Sunday, January 17, 2010

One News Story, One Op Ed

Two things grabbed my attention this morning, that I thought I would comment on. The first is this news story of Cindy Sheehan. Cindy, if you will remember, lost her son in Iraq and became the icon of the anti-war movement. My recollection may be wrong, but I thought she was just protesting the war in Iraq when Bush was president. She can unsuccessfully for congress, but has kept on with her protests. Now it appears that all war is bad to her and we are cowards.

Some points to bring up. After Bush left office, Cindy had a protest outside his home near Dallas. Did anyone bother to tell her that on January 20, 2009, Mr. Bush no longer had any power to change the course of the war. Her recent protest near Cheney's home and the CIA show that she is truly clueless. Even if Bush and Cheney had epiphanies today and decided that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were wrong and they demanded the immediate pullout of all troops ... nothing would happen. One of the great things about our country is that once a new president, congressman, etc. is sworn in, the old one is irrelevant to actual decision making. So the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are Mr. Obama's now. In spite of what he may think.

The other thing I don't understand about Cindy's protest is she is protesting the use of drones to attack enemy targets. Somehow this is cowardly and immoral. This seems like an odd argument when the other option is to send live bodies in to do the killing which is how her son died. I would have thought that using technology which prevents our soldiers from coming into harms way would be the moral thing to do. So what if it is cowardly (which it is not), it certainly isn't any more cowardly than hiding amongst women and children or setting a IED to be remote detonated. Cowardice when people are trying to kill you can be forgiven. The idea that we shouldn't use drones is stupid and will get people killed.

The second item was an op ed piece about Mika Bresinski. If you watch MSNBC in the mornings, which I sometimes do, you know Mika is Joe's liberal counterpart who can't make a coherent argument even when it is on the teleprompter or script in front of her. Now, having not seen the footage for this, it may not be as the writer describes, however, based on my watching of Mika, it sounds spot on.

First, Sarah Palin says that Washington was her favorite founding father. And Mika is a little flummoxed (probably because she doesn't know who George Washington is). After some others mention founding fathers, Mika pipes up with Lincoln (I suppose she means Abraham Lincoln, because Benjamin Lincoln is usually not listed among the founding fathers and if Mika doesn't know Washington I doubt she has heard of Benji - as opposed to Benjamin Franklin, I know all those names can get confusing). Lincoln, as in the man who wasn't even born until after Washington's two terms as president.

Sarah Palin is the one that is always panned by "reporters," like Mika, as being clueless and a buffoon. In this case, Mika clearly demonstrates who the buffoon is.

1 comment:

  1. Mika's comment is amusing. Someone wasn't paying attention to the presidential timeline in US history.

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