BCT Editorial – 12/23/09

This page was last updated on January 2, 2010.

Troop support?; Editorial; Beaver County Times; December 23, 2009.

It’s clear the Times believes we have short memories.

As I wrote in a previous critique, “I might be inclined to believe the concern expressed by the editorial is genuine except for one thing. Times editorials consistently do their damnedest to belittle the mission of our armed forces in Iraq. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t honor someone by telling them their actions are misguided and worthless.”

Here are some examples of “troop support” by the Times. First, though the Times told us in graphic terms the surge wouldn’t work (here, here, here, here, here), it said go ahead anyway. The point was to set up the Times to claim it was right regardless of how things transpired. At the time I wrote, “What a gutless position! Worse than gutless, it displays an amazing lack of principles and a willingness to sacrifice American lives to make a political point. If the Times truly believes ‘the effort to pacify Iraq most likely will fail and that many more American personnel will be killed, maimed and wounded in a futile effort,’ it has a moral obligation to fight against the troop increase.”

Second, when Gen. Petraeus reported the surge was having success, the Times told us he was “playing a numbers game.”

Third, you’ll recall the Times gave credit for progress in Iraq over the last 20+ months to the “Sunni awakening,” Iran, and Muqtada al-Sadr, not our troops.

Anyway, let’s get back to the topic of the filibuster. First, the editorial conveniently managed to omit the fact the military wasn’t going to run out of money any time soon. Second, the parenthetical comment “Imagine what would have happened if Democrats had used the same strategy to oppose a piece of major domestic legislation during the Bush years when Republicans controlled the House and Senate” was a hoot. There were no “piece[s] of major domestic legislation” Democrats really opposed. Any “opposition” to domestic legislation was simply that a particular bill didn’t go far enough left. For example, you’ll recall Democrats had lobbied for years for a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Though Democrats weakly “opposed” Medicare Part D, they did so only because it wasn’t a complete giveaway.