This page was last updated on January 9, 2010.
Loose lips; Editorial; Beaver County Times; January 5, 2010.
This editorial would be hysterical if the subject weren’t so serious. Leftists, including the Times, ceaselessly did what this editorial is accusing Republicans of doing. During a speech to The Brookings Institution on April 5, 2004, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) referred to Iraq as “George Bush’s Vietnam.” In December 2005 on an edition of “Face the Nation,” Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) claimed U.S. soldiers in Iraq were “terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the – of - the historical customs, religious customs.” What about former VP Al Gore? On April 8, 2004, The New York Times reported, “‘He [then-President George Bush] betrayed this country!’ Mr. Gore shouted into the microphone at a rally of Tennessee Democrats here in a stuffy hotel ballroom. ‘He played on our fears. He took America on an ill-conceived foreign adventure dangerous to our troops, an adventure preordained and planned before 9/11 ever took place.’ The speech had several hundred Democrats roaring their approval for Mr. Gore, the party’s 2000 standard-bearer.” In 2003 Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) said, “I’m sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you’re not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we’re Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.” When a senator, Mr. Obama himself had no problem bashing our national security efforts, including his assertion the Iraq surge wouldn’t work. There are many more quotes from many other lefties, but you get the idea. Not only did the Times not complain about comments like these, its editorials defended similar comments and even jumped on the bandwagon. As with deficit spending, we see the Times position on an issue depends on who is in office. In addition to being leftists, the Times editorial board is just a bunch of political opportunists. In my opinion, this means neither the left nor the right can trust the Times.
Do I disagree with certain types of criticism about national security issues in public? Of course, just as I always have. That doesn’t mean there can’t be criticism; elected officials and other people in power, however, have ways to express their differing opinions to an administration and Congress without aiding the enemy.
The editorial says, “The best and most realistic anti-terrorism approach the United States can take is to emulate the Cold War policy of containment, which was aimed at isolating and preventing the spread of communism.” Communism tended to be contained within country borders; Islamic extremism knows no borders. For the most part, we didn’t have Soviet citizens blowing up American jetliners, crashing them into buildings, bombing embassies, et cetera. Does the Times not see this difference?
The editorial says, “And just as in the Cold War, the United States can’t go it alone and do it alone, as the Bush administration tried to do - and failed.” I guess if they say it often enough, the Times believes the “go it alone and do it alone” myth it will become true. The editorial author also failed to note there were huge protests against the U.S. Cold War strategy, particularly in Europe during the 1980s.
Finally, we have yet another Times editorial referring to an op-ed piece (this time a Washington Post editorial) as if it’s a news source. This is one way opinion gets “laundered” into “news.” It’s analogous to a drug dealer laundering his drug money through another party.
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