Bowe Bergdahl prepares for graduation from basic training near Fort Benning in Georgia. (photo: Bergdahl Family/Rolling Stone)
he
air is rife with the flatulence of rancid sanctimonious political
opportunism and self-serving patriotic indignation. Truth, fact, and
morality be damned.None of this high drama and plastic fury is about Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
Not really.
Sgt. Bergdahl was a prisoner of war and America does not leave POW’s behind. Ever. We don’t do it. It doesn’t matter if the POW walked off and got captured or if the POW collaborated with the enemy under duress and torture – doesn’t matter. We, America, bring them back.
No exceptions.
John McCain, of all people knows that.
This is not about Sgt. Bergdahl.
At the Fox News smear and fear machine, the on-air personalities are in full hate throttle with attacks against the president for putting his arms around Sgt. Bergdahl’s parents, and then there is that Taliban beard the father has, and then some sort of Fox News doctor said President Obama “doesn’t have Americanism in his soul” and that is why he arranged the prisoner swap, because he (Obama) wants out of America.
Over on the “one-true-liberal” channel, Chris Matthews has been in full spittle-sputter for several weeks now. First about Obama’s lack of appropriate anger over the VA scandal and not having fired Gen. Shinseki right away or not getting mad enough for TV and … something-something … veterans … USA! And now he is screeching about the five Taliban released from Gitmo who are going to attack and destroy America. We are doomed, I tell you, doomed! Be very afraid!
MSNBC has become as ridiculous and vacuous as Fox. From the giggling snark of Rachel Maddow, to the pompous Lawrence O’Donnell or any of the morning line up, MSNBC thinks its viewers are dumb little children in need of really hip infotainment by really hip celebrity pundits who also make regular appearances on really hip late night talk shows.
And over at CNN, they took their usual comic book news approach, making comparisons between Sgt. Bergdahl and Sgt. Nicholas Brody of the Showtime series, Homeland. That’s CNN – always a firm grip on reality.
If we had an honest media, or at least a media above the high school cool kids mentality, we might actually become well informed and capable of critical thought. But rest assured, we are in no danger of losing our current circus of inanity, outrage, and fear. The show must go on. Long live the show!
No, none of this is about Sgt. Bergdahl.
Let’s say Obama went to Congress and requested authorization for the POW swap of Sgt. Bergdahl for the five Taliban detainees. Do you think this obstructionist Congress that only a few months ago blocked funding for our veterans because they wanted to include sanctions against Iran and has blocked this president for years – do you really think they would have supported Obama?
Does anyone not think that this GOP would have used the full 30-day notice period to wage the exact smear and fear campaign that they are spewing right now, or that they would not have managed to leak sensitive info to block the deal and then blame Obama? This is the GOP that leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent in order to discredit her husband’s revelations about the Niger yellowcake lie.
And what if Congress had not approved the prisoner swap? What if Sgt. Bergdahl ended up being killed by his captors or simply died from health issues? Who would have been blamed? Not Congress. Not the GOP. Lindsey Graham would have howled for impeachment … Oh wait, that’s what he’s doing now. Never mind.
Do you think that the media, complicit in all that led up to these wars, complicit in all the false equivalency memes that enable this extremism that drives the GOP, would have reported the true facts? Or even looked for the facts? Do you believe for a moment that this political stenography pool wouldn’t just simply have passed around whatever talking points they were handed on the D.C. cocktail party circuit? Please.
There are approximately 86 men held at Gitmo who have been determined to be innocent and eligible for release. They were judged so back in 2009. They remain imprisoned. Why? Why isn’t Lindsey Graham or John McCain ranting about them? Has the GOP objected to keeping innocent men in Guantanamo? Ever?
Did the GOP and John McCain raise a fuss when George Bush released over 500 enemy combatants from Gitmo? Anyone holler about impeaching George Bush then?
No.
This is not about Sgt. Bergdahl.
This is about small minds inflating themselves with the hot air of hypocrisy. This is about nasty little bullies who have never gotten over their rejection by the majority of the American people. This is about vicious self-aggrandizers, who spread hate and fear and willingly embrace spiteful diminutive men who appeal to bigotry in all its forms in order to control and profit off people.
Time magazine’s cover is of Sgt. Bergdahl with the question: Was He Worth It?
Did Time ask such a question when the Iraq War began? When the death toll climbed into the thousands? When all the lies became public knowledge? When the war in Afghanistan surged in even more death and sorrow?
No.
This is not about Sgt. Bergdahl.
This is about the current darkness of the American political heart.
This is about those who would excuse and cheer soldiers urinating on corpses but curse and smear Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who speak out against the wars, especially if they are named Pat Tillman or the Tillman family.
This is about empty souls seeking compassion and understanding for soldiers who killed an entire family and then dug the bullets out of the dead bodies in order to hide their sins; all presented as horrible but understandable due the pressures of combat.
These are the same empty souls that so despicably trashed and soiled the Viet Nam service of Max Cleland and John Kerry and others for the basest of political gain.
This is about the viciousness of people like Allen West, a man the Army forced to resign or face court martial for allowing his men to beat and torture an Iraqi detainee and then joined in the abuse himself, now calling into question the patriotism of Representative Tammy Duckworth, a combat veteran and double amputee of the Iraq war.
This is about those Iran-Contra criminals so gainfully employed by the great noise machine that allows them to fling their fecal filth as moral judgment on this president and this POW and the whole of liberal America.
And all of the above, dutifully reported and analyzed by the media in that “he said-she said” both sides do it – OMG look, it’s a food fight! – modern objective journalism.
Let’s be honest.
This is about The Other – The One Not Like Us – The Obama.
The Kenyan-born secret Muslim socialist – the incompetent evil genius that is the sole destroyer of American greatness – the pal of terrorists, foreign and domestic – the husband of an angry black woman who was never proud of her country – the first black president who exemplifies post-racial America except for the racism he and his friends exhibit toward regular Americans.
And now this.
The release of a POW deemed unworthy by THEM because – Obama.
This should be about compassion.
But they have none.
This should be about decency and morality.
But they offer none.
No.
This is not about Sgt. Bergdahl.
This is about the empty soul of GOP politics.
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