"At the same time, it seems to me that if you were a traditional military voter, you might have some serious problems with Obama. The way he sometimes talks about the military, he talks about the troops — it can often seem narcissistic, political, and rub people the wrong way."
- the Doughy Pantload
"And we heard Obama today doing essentially doing penance for a country that spat on soldiers who returned from the Vietnam War."
- The Kraphammer of the Gods
Stabbed in the back! The past and future of a right-wing myth
By Kevin Baker (Harper's, June 2006)
Yet the cultural division that Richard Nixon had fomented to try to salvage the war in Vietnam would take on a life of its own long after the war was over and Nixon had been driven from office in disgrace. It cleverly focused on the men who had fought the war, rather than the war itself. If Vietnam had been an unnecessary sacrifice, if world Communism could no longer be passed off as a credible threat to the United States, then the betrayal of our fighting men must become the issue.
Vietnam, for the right, would come to be defined mainly through a series of closely related, culturally explosive totems. The protesters and the counterculture would be reduced to the single person of Jane Fonda, embalmed forever on a clip of film, traipsing around a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun. The soldiers, meanwhile, were transformed into victims and martyrs. It became general knowledge that they had been savagely scorned and mocked upon their return to the United States; those returning through the San Francisco airport were especially liable to be spat upon by men and women protesting the war.
...
It would do no good to point out that there is no objective evidence that veterans were ever spat upon by demonstrators or that POWs were ever left behind or that Jane Fonda's addle-headed mission to Hanoi did anything to undermine American forces.
And there you go.
(Cross-posted at Whiskey Fire. Mouse over pics for captions, and click them for larger versions.)
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16 comments:
I would, however, spit on Krauthammer.
He's a Major League Liar. But he'll never have to worry about being called on the carpet for that at the Washington Post (or FAUX Nooze, for that matter).
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it can often seem narcissistic, political, and rub people the wrong way."
EXAMPLE PLEASE.
Wingnutz is always rubbed the wrong way. They're curious cats.
P.S. Are you saying Rbarnbill is making stuff UP, vs???
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.S. Are you saying Rbarnbill is making stuff UP, vs???
I have a natural distrust of anything that comes out of the mouths of Internet Tough Guys.
Well-placed mistrust. It's a tribal ritual, just like claiming there is no global warming.
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"What did you do in the culture war, Daddy?"
Click and waste my beautiful mind on something like that?
"What did you do in the culture war, Daddy?"
I fought the law, and the law won.
R.G., those are screengrabs. All you'll get is a larger screengrab. We care about our customers!
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Hmmm. I don't think I will read this post.
Not until you come to my blog and tell me I'm pretty dammit!!!!
Have a lovely day.
SLAM
(((Hugs))) *with no titty press for you*
Laura
La, la, la.. not good enough.
STILL not reading. :)
Hmmmmm.....
Still no titty press huggies.
Hmm, spitting is on my mind too.
I saw that at Tucker's Toilet too, but I hadn't the nerve to look/listen, 'though I figured it would be good fodder.
The only bigger myth is that we could have won Vietnam.
My father-in-law was in a rifle unit in the late 1960s. He told me a story about how his unit captured a soldier (VietCong or NVA, can't remember which). When they questioned the guy, he said he'd been fighting for 15 years, starting against the French and then against the Americans. My f-i-l said that's when he knew that we weren't going to win the war.
he said he'd been fighting for 15 years, starting against the French and then against the Americans.
*Sniffle*
When I was nine (1973) I called the local VA hospital and tried to volunteer to be a candy striper. I wanted to show the soldiers that a liberal would never spit on them.
My mom yelled at me when the VA lady called her back to tell her what I did.
I was a latch-key kid. I was always causin' trouble.
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