The Grown-Ups Of the 82nd
by digby
I was just on the Sam Seder Show with Jack Hitt and we talked about this amazing op-ed in today's NY Times by seven non-coms currently deployed in Iraq. We all wondered if it will get the kind of wall-to-wall coverage that the O'Pollack piece did a week or so ago, at the clear behest of the right wing who were pimping them like hookers to any TV John who would have them. The consensus is no, unfortunately.
My feeling is that they will not get the coverage for a couple of reasons. The first is that, as Hitt pointed out on the show, the Dems don't seem to have any kind of apparatus to "catapault the propaganda" (or seemingly any desire to have one) and the second is because I think the right will go into overdrive to present these guys as good and decent patriotic non-coms (who-aren't-all-that-bright-if-you-know-what-I-mean-shhhh.) They aren't capable of seeing the big picture there with their big clumsy boots on the ground and their heads in the sand. They're very sweet, but let's get serious. Very Serious People know a little bit more about these Very Serious issues than these well-meaning boys.
It's what they did to John Murtha. Up until the time he came out for withdrawing for Iraq everyone in town considered him a go-to person on military affairs. An "expert" if you will. After he took his stand you heard a lot of people saying that he was just a sentimental old man who ghoulishly liked to hang around Walter Reed and blubber.
Here's St. John himself:
John Murtha is “a lovable guy,” but “he’s never been a big thinker; he’s an appropriator.” Using language that Bush never could, McCain tells me that Murtha has become too emotional about the human cost of the war. “As we get older, we get more sentimental,” McCain says. “And [Murtha] has been very, very affected by the funerals and the families. But you cannot let that affect the way you decide policy.”
Furthermore, the right and the political media have many things in common, but nothing more than their absolute faith in "grown-ups." And "grown-ups" are designated as "rock-stars,""experts" and "leaders." The average soldiers, much less average citizens, do not fit in those categories and should stay in their place when it comes to Very Serious issues.
I would hope that any Democratic spokesman appearing in the media in the next few days will have the names of these seven soldiers memorized and ready to trip from their tongues at every given opportunity. These men deserve to be treated with respect, particularly since they are clearly not Bush hating DFH's who hate America.
Unfortunately, everyone's on vacation.
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