A hand-wringing opinion column from Philip Gailey of the St. Petersburg Times appeared in this morning’s Bucks County Courier Times in which he states that it is “unseemly” for Americans to be complaining about high gas prices ($3.20 a gallon for premium at the Mobil in Lower Makefield, PA, by the way) because our troops are fighting and dying in Afghanistan and Iraq.Uh, can someone please explain to me why the bloody hell the sacrifices of our brave service people should automatically disallow Americans from voicing their opinion in a constructive manner?
That, however, was tame by comparison with William Rusher’s rant about how we must support Saint George W. in The Everlasting, Eternal, Now And Forever Never Ending For The Rest Of Our Lives Global War on Terror because God forbid Hillary Clinton is elected and she starts pulling our troops out of Iraq (I hate to break the news to Rusher, but Dubya is already doing that).
In the midst of this nonsense, the paper asked a surprisingly sensible question in one of its editorials.
Why doesn’t Mike Fitzpatrick state whether or not Don (The Defense Secretary You Have) Rumsfeld should be fired?
Patrick Murphy and Andy (Only Positive Comments Allowed To Posts On My Blog) Warren have stated that Rumsfeld should go (Murphy said Rummy should resign – the honorable thing for Rumsfeld to do, assuming he knows what that virtue even is – and Warren said Rumsfeld should be fired).
But as for Fitz, here is what the editorial said.
“We asked the congressman and he wouldn’t tell us. When pressed to say whether his silence indicated agreement with the president, we were told not to make such an inference. Through a spokesman, Fitzpatrick said he doesn’t feel it’s his place to offer an opinion, since he didn’t hire Rumsfeld and only the president can fire him.”I have a news flash for Mikey. He, Dubya, the rest of Congress…all of you jokers ANSWER TO US! And indirectly, that means the president’s cabinet appointees also. Dubya says this is “a CEO presidency,” and he sure as hell acts like it’s “a CEO presidency,” but THAT’s NOT HOW THIS COUNTRY WORKS!
Let’s cut the BS, Mike, OK? If a Democrat were in the White House or if that party were running Congress and all of this was going on, you would be SCREAMING YOUR HEAD OFF RIGHT NOW!
I’m curious to know how families in Bucks County whose sons and daughters are serving us in the military feel about Fitzpatrick’s non-position (I have a feeling opinion will be split along partisan lines as usual, but I could be wrong). If I find out anything on that, I will post to this site accordingly.
Update: I would say that this is not a good time to take "The Rummy And Condi Show" on the road, as they say.
4 comments:
What a gutless piece o' crap! Not his place to offer an opinion? And then Mr. Gailey saying that we should not offer our opinions due to the war... I think I'm noticing a pattern. If the obviously sane opinion differs from the koolaid drinkers talking points manual, then the correct thing to do is decry people who give opinions on the offending subject!
On the positive side however, we can hope that Mikey's attitude spreads to several other topics as well, and eventually stops expressing his opinions altogether.
Indeed - I suppose silence would be preferable to Fitz "towing the Bushco line," but Mikey might give us more rope to hang him in November, so to speak.
What I described in the Courier Times, by the way, is pretty typical. The paper is nothing if not shrewd, though. They know what their largely right-wing hammerhead audience wants to read. Sometimes they publish Lee Drutman, Paul Campos, or other pretty legit progressives, and occasionally Richard Cohen or Ellen Goodman - both of whom more often than not leave me scratching my head anymore - but basically it's pretty conservative stuff.
Thanks for checking in.
Actually, I should have provided links for Gailey and Rusher, I suppose - I'm pretty sure you can find Rusher at townhall.com, though - but here is a link to Gailey's piece.
http://www.sptimes.com/2006/04/23/Columns/Democrats_pandering_a.shtml
Never mind...I just updated the post.
Post a Comment