Digby’s post

As the Obama administration comes closer to having to write a strongly worded letter to the Taliban make up its mind on sending additional troops to Afghanistan,  it was only a matter of time that the true inclinations of the left-wingers came out of the woodwork. 

Digby:

Escalation is a bad idea. The Democrats backed themselves into defending the idea of Afghanistan being The Good War because they felt they needed to prove their macho bonafides when they called for withdrawal from Iraq. Nobody asked too many questions sat the time, including me. But none of us should forget that it was a political strategy, not a serious foreign policy.

There have been many campaign promises “adjusted” since the election. There is no reason that the administration should feel any more bound to what they said about this than all the other commitments it has blithely turned aside in the interest of “pragmatism.”

“Adjusting” campaign promises? 

One of the biggest complaints we heard for eight years from the hard left was that the Bush administration lied to the American people about its reasons for going to war in Iraq.    If conservatives and GOP supporters talked about “adjusting” campaign promises in support of the Iraq war, there would have been impeachment hearings within a week. 

The “Bush lied” narrative fueled the hatred of the liberals/progressives and helped get the Obama campaign off the ground.   In fact, it was Obama, who differentiated himself from Hillary Clinton during the primaries, by denouncing the Iraq war (vs. Hillary who had voted for the Iraq war resolution in 2002) and proclaiming the war in Afghanistan as the “correct war”.    This solidified his support among the rabid, anti-Bush,  anti-war left, and eventually, the nomination.

Liberals, and by extension the Democratic party, were never serious about making the tough decisions necessary to fight and win a war in Afghanistan–although polls show that favorability on national defense is no longer a given for popular Republican support, I think there is an underlying belief by most people that the GOP is still the preferred party when it comes to that issue.  Pretending to support an unpopular war was essential to get elected, so as not to be perceived as weak on national security. 

In trying to neutralize that, Obama and the Democrats needed to talk the talk with regards to national security.  This is where Digby is spot on.   It was purely political.  Withdrawal from both Iraq and Afghanistanwasn’t on the table, as it would enforce the aforementioned belief that Democrats were still weak on defense and would veer towards isolationism.

Forget the crass hypocrisy, and the flat-out lies that the Obama administration and its liberal/progressive base is willing to spewin order to obtain power and push their extremist agenda—forget all of that for a moment.  Here is admitted support for a war effort, solely to win an election.  

Over the summer, as American casualties mounted and the situation on the ground grew increasingly discouraging, the chattering classes and the pundits began debating when, exactly, Afghanistan would become “Obama’s war”.

To the extent that candidate Obama and his supporters made Afghanistan a focal point of his war on terror, it became Obama’s war on January 20th, 2009.  And so it became the left’s war, as well.  The blood of our military in the theater is on their hands for their outright lies and hypocrisy, and for putting them in harms way for political gain.

(Via Jim Geraghty)

Sirota’s tweeting exemplifies liberal anger

I’m not a big fan of Max Baucus.  And yes, I know that as head of the Senate Finance Committee which is currently marking up a healthcare reform bill, he is one of the focal points of the current debate from both the left and right side of the political spectrum.

I realize also that it is extremely hypocritical of Baucus, a recipient of significant political contributions from the health insurance industry, to have any say on how or even if healthcare should be reformed.  Hell, the whole lot of liberal Democrats are hypocrites on the issue.

That Baucus is dragging his feet on the extremist reforms that liberals really want to get to, is not sparing him any grief from the left-wing of the  Democratic party and their sycophants in the media and blogosphere.

Why are they extreme?  Mostly because their vitriol and outright hatred clouds their judgement and renders them irrational.  For Baucus, the anger is stemming from his desire to make the Senate legislation a bipartisan effort.

What vitriol?  Vitriol like this:

It wasn’t that long ago that conservatives were criticizing moderate Republicans supporting Obama’s stimulus package on basic conservative principles.  The left and the mainstream media ran with the narrative that the conservative base had a “stranglehold” on the party and that there was no room for moderation.  The extremists on the left-wing of the blogosphere, in particular, had a field day with that story.

These are the depths that discourse on the left has sunk to.  Max Baucus is “genuinely” an “awful human being” for reaching out to the other side of the aisle for some (probably necessary) Republican cooperation.  It’s rants like this that indicate just how closed-minded and ignorant the extremist progressives and liberals really are on these issues.  But like I said, hatred and venom cloud the judgement and are obscuring the political realities of the healthcare debate.  With any luck, and thanks to ignorance reflected in Sirota’s tweet, the reform train will not only come to a screeching halt, but careen off a cliff. 

Anger and hatred.  That’s what the left is all about.  How’s that for tolerance?

UPDATE.  More tolerance from a Daily Kos wretch:

Love this idea.. I wanna see Kucinich with a machine gun trained on Mitch McConnell and Kantor!

And those Blue Dogs, why don’t we call them by their real names–Insurance Companies’ Bitches!

Stay classy moonbats…

UPDATE.  Somewhat off-topic, but not really.  Tolerance from the left apparently doesn’t include understanding the right for Americans to protest.  See, in their world, protesting against Republican presidents and Republican politicians is the only acceptable form of dissent.  All others are to be derided and subject to self-wallowing projection.

I don’t agree with the notion that the tactics these protestors are taking is the right way to go about the debate, but the hypocrisy is glaring:

[S]howing up at a congressional town hall and booing a talking points-programmed political hack isn’t “civic vigilantism.” Throwing rocks, pouring cement on train tracks, blocking military shipments, smashing windows, hurling paint, slashing tires, vandalizing businesses, and throwing shoes are vigilante acts.

That is what the anti-war, anti-free trade, anti-Bush mobsters did over the last eight years – and there wasn’t a peep about those brute tactics from Obama’s blogging pals now.

