Wednesday, November 01, 2006
misplaced priorities
I'd like to thank Brian Williams of NBC News for spending half of his f&%king show dishing on John Kerry's botched joke (without actually saying what the intended line was until the very end: "If you don't study hard and you're intellectually lazy, you get US stuck in Iraq. Just ask President Bush."), yet never getting around to mentioning this little side story, c/o Andrew Sullivan:
As Sullivan notes, the silence on this story shows not only the mind-boggling myopia of the press and puts the lie to Bush's faux indignation on the troops' behalf, but it also exposes John McCain for the fake that he is. Where art thou, O Straightest of Straight Talkers? Do you have anything at all to say about the president leaving a soldier to the whims of terrorists? Anything?
I didn't think so.
The commander-in-chief has abandoned an American soldier to the tender mercies of a Shiite militia. Yes, there are nuances here, and the NYT fleshes out the story today. But the essential fact is clear. In a showdown for control of Baghdad, the Iraqi prime minister took orders from Moqtada al-Sadr, and instructed the U.S. military to withdraw from Sadr City. The American forces were trying both to stabilize the city but also to find a missing American serviceman. He is still missing.
As Sullivan notes, the silence on this story shows not only the mind-boggling myopia of the press and puts the lie to Bush's faux indignation on the troops' behalf, but it also exposes John McCain for the fake that he is. Where art thou, O Straightest of Straight Talkers? Do you have anything at all to say about the president leaving a soldier to the whims of terrorists? Anything?
I didn't think so.
