I know it’s as common as ticks in Arkansas, but whenever I see this kind of depraved dishonesty from rightie bloggers I am disgusted anew. Rick Moran wrote at RedState:
“If it was good enough for your daddy/granddaddy’s war it’s good enough for yours,” seems to be what the Pentagon is saying with regards to trying to hype the accomplishments of Pat Tillman – whose character assassination by the left continues to this day – and Jessica Lynch, the young woman whose convoy was ambushed resulting in severe injuries and her capture by the Iraqis.
Not having witnessed this “character assassination” by “the left” or anywhere else I clicked on the links. Sure enough —
Link #1 is to a blog I’d never heard of, with no site meter or blogroll, and with a glorious lifetime total of one incoming link discovered through Technorati. And it’s primarily a sports blog.
Link #2 is to an essay by Rene Gonzalez, identified as “a University of Massachusetts graduate student.” Mr. Moran might be shocked to learn that Mr. Gonzalez is not, in fact, recognized widely by “the left” as some sort of spokesperson. In fact, we (I presume to speak for my fellow lefties) never heard of him. The essay is dated April 28, 2004, btw. One would think if disparagement of Pat Tillman was so common one might find a more recent example.
The third link is to another blog I’d never heard of. This one has a blogroll, but the blogs on the blogroll are a mystery to me, also, and according to Technorati nobody links to this blog other than the blogger himself. The blogger does claim to write for CounterPunch and some other leftie sites. But when he posted his anti-Pat Tillman screed as a Daily Kos diary the reaction from the Kossacks was, um, hostile. (e.g., “[Bleep] off.” )
Fairly solid proof that this blogger’s opinions are not representative of “the left,” I’d say. But Rick Moran is a prominent rightie blogger, so his lies and misrepresentations are, arguably, representative of “the right.”
Lefties to Rick Moran: Bleep off.
Update: Via Glenn Greenwald — although “the left” is not, in fact, engaged in character assassination of Pat Tillman, some elements of “the right” are wasting no time smearing Pat Tillman’s family. For example, John Hinkeraker of Power Line dismissed Kevin Tillman as “an antiwar activist who has posted on far-left web sites.” Glenn comments,
What does Hinderaker omit from that description? That Kevin Tillman was in Afghanistan along with his brother, having volunteered to risk his life to fight for the U.S. Army in the wake of 9/11. But because he came to conclude that the invasion of Iraq was wrong — and because he has persistently demanded that the truth about the Bush administration’s conduct in his brother’s case be exposed — he is subjected to discrediting smears from smarmy little chest-beating play-acting warriors like John Hinderaker.
The “troops” are nothing but cheap and empty props to them. Before it was revealed that Pat Tillman was both an atheist and against the war in Iraq, he was paraded around after his death as though he, standing alone, was the Symbol and Justification for the warmongering Bush movement. Ann Coulter said that “Tillman was an American original: virtuous, pure and masculine like only an American male can be.” Sean Hannity constantly invoked his name with antiwar guests.
Yet once it was revealed what Tillman’s actual political views were, they both simply declared that they “do not believe” it. What mattered to them was not who he really was — they could not care less about that — but his use to them in service of their twisted political propaganda.
Update2: Eric Boehlert asks, can conservative bloggers tell the truth?
Update 3: Love It and Leave It T-shirt, anyone? Here’s the Made in USA model.
Who knew that there are so many obscure pretenders to my throne?
Intellectual dishonesty from a wingnut tool? Shocked, I am!
They are powered by ideology and hatred, not truth. It’s as it ever was.
Howie Kurtz needs to get on this story RIGHT AWAY.
It was one thing – and probably a lot easier – for the wingnuts to parrot talking points that their heroes (Bush, Cheney, Rummy, etc.) said.
But when their lies are exposed by people whom they previously deified, or when they suffer severe cognitive dissonance (Pat Tillman an atheist? Unpossible!), they will do anything to make their side look good.
Put simply, the right has no shame, no scruples, and no filter.
I like how you organize your blog roll!
nice post. thx.
The Morans are both dishonest right-wing hacks — it’s just that one can be open and shameless about it, and the other has to put up a minimal pretense to give plausible deniability to his employer.
Yeah, Kevin Tillman talked about how his brother’s journal was missing. Was that burned along with his dead brother’s uniform? Little too much “shock and awe” for the loyal bushies?
There you go again, maha, with your damnable leftist dedication to ‘facts’ and ‘logic’ (as if they mattered when making an argument) and your willingness and ability to actually use ‘the Google’ and ‘Technorati’ to take a few minutes to search ‘the Web’ for ‘information.’
Righties would never stoop to that kind of crazy behavior!
To paraphrase Kurt Vonnegut
” Our soldiers are being treated like toys a rich kid got for Christmas”
My advice is to “Get a brain, Morans.”
http://www.dannemann.org.uk/images/morans.jpg
I don’t sweat these pussies. Invoking hate and smear is all they can do to make up for their shortcomings. These wussess are men wannabees although we all know they’re first class bedwetters. Once they start enlisting one by one I’ll start worrying about them in the meantime I’ll send them some lingerie, make-up and diapers.
