Velma Berger – 3/5/09

This page was last updated on March 7, 2009.

A visible sign of war’s true cost; Velma Berger; Beaver County Times; March 5, 2009.

From February 2005 through October 2007, Ms. Berger had a series of at least 26 Bush and Iraqi-bashing letters. In one letter, Ms. Berger told us she was proud of John Murtha. In another letter, Ms. Berger actually claimed she had “a clock ticking down to Bush’s last day in office” and that she “carr[ies] it on [her] purse everywhere [she] go[es].”

Far more often than not, the letters were war-related and ended with something like “Bring our troops home now.” For some reason we could speculate about, there were no war-related letters from November 2007 until this letter. Ms. Berger’s four letters in 2008 were about the election campaign, with one letter supporting Hillary Clinton and another expressing her displeasure with Barack Obama. In one of the 2008 letters, Ms. Berger claimed she was upset with the Democrat party and claimed she would “now be a proud independent.” In my critique of that letter I wrote, “Though Ms. Berger asserts she ‘will now be a proud independent,’ her body of work indicates she will continue to support the leftist candidate, whoever that is. Come November after her short-term anger has subsided, I believe it’s safe to say Ms. Berger will cast her vote for Mr. Obama.” While I can’t say for sure Ms. Berger voted for Mr. Obama, the letter below shows Ms. Berger supports him now.

Below is a detailed critique of the letter.

“The Defense Department now says it will lift the ban on photographs showing flag-draped coffins arriving in the United States.”

[RWC] At the end of the letter I’ll ask what’s missing.

“I think this change is long overdue.

“If our leaders can send our troops to fight a war based on lies, they should face the true cost of war.”

[RWC] Given that President Bush, VP Cheney, et al regularly visited injured troops and met with the families of killed troops, I don’t think they needed “photographs showing flag-draped coffins arriving in the United States” for them to “face the true cost of war.”

“Now, former President George Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are living the easy life, and it is left for others to clean up the mess they left.

“Meanwhile, we now have 4,253 dead (as of my writing this) in Iraq. The count of civilians is high, and the suicide rate continues to climb.”

[RWC] When she isn’t bashing Iraqis, Ms. Berger wants us to believe she cares about them.

“It might not be pleasant to see the war dead being brought home, but I think we should honor their service and the price they paid and not try to hide the fact that each of those coffins contains heartbreak for some family somewhere.”

[RWC] As I wrote in a previous critique, “based on her letter history, why do I believe ‘honor[ing] our troops” has nothing to do with Ms. Berger’s motives?” Ms. Berger simply wanted to use the images of flag-draped coffins to further her cause.

“I wrote a letter to the editor in 2004 that had the headline “War dead should be front-page news.” I still believe this. We should face it every day as we did in World War II.”

[RWC] The letter title has changed a bit since Ms. Berger’s letter “We must live with war daily.” In that letter, Ms. Berger asserted the 2004 letter was entitled “War dead are front-page news.”

What’s missing from the letter? Here’s the long answer.

During a three-year period from 2005 through 2007, