A Wingnut Fever Dream

I went back and forth about whether I should say something about this Guest Opinion from a man named Dennis Miller (no relation to the once-funny comedian and failed football commentator who is now a right-wing mouthpiece for HBO, presumably to offset Bill Maher I guess), but though I dismissed it at first as utter frothing-at-the-mouth right-wing propaganda, the problem is that he introduces quotes in this screed out of context which necessitates a response. Otherwise, it is one of the most hateful pieces of bile that I have read in the Bucks County Courier Times in a long time.

(On the one hand, I wonder why the hell the paper would print this without at least giving it a thorough copy edit, but on the other hand, maybe printing it warts and all is appropriate given the overall juvenile quality of the work itself.)

(By the way, speaking of Bill Maher, “Real Time” returns for some new shows this Friday on HBO. For anyone who may remember, I used to basically provide a play-by-play of the entire show in the form of a weekly post, but I can’t keep doing that. I’ll try to mention highlights of the episodes this time around instead – sorry, but that’s the best I can do.)

I’ll try to respond in as factual a way as I can to Miller’s fantastic, delusional scenario, but it will be difficult. At any rate, here it is.

Liberal media, politicians hold key to conquering America

In the worlds of business and sports, executives and coaches will attempt to place themselves in their competitors’ position in order to gain a better perspective. Extending this thought to the Iraq war, let’s place ourselves in the position of an al Qaeda commander and see how he views his archenemy – America.

Here’s the first wrong assumption; with that remark, Miller assumes that al Qaeda is some kind of conventional army with conventional soldiers and officers fighting some kind of conventional war the way nation-states used to do quite frequently. Miller also assumes that al Qaeda’s main enemy is this country, which is wrong. Its main enemy is anyone who isn’t them, who thus becomes an infidel to them (including Israel, of course).

Perhaps his comments would sound like this:

“We are fighting a war that we did not plan to fight. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden told us America is a ‘paper tiger’ and does not have the stomach to fight back. After eight successful attacks that killed hundreds of Americans, we did not feel America would retaliate with a serious counter attack. I guess killing 3,000 innocent people on 9/11 took the paper out of the tiger and hardened the stomach.

In true wingnut form, Miller links Hussein and al Qaeda even though no substantive link between the two has ever been established (and of course, implies that Dubya is a “strong leader” for fighting back). Also, his remark about “eight successful attacks that killed hundreds of Americans” needs to be explained, assuming Miller can do that of course (and how much do you want to bet that the implicit assumption is that the overwhelming majority of these attacks occurred during the Clinton administration, even though arrests were made and convictions obtained for every terrorist attack on the U.S. during his presidency except the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole?.)

“Our mission is clear; our mission is our destiny. We will conquer America, its men, women, and children, and bring them to their knees. Their military may continue to win on the battlefield, but we will make this another Vietnam.

Yes, our fine service people have managed to weed out insurgent strongholds, but the problem is that the terrorists simply move to another location in Iraq when that happens, mainly in the Sunni “golden triangle.” It is a hopeless situation for our people. They were set up to fail by crass, incompetent civilian political leadership that didn’t provide enough of a force to do the job, didn’t secure the borders, and didn’t even bother to provide proper armor for our troops (oh, but the oil ministry was secured PDQ!).

Just as in the 1960s, we will get strength and success from the words and condemnations of liberal politicians and a liberal news media.

You knew it was coming, and here it is.

America fled in shame from Vietnam and their shame will be felt again if they give into liberal pressure to prematurely withdraw from Iraq. America, by itself, will defeat America at home.

Listen, freeper, the person providing the most pressure to get our people the hell out of there is John Murtha, a Democratic U.S. House representative from our own state. To get the first clue about Murtha and his accomplished record of military service, read here. If he’s a “liberal” as defined by you (gutless, cut-and-run, non-committal), then I would suggest that you tell him that, and then expect a visit from him in which he would “dress you down” in the appropriate manner.

“Our spirit will soar and America’s military resolve will crushed (sic) when we replay the scathing words of the prominent men and women who feel that war is not an American alternative. We will trumpet the words of Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party, who likens Iraq to Vietnam, when he says he’s ‘seen this before’ and concludes, “The idea that we’re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea that is just plain wrong.’ Ted Kennedy called Vietnam a ‘quagmire’ and uses the same name for Iraq.

That is substantively correct. I should add, though, that it might be a good idea to read this and get some more context about what Kennedy said in particular.

“John Kerry accuses America’s military of ‘terrorizing kids and children’ in Iraq. Thirty-four years ago, he claimed American soldiers had ‘cut off ears, cut off heads’ in Vietnam. Dick Durbin compared American soldiers to the armed forces of Hitler, Josef Stalin, and Cambodia’s Pol Pot.

This is a link to the "Face The Nation" transcript where Kerry made this difficult observation (given the fact that he actually served, I think he can be excused for what some sensitive souls would consider to be a poor choice of words).

This is a link to the Vietnam Veterans Against the War Statement by John Kerry, 1971 to the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations April 23, 1971 (which Kerry was told to give, by the way).

This is a link to Dick Durbin's apology for his remarks, which, as far as I'm concerned, he should not have had to give (the fact that he was utterly browbeaten for what he said is sickening given the fact that Ann Coulter, for example, can advocate violence against people she doesn't like with impunity.)

All of these quotes are attributed properly, to be fair, but context is nowhere to be found. And of course Miller’s argument assumes that our Repug leadership is blameless in conducting the Iraq war, when nothing could be further from the truth. Where is his mention of Abu Ghraib? Where is his mention of the recently released U.N. report on prisoner abuse at Guantanamo (something WE decried as forcefully as we could when we heard about it taking place against our people held captive during Vietnam and other wars – so are we now as bad as enemies we once fought with no regard for international law…and yes, that is important if we’re supposedly fighting a global war)? And by the way, before anyone points out that the U.N. delegation turned down the offer last December to visit Guantanamo, I should point out that the reason they did was because we didn’t give them permission to interview prisoners, so they decided that there’d be no point to it.)

“We will use the words of these four liberal leaders to rally our fighters and embarrass and demoralize America’s military men and women. Their words and their faces will be televised to the world by Al-Jazeera. Once again, America will vanquish America.

Some of these “liberal leaders” actually once served in our armed forces (Kerry, Kennedy, and Murtha, of course), as opposed to the chickenhawk Repugs who have no qualms about sending our kids off to die for their war for blood and oil while their own lives remain comfortable and unthreatened (one day I won’t have to point that out any more, and that can’t come soon enough for me).

“The three major broadcast networks also have a damaging effect on American troops. The programs many Americans watch each night – the CBS Evening News, the NBC Nightly News and ABC’s World Report – are against the war. Only 13 percent of ABC’s stories regarding the war are positive; NBC has 11 percent, and CBS is last at 9 percent.

Please explain to be the basis upon which you decided that these news programs have an anti-war bias. Quantifying that sort of thing is much more difficult than you assume it to be, of course.

“The media claims it shows its support of their troops by daily highlighting the total casualty figure. And yet very, very seldom does it ever mention any heroic acts or the medals and commendations that brave American men and women have earned for exceptional courage, bravery, and valor.

If you or anyone else is willing to provide that information to me, I will publicize it here. I’ve said before MANY TIMES that I really would like to know about what our people are accomplishing over there besides trying to keep from getting killed (infrastructure projects completed, roads or power plants built…that sort of thing), but of course since our reporters are embedded (basically a logical move given the great danger of reporting there), their reporting is heavily filtered also and we either don’t hear about this for security reasons or maybe (likely) because the scenario isn’t as rosy as the “101st Fighting Keyboarders” would have us believe. I've noted in the past, upon occasional visits to the sites of Dr. Kaloogian and his fellow opportunists at Moving America Forward, that I haven't been able to find this information there either.

Oh, and by the way, that begs a good question: What is your record of military service, Mr. Miller? Do you have one? Or are you another one of these “warriors” supporting Dubya by having more “Support Our Troops” decals on your Hummer than any of your neighbors?

“During most of the 1990s, America (sic) policy, when attacked, was appeasement and concession. We would attack and American response was minimal.

More right-wing hammerhead BS without proof – Miller is trying to “speak” through the voice of his theoretical terrorist of course, but the words are his alone.

Now we have a fight on our hands. Let’s hope the American media can convince the American people to cut and run from Iraq.”

The above story is not farfetched.

No, of course not. It’s completely realistic. And I’m excreting solid gold ingots as I read it.

Unfortunately the question is not if (sic) will be attacked again, but when? Bin Laden’s (sic) military commander in Iraq, Musub al-Zarqwai (sic) prophesized, “We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to eternal life.’”

I’m not going to bother to research this quote, because it’s just crazy enough to be true coming from “Zarqwai.”

The philosopher, Edmund Burke once said, “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”

Oh, but “good” people are doing something, Dennis. They’re fighting those chicken pansy liberal Democrats who want all of our troops to get killed so they can crow about Bush failing (and by the way, if Dubya were managing this and other matters so well, somehow I think he would have better than a 39 percent approval rating, with Clinton’s rating at the height of the business with Monica Whatsername hovering around 72 percent).

And one more time now (everybody join in…)

- Iraq didn’t have WMD.
- There was no link to Saddam and 9/11.
- Condoleezza Rice (among others) was engaging in misinformation when she talked about “a mushroom cloud over New York City.”
- Colin Powell was doing the same thing when he talked about sarin being used by Iraq in an attack on the New York subway system.
- We fought the wrong war in the wrong country with no plan for our troops to succeed and no plan to fight the subsequent terrorist activity, which has a hell of a lot to do with the mess we face now, and NO ONE FROM THIS ADMINISTRATION HAS BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR IT!

Souce: Network news reports on Iraq were analyzed by the Media Research Center between Oct. 1 and Nov. 31, 2005.

A-HA! That explains it. Here’s more information on these characters.

As I pointed out above, the quotes from Miller are substantively correct. However, there is no consideration (nor would I expect there to be in this mess) given for the fact that most television news programs and media outlets generally have skewed conservative in their reporting and choice of panelists and commentators for at least the last five years (a fact borne out more thoroughly by other bloggers at other sites). To say that that filters the content that they provide is ridiculously obvious.

Paul Waldman of Media Matters for America commissioned a study with data to support that conclusion, and the data can be accessed from this link (the study was an analysis of liberal vs. conservative guests appearing on “Meet The Press” over the last ten years, with Waldman’s response to the response by Betty Fischer, a producer of “Meet The Press,” at the top of the post.)

As far as I’m concerned, this is part of a vast body of knowledge to support the fact that what we hear day in and day out is information filtered primarily from a conservative point of view (I can tell you quite plainly that if I didn’t believe that, this blog wouldn’t exist). So, Miller’s rants of the age-old chestnut “liberal bias” are just that – rants and nothing more.

Finally, even though the readership of the Bucks County Courier Times skews conservative anyway of course, I should point out that this morning’s editorial section contained the following feature columnists: Kathryn Jean Lopez of The National Review Online haranguing the late Betty Friedan (nice) and author Judith Warner; Dick Morris with yet another written assault on Hillary Clinton; and Beverly Lahaye, president of the conservative group Concerned Women of America (a lineup which, as far as I’m concerned, echoes Paul Waldman’s “Meet The Press” analysis mentioned earlier).

I guess even a token liberal presence in today’s Courier Times was too much to ask. Oh well.

Update: I realize a sophisticated, all-knowing conservative like Miller would NEVER believe a godless commie liberal like Trudy Rubin (registration required), but maybe Miller could actually try listening to Paul Pillar (story explains who he is) and find a clue.