Following comment 13, the more these idiots are cornered, the louder and more incoherent and more morally depraved they get.
These are actually good signs. We’re getting smarter and stronger and are no longer buying their nonsense. We’re hip to their tricks.
Not to mention that Tillman’s family is being dragged through the dirt for not being ‘christian’.
Hey Barbara,
Red Bait is full of it. Mickey Z, the only one of the 3 links that anyone has ever heard of, claims he was misunderstood. He caught hell for that post from a real leftist, Stan Goff. And an ex-Special Forces leftist, at that. A real radical Marxist, feminist and true anti-war activist.
http://stangoff.com/?p=484
As Stan describes himself: “red as a baboon’s ass and proud of it.”
http://home.igc.org/~sherrynstan/
Voz De Aztlan is hardly a leftist organization, they are more like our Minute Men, but hispanic:
“The Nation of Aztlán is an Hispanic nationalist and separatist organization headquartered in Whittier, California, United States. Its platform states that United States must cede the part of the U.S. which was originally in Mexico and which it calls “Aztlan territory” in order to form an independent nation. It is a hate group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, and both the SPLC and the Anti-Defamation League describe the group as antisemitic. The ADL also claims that La Voz de Aztlán preaches homophobia and Holocaust denial. Others criticize the group for their overall promotion of ethnic separatism.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_of_Aztl%C3%A1n
Here’s one leftie who always thought Pat Tillman was a hero, and who has no problem whatsoever with his family demanding answers about his death. It’s what happens in a free society.
LWM — Thanks for the link.
Anytime, my friend. Stan has a blog at HuffPo and contributes to Truthdig also. Odd, isn’t it? A real red they could go after. I wonder why they don’t? Maybe he scares them too much.
It’s interesting how a discussion (first link you went to) is a “character assassination.” I think you blew it by not noting that. The second link? It bored me and I didn’t read it. Third link? Mickey Z does write for CounterPunch and writes very well. I think you’ve confused “left” with “Democratic.” If you’re bragging that the Kosies went after Micky Z, that’s really nothing to brag about. Mickey Z.’s a great writer. By the way, until I used Atrios’ link, I’d never heard of you.
I’m with joanr16. Pat Tillman was an inspiration and a hero the whole time. I love these wingnuts (especially hindrocket) trying to smear a guy whose jock strap they might someday be worthy of washing.
Dave — regarding the first link, I’d say statements like “Tillman only contributed to the decline of mankind” could be construed as character assasination, or something akin to it. Second link, boring or not, was pretty hateful. Regarding the alleged “great writing” of Mickey Z — if you say so. I’m not seeing it. What I see is second-rate mind, second-rate prose. Re: “until I used Atrios’ link, I’d never heard of you,” all I can say is you have way missed out. And according to Mickey Z’s site meter my site gets a LOT more traffic than his does.
In short, nyah nyah nyah.
Dave,
For what it’s worth, I’ve never heard of Mickey Z, but I’ve definitely heard of maha.
Jessica Lynch made me a proud West Virginian yesterday for her standing up for the truth.
“America – Love it or Leave it”
In Vietnam, the troops’ body armor was the bulky WWII-style “flak jackets”…Many troopers decorated them with pictures or ‘mottoes’…
One of the best I ever saw was a guy had used a Magic Marker to draw on his left breast a heart pierced by an arrow, above whyich was written “America” and below the heart: “Love It or Leave It”…
On his back was written: “I Love it, Now what the fuck am I doing here”…
Though my all-time favorite was the guy who had written across his baCK: “If I can’t trust you to cover my ass, Guess Who’s walking the point”?
D.R. — You’re a walking collection of Americana. 🙂
The Mickey Z blog site is the best kept secret on the Internet. Anyone who has not heard about it is missing something.
r jackowski — Well, I agree that I’ve been missing something. I think I’ll keep on missing it, thanks.
How petty and small-minded! Embellishment of heroic war stories in order to inspire people is an ancient literary tradition going back to Homer’s day, if not earlier. One is not supposed to take them literally. Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman represent photogenic archetypes of our brave fighting men and women. While the stories told about them may not be literally true, they portray a larger “big picture” truth, which is entirely valid. Reasonable people understand this. If Waxman and company think they can make hay out of this to advance their nefarious schemes, they will be sorely disappointed.
nabalzbbfr: In future, please read the post and respond to what the post is about, not what you assume it is about, before you comment. See also commenting policy.
Obviously nabalzbbfr is joking (as revealed by the correct usage of punctuation, capitalization, spelling, vocabulary, syntax, and general literacy).
Janus: Make sense next time. Thanks much.
Everybody: We’re getting a lot of comments (now deleted) from people who haven’t read the comment policy, and so to save me from further aggravation I’m closing comments.