There has to be a legitimate outrage to protest, before one can protest an outrage legitimately.
There's an old axiom in politics that goes something like this: If you're losing the argument, change the subject. Get caught destroying records from the National Archives or plagiarizing the work of others? Talk about the lies and deceptions of your political enemies; or as a fall back, admit to some non-specific lapse of judgment, then check into re-hab for a week or two to confront the same human foibles we all possess — but you have the singular courage to tackle. Collect some illegal campaign contributions from a notorious swindler? Talk about the pressures of a campaign that don't allow you to micro-manage every small detail of your life; or as a fall back, reaffirm your commitment to campaign finance reform while simultaneously giving the little people whose donations were bundled an opportunity to re-contribute those same funds in a more legitimate fashion.
There's nothing particularly nefarious about changing the subject, mind you. We all do it to some degree or another in our daily lives. Only when truth-stretching reaches a certain level of hyperbole does it cause a problem. Being late for dinner with your in-laws because of a mythical traffic jam or last minute crisis at work is one thing. Being late because you were abducted by aliens or had to perform open heart surgery on your boss with a pocket knife is another.
And so we get to three recent, and highly-"coincidental" attacks by the Left on Conservative opinion leaders following the public relations fiasco of the Petraeus-Betray Us ad. Unable to explain away their supposed good-intentions in launching the highly personal attack on a genuine war hero, Moveon.org, Media Matters and the rest of the First Amendment R [only for] Us crowd decided to do the next best thing. When you're being clobbered for your own stupidity and political boorishness, and your base is howling that you haven't lived up to your campaign promise to immediately pull the US out of Iraq regardless of the consequences, there's only one thing left to do. Change the subject. And how does one do this in politics today? You go on the attack.
Again, there is nothing inherently wrong with this approach. Stupidity, ignorance, greed, and a myriad of other foibles deserve to be pointed out when the practitioners are public servants in general, and elected officials in particular. And there's even a legitimate place for doing the same to non-elected, but otherwise public opinion leaders like we find on talk radio and cable TV. But all this presumes one tiny little thing that in its haste to change the subject, the Left seems to have forgotten (or deliberately ignored).
There has to be a legitimate outrage to protest, before one can protest an outrage legitimately.
Case #1: Bill O'Reilly makes racist comments.
This would be a story worthy of public condemnation; that is, if it was true. While eating at a restaurant in Harlem, O'Reilly commented that there would be less racism in America if all people could see what he saw; normal people leading normal lives who happen to be of a different race than they might be. This, of course, was immediately portrayed by the Left as Bill speaking in code that Blacks are indeed different, and deserve to be treated as such.
Huh? Talk about the fact that we shouldn't let superficial differences divide us, and this somehow becomes code to return all Blacks to slavery? To the Left, there is nothing supposedly questionable about this. All conservatives talk in code — that's the only way they can be understood. Surely no one is simple-minded enough to believe conservatives actually mean the things they say, literally? Therefore, "reduce taxes" is code for "hate minorities". "Obey our laws" is code for "deport everyone who isn't white, whether they're here legally or illegally." And of course there's the all encompassing "I'm proud to be an American", which translates into "kill and rape as many innocent Iraqis as we can."
So when the O'Reilly smear first appeared, there was a tendency to believe that the Left was just being its typical insane self and seeing boogeymen where no such boogeymen exist. That's the generous interpretation. The non-generous interpretation is that these people are so unhinged that they not only believe this stuff, they are quite prepared to draw any conclusion whatsoever and shout it from the nearest rooftop if it will tarnish the character and reputation of someone on the Right. Whether the charge is true or not is just a detail; the accusation makes a nice, blunt political weapon that when wielded in conjunction with a mainstream press that doesn't question its scholarship or conclusions, is designed to take conservatives and/or conservative ideals down a notch or two in the eyes of the marginally-politically informed public.
Or so I thought until case #2 quickly appeared on the horizon.
Case #2: Rush Limbaugh defames our troops.
There was a time in our country's history when certain things were thought to be universally true. If the President said X, X was probably true. Then came the Bay of Pigs. You could leave your child with a Catholic priest and never give the matter a second thought. Then came a few dozen highly publicized cases of … well, you get the idea.
