A Holiday Research Question

Has anyone ever actually objected to you saying "Merry Christmas?" Have you ever actually seen anyone object?

I'd really like to know.

My Christmas Present to the Wingnuts

Latest Newspaper Column:

I really do like writing this column, most of the time. But there are some annoyances.

Like, for instance, the snarky e-mails I get demanding to know why I haven't written about this or that supposed atrocity some supposed liberal has supposedly committed. "Why don't you write," they sneer, "about that thing that Alec Baldwin/Michael Moore/wingnut bogeyman du jour said or did? Huh? Huh?"

These annoy me for a number of reasons. For one thing, they most often turn out to be total fiction. Mainly, though, I'm annoyed by the implication that, because I'm not writing about something that has someone else's knickers in a wad, I'm some kind of partisan shill. Nothing could be further from the truth. Shills get paid much better than I do.

But, this being the season of loving and giving, I am going to give some of you what you most desire. I'm going to say something critical about Michael Moore and some of my fellow liberals.

Moore recently published an open letter to President Obama on his Web site, claiming that the president was betraying his supporters by ordering more U.S. Troops to Afghanistan.

"If you go to West Point tomorrow night," Moore wrote, "and tell us you are increasing, rather than withdrawing, the troops in Afghanistan, you are the new war president. Pure and simple. And with that you will do the worst possible thing you could do -- destroy the hopes and dreams so many millions have placed in you."

And it wasn't just Moore. After Obama's West Point speech, the cry went up across the liberal blogosphere: "We are betraaaaayed!"

It wasn't coming from everyone (and anyone who thinks "liberals" all believe one thing should try actually reading the arguments that erupt on some left-leaning blogs sometime). But there were a significant number of comments like this one: "Mr. President, we elected you to end these wars, not continue them!"

It wasn't just liberals either. Some fellow who claimed to be an ex-Marine bravely accosted my wife and teenage daughter at a gas station over the holiday and began haranguing them about the Obama sticker on the car, saying, "How about all the broken promises, huh? He promised to bring all the troops home. How about that, huh?"

Uh, folks, I don't know whom you were seeing up there on the podium in the 2008 election, but the guy I voted for said this on the campaign trail:

-- "I will finally have a comprehensive strategy to finish the job in Afghanistan, with more troops." (Sept. 26, 2008.)

-- "We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there. ... I think we need more troops. I've been saying that for over a year now." (Sept. 9, 2008.)

-- "This is a war that we have to win. I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan ... We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region." (July 15, 2008.)

So I have to say, I'm more than a little bemused by the people who are crying out that they've been sold a bill of goods by a Barack Obama that exists only in their heads. You can certainly raise concerns about the wisdom of escalating the war, but please stop trying to rewrite history. Leave that for the wingnuts, who were for troop surges before they were against them.

My opinion on the commitment of more troops? I think it's something that should have been done years ago, instead of invading a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. And I'm happy to see that the troop escalation also includes an escalation in the number of civilian economic and development experts going to that unhappy country.

That, more than anything else, gives me hope that this one will turn out differently from Vietnam. I do know that we can't just walk away like we did after the Russians pulled out, and leave Afghanistan to the mercy of religion-maddened hillbillies like the Taliban and nuts like Al-Qaeda.

In times like these, I feel like that guy in the old song: "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am."

Jesus, Man, Buy the DVD and Get Over It

Arlington mayor fires at Obama online:

In the opinion of Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman, President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday night on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately timed to block the Christian message of the "Peanuts" television Christmas special.

Wiseman made the statements on his Facebook page, where he declared Obama to be a Muslim. Only people on Wiseman's "friend's list" had access to the post. He has more than 1,600 friends on Facebook.

"Ok, so, this is total crap, we sit the kids down to watch 'The Charlie Brown Christmas Special' and our muslim president is there, what a load.....try to convince me that wasn't done on purpose. Ask the man if he believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and he will give you a 10 minute disertation (sic) about it....w...hen the answer should simply be 'yes'...."