They sat quietly while Code Pink disrupted hearings on the Hill and harassed Marine recruiters.

They looked the other way when ACORN illegally broke into homes and stormed foreclosure auctions.

They gave their tacit approval to self-declared “bank terrorists” like Boston housing entitlement organizer Bruce Marks, who show up at the schools of bank executives’ children and bullies them because of their parents’ employment in the name of social justice.

Now, the taxpayers footing the bill for Obama’s redistribution of health and wealth are silent no more – and the unhinged Left is beside itself. The “thoughtful” left-wing response to the Tea Party counterinsurgency can best be summed up by hysterical Hollywood actress Janeane Garafolo, who railed last week: “F**ng redneck d**chebaggery. Unmitigated d**chebaggery.”

It’s not the town halls that have gone wild. It’s the Tea Party-bashers who can’t tolerate peaceful, open dissent.

Plus, a nice roundup of liberal “tolerance” and what mob rule really looks like.

UPDATE.  Yet even more hypocrisy.

Semantics

Asbolute idiocy.  This is your brain on stupid:

You know what would help with marriage equality? For gay couples who have committed themselves to each other to call each other “husband” and “wife”. I still hear “my partner” way too much. The more people get used to men talking about their husbands, and women talking about their wives, the easier it’ll be to change the culture and, ultimately, the law.

It’s kind of like, if you don’t call it “the war on terror”, they won’t get offended.  Or something.

Follow The Idiotic Narrative

It’s been well documented that SC Governor Mark Sanford has stood out as one of a handful of Republican governors trying to reject President Obama’s economic stimulus money and the restrictions it imposes on individual state budgets.   Sanford has agreed to most of the allocation, but he has requested that $700 million of the money be used to pay down South Carolina’s state debt.  Appearing on Fox News earlier this week, here are Sanford’s thoughts on the stimulus money:

This is the ultimate in nanny-state, when you have an unelected superintendent of education at the federal level, dictating to an elected governor and an elected House and Senate,what they’re going to do and how they’re going to do it. I would secondly say, what we’ve said was, wait a minute. Since we don’t have any of this money that’s now being dispensed from Washington, DC; since we’re going out and printing money and we’re issuing debt to solve a problem mind you that was created by too much debt; since that’s taking place, and since those costs will be borne by the next generation, in fact it is sort of fiscal child abuse to do what we’re doing.

Well, the nutroots are having none of it.  Nope.  To them, fulfilling Obama’s vision of a neo-socialist utopia built on borrowed federal funds is a priority.  When Mark Sanford isn’t being subjected to the wail of race-baiting by self-loathing members of the Democratic party leadership, he’s pretty much criticized with more baseless babble from the internets.  The squealing goes as such:

No, Mr. Sanford, it’s not “nanny-state.” It’s money that will help thousands of teachers keep their jobs, that will help repair crumbling schools, which, newsflash, will also create jobs.

That’s right.  Take that federal “stimulus” money, otherwise you hate teachers and their students.  This is how they develop the narrative.  No facts.  No substantiation.  Just accept and move on.  Stimulus is good because it “creates jobs”—that’s all we need to know.  Facts be damned.       

Forget that the states can’t just print money to fund whatever federal bureaucracy that stirs your fantasies on any given day.  Forget that governors have an obligation to their citizens to balance their budgets.   Forget even, that for some, billions of federal “stimulus” will, never be enough.  I thought the era of Obama was the clarion call for a new dawn in American politics.  A new era of responsibility in Washington.  Forcing states into future debt for the sake of political expediency in 2009 is not very responsible.  Just like the nutroots, it’s quite idiotic.

An Uprising Of Four

Over at memeorandum, the uppity types are hyperventilating about this piece in The Hill, with the blaring headline: “Go Back Into Hiding, GOP Begs Dick Cheney”.

Who exactly is rallying the GOP against Dick Cheney?  Michael Steele?  Newt Gingrich?  Limbaugh?  Think again.  The Hill quotes six Republican congressman in the article:  John Duncan, Mark Kirk, Zach Wamp, Peter King, Thaddeus McCotter and an “anonymous lawmaker”.  Not exactly a bastion of Republican power-brokers.   In fact Duncan, Kirk, Wamp and Congressman X criticized Cheney.  Congressmen King and McCotter defended him, the latter having the money quote, noting the “story” as “irrelevant”.   Again, not exactly a scathing rebuke of Mr. Cheney. 

But that doesn’t stop the purveyors of idiocy on the left from vehemently tapping away at their keyboards in self-aggrandizement.  See? SEE?!?  Even the GOP hates Cheney.  Quick! Arrest him!  Nothing gets the sheeple going like some fake red meat.  The lemmings will be pleased. 

Over at Washington Monthly:

Some of the GOP lawmakers were reluctant to criticize Cheney on the record, but a few didn’t hold back.

Actually, only one—yes, ONE—lawmaker requested anonymity.  One of the four.  But don’t let that stop the narrative of overwhelming Republican angst.  Yglesias chimes in saying that Republicans are “pushing back” against Cheney’s audacity to speak as a private citizen.  Interesting.  Most amusing, is this from John Cole:

The story then goes on to list a number of Republicans who are basically telling the former Vice President to shut up and Cheney himself.

A number of Republicans? The number would be three, plus Mr. X.  Again, hardly a party-wide condemnation of a vice-president who inspires such bile and hatred moreso from the left than anyone of significance on the right.  It’s a shame really.  Even the saner lefty bloggers are apparently becoming more entrenched in the left-wing echo chamber with each passing day, buying into the very media narratives that they claim to abhor. 

And the lemmings applauded.