Saturday, March 31, 2007

Live From Baghdad

This is a great idea. Why hasn't anyone else thought of this?

The Gun Toting Liberal’s Alexander Paul Melonas is now pursuing the Iraq embed opportunity and has written the DOD to begin the vetting process.

Long story short. Lame right-wing blog Red State announced that they were sending a blogger to Iraq, making it sound as if they had been personally invited by the Department of Defense to do so. Of course, they had not. Instead, they had spent several months lobbying the government to permit them to go report from Iraq.

So, okay...typical scumbag rightard maneuever. But...having said that...I think we can all agree this was an excellent idea. Most Americans, and I definitely include myself here, lack even a basic understanding of all the various, complex factors at play in this Iraq mess we've created. This is one of the major reasons I was against Bush's venture in the first place. Americans, and especially their president, don't know shit about the rest of the world. At all. So we probably shouldn't invade it, because we'll just get lost and refuse to ask any of the locals for directions.

I'm not sure if there's a remedy for this. How do you reverse so many generations of willful ignorance and anti-intellectualism? Like it or not, asshattery is part of our national character, like deep-friend Oreos or Sanjaya Malakar. Without it, we are nothing.

But it's still a good idea for more bloggers to actually go see what's going on for themselves and then report back. Even if it has to be one of the guys from...ugh...Red State, which is currently running this post on its front page:

Back in September 2004, when John Kerry and his Magic Hat were on the campaign trail he floated the idea that George Bush would reinstitute a draft if reelected.

Answering a question about the draft that had been posed at a forum with voters, Kerry said: "If George Bush were to be re-elected, given the way he has gone about this war and given his avoidance of responsibility in North Korea and Iran and other places, is it possible? I can't tell you."

This, obviously, was meant to terrify the key collegiate pencil-necked pseudo-male demographic into submissive urination and voting for him.

Irony is a cruel mistress. Jack Murtha has come out in favor of a draft. Let the debate begin.

Yeah...John Kerry said that George Bush was a crazy warmonger whose excesses would eventually require a draft to carry out. And now Jack Murtha is arguing that the only fair way to conduct all of King George's wars would be to...have a draft. How...um...ironic? Do you think?

According to Red State, I guess, the point is that John Kerry threatened voters with a draft and another guy from his own party has now suggested a draft. This situation only appears ironic if you (1) ignore all context, (2) take Murtha's suggestion at face value and (3) hit yourself over the head with a ballpeen hammer until you forget the meaning of the word "irony."

But, heck, let's send 'em to Iraq anyway. Maybe it'll build some character. And I fully support the Gun Toting Liberal's sojourn as well. Obviously, we wish these brave citizen journalists all the best on their travels and a safe return, regardless of their political persuasion. In fact, I'd love to go myself, if I wasn't manacled to a Mystery Job in Santa Monica and a condemn-worthy apartment in beautiful downtown Palms.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

When Kyle was on leave, his entire unit had just finished writing to CNN for horribly misrepresenting an insurgent attack that had just happened to them. Then he watched a report on Fox and said, "Whoa. Now I'm scared." Just the fact that Amy was misquoted in her little Rockette interview reminds me that very few news reports are to be trusted. I have no trouble with private citizens traveling to dangerous areas, as long as they expect to get kidnaped (Oh, wait, are we spelling that with 2 p's, now?). I am a little surprised, Lonnie, that you resort to name-calling. How very Ann Coulter of you. : )

Lons said...

Rightard? Come on, that's funny. And it doesn't apply to all on the right-wing. Merely those who use their party affiliation as an excuse to spout illogical, meaningless, warmongering blog posts.

But I think, by and large, we agree on this issue. More voices and more perspectives are definitely a good thing. And, yes, a blogger-kidnapping does seem like a distinct and unpleasant possibility.

Anonymous said...

::snicker:: I was actually referring to scumbag as much as rightard. ...and something can be funny and mean. You're right, though, I was assuming that you meant everyone on the right, not just the lunatic fringe. What shall we call people in the left lunatic fringe?

Lons said...

Well, there are plenty of terms conservatives have made up for the radicals of the far-left. "Moonbats" is a common one, as is the near-universal stereotype of the unkempt, patchouli-abusing hippie.

It's true...There are very silly, very wrong-headed people on both extremes in this country, just as there are gravy-brained oddballs straddling the political center.

But let's not introduce an equivalence that simply isn't there. The far-right element is currently running this country, and doing a horribly poor job of it. The far-left hasn't been in charge in my lifetime. They've pretty much never been in charge. Noam Chomsky and Ward Connerly aside, they don't have much of a voice at all.

And that's why I don't refer to them using pseudo-slurs like "rightards." Not because I agree with them, but because they don't matter and are rarely newsworthy.

Lons said...

Although, I should add, I agree with the far-left a whole hell of a lot more than the far-right. They far-left have a lot of ideas that may or may not work, but have never really been employed. The far-right have a lot of bad ideas that we've known to be fundamentally incorrect since the 1950's.

Anonymous said...

Oh, Sweetie, I could tell which side of the spectrum you were on as soon as I started reading your blog! I just figured it was a result of attending UCLA. : ) I'm even more conservative than I was when I taught at IHS, mainly a result of having a foster son for 4 years. Dealing with his bio-mom made me realize how ineffective our social programs are. (She passed away last November, so I don't want to speak ill of the dead, especially one who was so dear to someone I love, but, boy, knowing her opened my eyes!)