Will Collier writes:
Yet another post-Newsweekgate tendentious defense of the MSM today, this time from Terry M. Neal in the Washington Post. Most of it is now-familiar “fake but accurate” claptrap, and I was about to quit reading halfway through when Neal popped of with this howler:
Some conservative bloggers have suggested that the media should never criticize or raise critical questions of the military in wartime. Some have extended that criticism, conveniently, to cover the president’s wartime policies.
Oh, really? Which ones? Can you provide a quote, a link, a reference to a single blogger who’s said any such thing, or are did you just prop up an imaginary straw man?
I’ll take that bet. Numerous people stated outright that this should not be reported even if it were true. LaShawn Barber (#18 in the ecosystem) even said it twice:
Regarding my
LB
I never thought I’d have to say this, John, but you’re actually worse than my liberal detractors is mispresenting my words. I’ve never wrote nor said that the media should never raise critical questions of the military in wartime. I wrote that Newsweek should not reported a story about Koran-flushing Americans even if true, and I stated the rationale.
I thought only liberals did things like this, but I learn something with every breath. Don’t bother sending anymore trackbacks to LBC.
Libertine
I don’t buy into the bogus argument put forward by some on the right that if you question a president during wartime that it is tantamount to treason. And especially since Bush said this “war on terrorism” may take decades. We are not supposed to question or criticize the government until further notice?
Bush refused to give details on how many people were detained without consel after 9/11, the details of the memo condoning the use of torture, how many times and under what circumstances the surveillence powers in the Patriot Act have been used. Everything seems to be “classified”. Now I am not saying because the administration is covering anything up and the national security claims are probably legit…it just seems like the government doesn’t want to explain what they have done in the war on terrorism. And if a person questions what they are doing that person is either un-patriotic or treasonous.
I take serious exception to anyone who says I am un-patriotic because I exercise my 1st Amendment rights!!!
Mike
Pat Buchannan said the press shouldn’t have reported it. In case you need another example.
ppgaz
I love that “contempt of the left for people of faith” stuff.
The Law of Unintended Consequences is just a wonderful thing. This simple meme, so casually tossed out there in the manic overreaching of the right, is the alarm bell that has finally awakened a lot of sleeping moderates.
The right wing assholes will find out what “people of faith” really think, before it’s over.
You can criticize my policy, it’s open to debate. You can criticize my clothes, they’re always bought on sale. You can criticize my jokes … strangely, not everyone laughs at them.
But criticize my faith … or attempt to grade it or characterize it … because I don’t agree with you?
What goes around, comes around. “People of faith” who don’t subscribe to the same sanctimonious or self-righteous notions of the new “righteous” victimhood are going to stick many fingers in your little eyes in the years ahead.
What those on the right and left wings never seem to get is that you can’t get ahead in this country by kicking the middle. The middle always wins. It wins by being inert, by being slow to change but changeable in the fullness of time. It wins by being quietly intolerant of brats, whether they are from the left or the right. It is the steady tortoise, plodding away against the activist hares.
This country is always, utlimately, governed by the middle. The middle is not pleased by the Dobsonites and the Pat Robertson view of what this country ought to be.
Libertine
I think you struck a nerve with someone John… ;-)
John Cole
What kind of insane Doublespeak is that, LaShawn?
A story that states interrogators flushed a koran would be, in my eyes, a story critical of the military. You state, and I quoted and linked, so I did not distort your words:
Grand Moff Texan
Oh, really? Which ones? Can you provide a quote, a link, a reference to a single blogger who’s said any such thing, or are did you just prop up an imaginary straw man?
The density with which the Memory Hole is packed varies inversely with the requisite shortness of memory. In this case, the turnaround time from demand to denial was less than a week, so I’m guessing not even light can escape.
John, you work fast [smacked by ghost of gradeschool English teacher] uh, I mean quickly. Keep up the good work.
.
Adam
That’s absolutely amazing, LaShawn…
Your own words are staring you in the face and yet you claim that you never said them? If you meant something else then it’s your job to say so; I’m hardly a biased liberal, hell, on some things I’m probably to the right of you, and yet I interpreted what you said in the exact same way that John did.
Nikki
Does it make any difference that the FBI has found claims of Koran desecration credible?
Jeff
“Does it make any difference that the FBI has found claims of Koran desecration credible?”
No, not at all.
If it weren’t for the fact that the “Newsweek lied, people died” crowd were making such asses out of themselves, the “Newsweek screwed the pooch but it’s not that bad since it’s probably true” crowd would be the ones getting most of the ridicule.
You sound almost as dumb, just like you did with the “ok, the CBS docs were bogus but Bush probably didn’t complete his guard duty so it’s ok” arguement you made last fall.
Hey, if i’m a prosecutor, can I use your argument? “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, yes, our cops planted evidence, and our main informant has recanted, but, come on, the defendant is obviously guilty”.
Lee
Root of entire issue is ‘who cares?’. People will always question gov. before/during/after wars. Always happened in the US. Who cares…rational debate is fine, and needed.
Who cares about the Koran being flushed? I could care less anymore. dumbasses in this society are overly sensitized to it’s consequences. We can’t control what other individuals do or don’t do. Kill each other over it being flushed (or perceptions of it being flushed)? So? I wish they wouldn’t, but I wish my dog wouldn’t lick his butt. Things happen that we can’t control.
If these people cared so much about offending the koran, they’d go after ppjiz every time he offends Christians….
Andrei
“Who cares about the Koran being flushed? I could care less anymore.”
There you go again, winning the hearts and minds of the people in the Middle East.
Tell me why again we blasted the hell out of Iraq if there were no WMDs and Saddam really wasn’t a threat, especially if we don’t give a rat’s ass about the culture or religion of the people there?
Mr.Ortiz
Umm, Jeff? I think Nikki was being coy when she said the FBI found the desecration claims “credible”. Here’s the story:
FBI memo reports Guantanamo guards flushing Koran
Mr.Ortiz
Before everyone jumps down my throat for taking the word of a suspected terrorist (as quoted by an FBI agent) over the Pentagon, I want to point out that what we have here is a second source corroborating the source of the Newsweek story. That’s the most concrete evidence we can reasonably expect. The only stronger evidence would be if the offending officers were dumb enough to photograph the act, or if one of them confesses.
Personally, I wouldn’t shed a tear over any holy book being flushed down the toilet, but all the fake outrage on the far right makes me glad for anything that will shut them up. Not that anything ever does.
Lee
andrei:
“Tell me why again we blasted the hell out of Iraq if there were no WMDs and Saddam really wasn’t a threat, especially if we don’t give a rat’s ass about the culture or religion of the people there?”
Whaaaa….???? where to start. well, I’ll keep it short. Aren’t you one of the moonbats that constantly bashes Christians in the US? and you care so much about what we think about the muslim religion in the M.E.? spare me.
Kimmitt
and you care so much about what we think about the muslim religion in the M.E.?
Okay, what’s the connection between being dismissive of the Christian Right’s foolishness and noting that the Christian Right has little interest in the culture or religion of Middle Eastern Arabs and Kurds?
Andrei
“Aren’t you one of the moonbats that constantly bashes Christians in the US?”
Moonbat. That’s such a stupid word. [Yawn.]
I don’t support the war in its current form, so it’s not important for me to hold myself to a standard people on the pro-war side do in this regard.
Last time I checked with the ever changing rationale for killing tens of thousands of people, we fought the war to liberate the people of Iraq. I guess we’re doing so while holding our nose and telling them their religion means diddly squat?
Uh… ok.
Other than that, what Kimmitt said.