A "Goldberg Variation" On Freeper Propaganda

The Philadelphia Inquirer and Jonah Goldberg –perfect together (today here, rambling about patriotism and the Democratic Party)…

Sen. John Kerry, who made his name vilifying the Vietnam War, suddenly wanted credit as a patriot for the same service when he ran for president in 2004. His opening line at the Democratic convention - "I'm John Kerry, and I'm reporting for duty" - was cringe-inducing. The words came out as ironic, almost kitschy.

Uh…apparently it is necessary to remind Goldberg of the following (from here; yeah, I had the same reaction when Kerry overplayed that hand at the convention, but the reason why Kerry claimed a bit of credit as a patriot is because he is a patriot)…

Kerry joined the United States Navy Reserve during his senior year at Yale. He is quoted as saying that he decided to join the Navy after he approached his draft board for permission to study for a year in Paris, and the draft board refused.[11] In addition, several of his classmates were enlisting in the armed services. Upon graduation from Yale, Kerry entered active duty and served until 1970, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant. Kerry was awarded several medals during his second tour of Vietnam, including the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts.

Back to Goldberg (I realize that ripping apart his literary dross is tantamount to the urge you feel to punch the Everlast speed bag as you pass by it in the gym)...

When Democrats do speak of patriotism, it is usually as a means of finding fault with Republicans, corporations or America itself. Hence the irony that questioning the patriotism of liberals is a grievous sin, but doing likewise to conservatives is fine.

I’m not going to address the inanity of that comment directly because I don’t think it deserves a serious response; I cannot recall ever questioning someone’s patriotism of either major political stripe unless it involved victimizing others for personal gain, such as cheerleading for others to fight in a war that that person would not fight in himself (right, Jonah?).

Instead, I’d like to give you the words of a prominent Democrat on the subject of patriotism, and that would be actor Sean Penn here (regarding his full-page ad in the New York Times opposing the Iraq war on May 30, 2003)…

One of the central issues Penn touches on is American patriotism. He returns to this theme several times, musing that the US flag reflects “sacrifice and heroism” and adding, “I am an American and I fear that I, and our people are on the verge of losing our flag.” The thought of the flag reminds him of the funeral of his father—blacklisted director Leo Penn, a veteran of World War II—in 1998, during which a military honor guard presented his mother with a folded American flag.

He writes: “Yet, now here we are, just those five short years have passed, and that same flag that took me so long to love, respect, and protect, threatens to become a haunting banner of murder, greed, and treason against our principles, honored history, Constitution, and our own mothers and fathers. To become a vulgar billboard, advertising our disloyalty to ourselves and our allies.”

And as noted here by Daily Kos diarist The Cunctator, Goldberg is actually working from a template created by former Nixon veep Spiro Agnew in 1970 when he was campaigning for (wait for it…) Poppy Bush himself when he ran for the U.S. Senate against Lloyd Bentsen. Here is what Agnew said…

I am not questioning his patriotism, I'm questioning his judgment.

As Cunctator notes, this is a linguistic trick to mean that the speaker is, in actuality, criticizing both the patriotism and judgment of the subject. And as you can see from the post (another example of that fabled Repug “message discipline”), this maneuver has been employed by the wingers and their acolytes pretty thoroughly since (including one-time Kerry defender Crazy Zell Miller before he turned on him, Dick Cheney, Henry Hyde, “The Gipper” himself of course, and even some other Dems on occasion besides Miller, believe it or not; maybe they forgot how the line originated).

In my experience, though, I can only remember Repugs questioning the patriotism of Democrats, primarily those who have served in the military (this tells us of Flush Limbore’s attack on Paul Hackett, an Iraq War veteran from Ohio who ran for Congress, as well as Young Philadelphia Republican Kevin Kelly’s cowardly accusations against Patrick Murphy; also noted are similar charges against former U.S. Senator and Air Force veteran Tom Daschle, and perhaps the most infamous of all by Saxby Chambliss against former U.S. Senator and decorated Vietnam War veteran Max Cleland).

So Goldberg is really employing nothing new here in his accusations (without proof, of course...well, slightly new anyway) of Democrats accusing Republicans of being unpatriotic, while there is abundant evidence of the opposite taking place for longer than many people can remember.

Oh, and one more thing about Goldberg; aside from being a literary hack, he also has no qualms about welching on a bet (he never paid up here).