As you know, SWORS (Spasmodic Wingnut Outrage Syndrome) is a disorder of the central nervous system that causes impairment of higher brain function in some American conservatives. Sufferers from SWORS experience a near-total loss of any sense of proportion and become prone to manic outbursts of indignation over trivial events.

I think going ballistic and accusing the President of deliberately scheduling what was arguably the major policy address of this year just to pre-empt Charlie Brown is a sign that SWORS has permanently damaged this guy's brain.

As my friend BCB puts it: Good grief!

Panderin' Palin

Sarah Palin on Wingnut Talk Radio:

"I think the public rightfully is still making it [whether President Obama was born in the US] an issue," Palin said. "I don't have a problem with that. I don't know if I would have to bother to make it an issue, because I think that members of the electorate still want answers."

Sarah Palin on Facebook a few hours later:

Stupid Conspiracies

Voters have every right to ask candidates for information if they so choose. I’ve pointed out that it was seemingly fair game during the 2008 election for many on the left to badger my doctor and lawyer for proof that Trig is in fact my child. Conspiracy-minded reporters and voters had a right to ask... which they have repeatedly. But at no point – not during the campaign, and not during recent interviews – have I asked the president to produce his birth certificate or suggested that he was not born in the United States.

So Sarah Palin, Ms. Roguey Maverick, Ms. "I'm just a hockey mom," talks like a "birther" when she's on right wing talk radio, then backs off it when she's not.

There's a word for that.

None Dare Call it Treason, At Least Not Any More

Matt Lewis, Politics Daily:

[T]he fact that a former vice president -- possibly the most influential in American history -- chose to criticize the policies of the sitting president of the United States on the eve of his committing 30,000 troops to war strikes me as inappropriate.
***
Certainly, there is hypocrisy on both sides. Conservatives were incensed -- and had a right to be -- when Democratic leaders, including Harry Reid and Joe Biden, took verbal pot shots at George W. Bush while the president was on foreign soil. (Jimmy Carter was even tackier: Carter went abroad and criticized Bush.) We tended to view that kind of behavior as unpatriotic.

Let me help you out a little, Matt. it wasn't just described as unpatriotic. It was described as treasonous, and people who did it were threatened with death.

Dick Cheney, however, gets the mildest possible criticism, and a continued soapbox to try and defend his failed policies at the expense of the country.

Liberal media, my ass.

Betrayed By the Obama in Your Head

it seems that filmmaker Michael Moore has joined the chorus of people claiming that they've been betrayed if Barack Obama sends more troops to Afghanistan.

Well, Mike, as well as anonymous ex-Marine who began haranguing my wife and daughter at a gas station over their Obama bumper sticker, I don't know who you thought was running, but this is the guy I pulled the lever for:

"The greatest threat to that security lies in the tribal regions of Pakistan, where terrorists train and insurgents strike into Afghanistan. We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as President, I won't. We need a stronger and sustained partnership between Afghanistan, Pakistan and NATO to secure the border, to take out terrorist camps, and to crack down on cross-border insurgents. We need more troops, more helicopters, more satellites, more Predator drones in the Afghan border region. And we must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights." -Barack Obama, July 15, 2008

I've said since the beginnings of Dubbya's Wacky Iraqi Adventure that we needed to be concentrating on Afghanistan and that Iraq was going to be a long and costly diversion. And part of the reason I backed Barack Obama in the first place was that he felt the same way, and wasn't afraid to say so:

We need more resources in Afghanistan. I have been arguing for this since 2002, when I said that we should finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban instead of going into Iraq. I have called for at least two additional combat brigades to support our efforts there. "-Barack Obama, June 18, 2008

You can have disagreements as to whether or not this buildup is a good idea. Personally, I'm waiting to see the rest of the plan. By which I mean, "30,000 troops to do what, exactly?"

But for people to be weeping and wailing "OMG we are betrayed!" because Obama's sending more troops simply ignores history or worse, rewrites it to suit some image in your head. Leave that for the wingnuts.

UPDATE: The Rude Pundit provides even more Obama quotes on sending more troops to Afghanistan.