say.
What's interesting is that Nancy Pelosi's ploy to trot out "war hero" Murtha has completely back fired on the left. It has galvanized the White House and the military to fight back for once in the battle of information dissemination. Bush's poll numbers reflect this.
SS - It's cute that you think those things. Gotta call you on the BS, though. Spouting survey numbers is always dubious, because we all know surveyors can make shade their questions, but you have even jumped beyond that - ABC news reports that "Only 44 percent of Iraqis say they believe things are going well in their country; 52 percent said they felt the country was "doing badly." Support for the U.S.-led invasion has dropped: In February 2004, 39 percent of Iraqis told us they believed the invasion was wrong, but today that number stands at 50 percent. Even among optimistic Iraqis it appears the U.S. gets little credit for any improvements in their lives. Fewer than one in five Iraqis believes that U.S. reconstruction efforts have been "effective." Most Iraqis now say they "disapprove strongly" of how the U.S. has operated in Iraq. Not surprisingly, the percentage of Iraqis today who oppose the U.S. presence has spiked — from 51 percent to 65 percent." http://abcnews.go.com/International/IraqWhereThingsStand/story?id=1378209
As for Bush's popularity - he got a 4 point bump, with more people strongly opposed to him, and fewer people strongly supporting him.
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