So, the fact that a man who has led the effort to support our troops in a time of war now stands accused of defaming those same troops, makes us pause to consider the charge. As illogical and counter-intuitive as it seems, we can't simply dismiss the charge out of hand without further looking into the matter. If a civil rights leader can use a racial slur against Jews, then why can a Conservative talk show host be equally hypocritical in his support for American soldiers?
To answer this question, let's start with what, exactly, is the charge? Rush is said to have called every single U.S. soldier in the United States military who opposes his (Rush's) point of view a "phony soldier". Only those who toe the Limbaugh line are "real soldiers". This has resulted in a firestorm of criticism from the Left, led by the hyper-patriot Harry Reid, who is offering a Congressional resolution condemning the supposed slur on American soldiers. No word yet on whether John Murtha has signed on as a co-sponsor.
I happened to hear this exchange live when Rush was making the allegedly idiotic statements. Rush was clearly speaking about Jesse MacBeth and other darlings of the Left who have falsified claims of military service to accuse the U.S. of committing atrocities in Iraq, not about legitimate American soldiers who don't share his views. Limbaugh is the top dog in Conservative talk radio, and a charge like this — if true — would do substantial damage to his credibility and therefore his political influence. True, no one who has listened to Rush, or who has taken the time to look at the transcript of what was actually said, will give this charge any credence. But it does serve the purpose of further distracting the public from the Petraeus-Betray Us controversy by manufacturing a phony moral equivalence charge against Limbaugh.
And, to those who get their news from MTV, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN and other similar sources, it will help to marginalize Limbaugh in a perverse sort of way. They can claim that US troops routinely rape and slaughter innocent civilians, and say that US troops who support the war are illiterate uneducated fools deceived by their superiors, but supposedly calling soldiers who disagree with your opinions "phony" crosses the line! Such is the logic of the Left, where you can still smear a guy by claiming that he believes exactly the same things you do!
Which brings us to Case #3.
Case #3: Michael Medved supports slavery.
Conservative talk show host Michael Medved — are we noticing a pattern here? — recently wrote an opinion piece entitled "Six Inconvenient Truths about the U.S. and Slavery". Medved was not making excuses for the despicable practice of trading in human lives, but rather sought to put U.S. slavery in perspective with the worldwide slave trade of that era. Among his points were that while participating in the slave trade, Americans didn't invent it. They weren't even the most egregious practitioners. And to its credit, America ended the practice.
All of which has led to the posting of a phony (can I use that word?) photoshopped image of Medved holding a Robert E. Lee statue, with the claim that his article was a stalwart defense of the institution of slavery and tacit support for America's role in it. I won't waste any more time on these manufactured charges, since the article he wrote speaks for itself http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2007/09/26/six_inconvenient_truths_about_the_us_and_slavery What I will do is point out another obvious attempt by the Left to shut down all politically incorrect debate (politically incorrect as they define it), and attack both the messenger and his message.
This whole phenomenon of smearing your opponents is nothing new. Universities have been practicing it for decades where free speech and the open exchange of ideas is strongly encouraged — unless you object to homosexuality, question affirmative action, believe that radical feminism is misguided, etc., at which point you are brought before the university administration to answer charges of making "hate speech." Similarly, both political parties have routinely pounced on the stupidity of their opponents to make legitimate political points, from McGovern's "1000%" backing of Thomas Eagleton, to Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook".
What distinguishes the past from today is the way the Left has chosen to discredit ideas from the Right not by attacking those ideas, but by condemning something that was never said or done. It's modern-day McCarthyism, and we all have a responsibility to recognize it for what it is and oppose those who practice it, regardless of our political preferences. It was no more correct to smear people in the 1950s who disagreed with your political opinions than it is to do the same in the 21st century.
I'm not holding my breath, though. The Left has raised the political smear to an art form, and it's not one they will relinquish easily. Why debate policies when you can create phony documents about George Bush's military service? The lesson from this fiasco wasn't that political smears are wrong; but that when manufacturing a phony document, remember to use the correct font. Why argue with Medved's scholarship when you can photoshop him holding a statue of a Confederate general to make your point? Why take on O'Reilly or Rush on the things they actually said, when it's so much easier to attack them for things they never said?
Why indeed? To save the Left the trouble of responding, I'll write the headline they'll use to summarize this article. "Jackson defends O'Reilly's racist comments, Limbaugh's slur on U.S. troops, and Medved's support for slavery."
I'm sure this fairly and accurately encompasses the main points I was making.
Jackson-ic@hotmail.com
http://www.scifi-jackson.com/
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