Spokesman: Romney Not “Equating Or Comparing Anyone” When Holding “Obama Osama” Sign
As you may have seen today, TMZ.com has obtained two photos of Mitt Romney posing with a supporter in South Carolina. The supporter was holding a sign with the homemade writing, “NO TO OBAMA OSAMA AND CHELSEA’S MOMA” (sic). In the second photo, Romney is himself holding up the sign with the supporter.
At least as disturbing as equating Senators Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton is the expressions on the supporter’s face and Romney’s. Saying that two U.S. Senators are as evil as a murderous terrorist is just so funny to them. Just another day in the world of politics. Mitt and his supporter have made the unhinged a ordinary social custom like having apple pie and coffee with the neighbors. The Right might have hit its peak with making deranged behavior the new normal. Of course the price they pay for that is giving license to their opponents and their supporters to make the same comparisons.
I’ve read enough from veterans and Iraq veterans in particular to think that the troops were leaning Democrat, but I find the degree of their financial support amazing and encouraging, 70.6% of money from the troops was to anti-war candidates
I’m taking a break from reading right-wing blogs today, but Mahablog has a critical look at Dean Barnett’s essay at The Weakly Standard, It’s Easy Being Right Barnett has the nerve to write this
It is surely a measure of how far we’ve come as a society from the dark days of the 1960s that things like military service and duty and sacrifice are now celebrated. Just because Washington and Hollywood haven’t noticed this generational shift doesn’t mean it hasn’t occurred. It has, and it’s seismic.
Here’s just some of the most vocal pro Iraq war supporters who didn’t serve in Vietnam or Iraq – Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Elliott Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, John Ashcroft. Dennis Hastert, Bill Bennett, Condoleeza Rice, Katherine Harris, Ann Coulter, Kenn Starr, Antonin Scalia, Ted Olson, Clarence Thomas, Dennis Miller, Ted Nugent, Michael Weiner, Matt Drudge, Lynn Cheney, Bill O’Reilly. All of them people could have joined the military. Again Dean,
Sadly, the excesses of Woodstock became the face of the Boomers’ response to their moment of challenge. War protests where agitated youths derided American soldiers as baby-killers added no luster to their image.
Does he mean people like Ted Kennedy who served, or Charlie Rangel who served or John Kerry. The list if liberals who served is as long as the list of right-wingers who never have. Remember from just yesterday’s post, Meet the Next Generation of GOP Hypocrites at the College Republican Convention
Yet when I asked these College Republicans why they were not participating in this historic cause, they immediately went into contortions. Asthma. Bad knees from playing catcher in high school. “Medical reasons.” “It’s not for me.” These were some of the excuses College Republicans offered for why they could not fight them “over there.”
Like the current Republican leaders who skipped out on Vietnam, the GOP’s next generation would rather cheerlead from the sidelines for the war in Iraq while other, less privileged young men and women fight and die.
Barnett’s essay is filled with such obvious lies, hypocrisy and distortions that I suspect that he’s writing purely for an audience of the fringe Right echo chamber. People that only read what reaffirms their world view. They read Barnett’s essay and walk away feeling an affirmation of their fun house mirror version of reality is the one and only true world. Barnett also writes that soldiers have not committed any atrocities in Iraq or Vietnam. That would be a lie. The majority of the military in general in both conflicts acted honorably enough, but it is a dangerous to pretend that such atrocities never occurred – Marine killed women, children in Haditha dwelling and Vietnam atrocities revealed in report. More here – Questions and More Questions
Barnett might want to read this though I doubt it will help with his cognitive dissonance syndrome, Why It’s Hard to Admit to Being Wrong
Dissonance is disquieting because to hold two ideas that contradict each other is to flirt with absurdity and, as Albert Camus observed, we humans are creatures who spend our lives trying to convince ourselves that our existence is not absurd. At the heart of it, Festinger’s theory is about how people strive to make sense out of contradictory ideas and lead lives that are, at least in their own minds, consistent and meaningful. The theory inspired more than 3,000 experiments that, taken together, have transformed psychologists’ understanding of how the human mind works. Cognitive dissonance has even escaped academia and entered popular culture. The term is everywhere. The two of us have heard it in TV newscasts, political columns, magazine articles, bumper stickers, even on a soap opera. Alex Trebek used it on Jeopardy, Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, and President Bartlet on The West Wing. Although the expression has been thrown around a lot, few people fully understand its meaning or appreciate its enormous motivational power.
Just recently Democratic Senator Jim Webb confronted Republican Lindsay Graham on Meet The Press and Webb didn’t even bring up the fact he has a son in Iraq – Webb Rips Graham As ‘Politician Trying To Put His Political Views Into The Mouths Of Soldiers’ and former Democratic presidential candidate General Wesley Clark also has a son in Iraq, but in the nice neat little right-wing dissonant world of the like Barnetts conveniently leave out facts like that. In right-wing world only white male Republicans were attacked on 9-11 not America and only right-wing Republicans serve their country. It is as though they’ve taken some drug induced mental trip and can’t come down. Only its not a trip caused by drugs, but a politics composed of such poisonous delusional extremes it has blinded them to the truth and complexities of the real world. The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness
Their stories, recorded and typed into thousands of pages of transcripts, reveal disturbing patterns of behavior by American troops in Iraq. Dozens of those interviewed witnessed Iraqi civilians, including children, dying from American firepower. Some participated in such killings; others treated or investigated civilian casualties after the fact. Many also heard such stories, in detail, from members of their unit. The soldiers, sailors and marines emphasized that not all troops took part in indiscriminate killings. Many said that these acts were perpetrated by a minority. But they nevertheless described such acts as common and said they often go unreported–and almost always go unpunished.
The Long Goodbye 