How MoveOn.org’s General Petraeus/Gonna Betray Us! ad “crossed the line” with the righteously apoplectic Right — a “line” that they themselves feel fully entitled to cross with impunity whenever they feel like it. Glenn Greenwald explains:
For those who think — for some indiscernible reason — that it is important enough to spend the energy developing an opinion on the MoveOn ad, there are, I suppose, reasonable arguments that can be made on both sides as to whether the “betray us” rhyme was rhetorically excessive, counter-productive, etc. But the shrill hand-wringing it has triggered is just bizarre in light of the fact that accusing Americans, including military veterans, of being unpatriotic, anti-American and betraying the country has, for decades, been a mainstream staple of the political rhetoric from our country’s pro-war Right — invoked most aggressively by those, such as Klein, now claiming such profound offense over the MoveOn ad.
Here is Joseph Farah of World Net Daily in an October, 2004 column entitled “Questioning Kerry’s Patriotism”:
Think of what I am saying: A man who came to prominence and notoriety in American life, and who is now on the threshold of winning the White House, was actively aiding and abetting the enemy just 33 years ago. He was a tool. He was an agent. He was working for the other side.That’s why I say it is time to stop playing rhetorical games with respect to Kerry.
There is only one word in the English language that adequately describes what he was in 1971 — and what he remains today for capitalizing on the evil he perpetrated back then. That word is “traitor.”
The right-wing site “American Thinker” — proudly included on Fred Thompson’s short blogroll, among most other places on the Right — published an article in 2005 entitled “Is Jack Murtha a Coward and a Traitor?” (answer: “Any American who recommends retreat is injuring his own country and calling his own patriotism into question”). Here is John Hinderaker of Powerline — Time’s 2004 Blog of the Year — on our country’s 39th President (and, unlike the non-serving Hinderaker, a former Naval officer): “Jimmy Carter isn’t just misguided or ill-informed. He’s on the other side.”When Howard Dean pointed out (presciently) in December of 2005 that the Iraq War cannot be won, Michael Reagan called for Dean to “be arrested and hung for treason or put in a hole until the end of the Iraq war,” and the next day, on Fox News, alongside an approving Sean Hannity, he said: “I have no problem at all, no problem at all, with what this guy is doing, taking him out and arresting him.” And here is Giuliani campaign advisor Norm Podhoretz on the Hugh Hewitt Show yesterday, as they explained how deeply anti-American “Democrats” are:
HH: Norman Podhoretz, before the last break, we were talking about the intellectual class in America that is so deeply anti-American from the Vietnam years, and how it did not take them long to find in America the cause for 9/11, and to begin what has been a very poisonous attack on America over the last six years. How can they be that successful?NP: Well, what I try to explain in my book is that a lot of these people were working out of the anti-war movement playbook of the Vietnam era. . . .
Well, what I think is that that is correct, and I think that the Democrats are committing political suicide, at least for the 2008 presidential election. I mean, you know, the Democrats suffered from the disability of the McGovern years, when they were rightly considered soft on national defense, not to be trusted to protect us against foreign threats. They worked very heard to overcome that reputation, especially under Clinton. And now what they’ve done is to resurrect it. And they’ve gone even further than they did under McGovern. I mean, embracing defeat, calling for American defeat, rooting for American defeat.
Insinuating that Democrats and/or other opponents of various American wars are “betraying” America — and worse — has been the central argumentative tactic on the Right for decades.
Read it all HERE. (You may have to view a short ad first)
All good points to consider. So, next time you encounter the neighborhood nutjob earnestly informing the public that anti-war protesters “hate America”, remember that altho he’d like you to believe that he came up with this brilliant rhetoric all by himself, the poor dumb pants-wetting schmuck is just regurgitating the same toxic bile that the Right has been spewing for decades.
09/15/2007: Swiftee lectures us about America-hatin’.
Wow — how’s that again, Swiftee? If anyone dares to question the administration’s Iraq policy that means that they hate America? And did you come up with that all by yourself, hon? Aww, for cute!
Posted: September 16th, 2007 under Iraq, Local characters, MoveOn.org, Republicans, War on Terra, Wingnut Mythology.
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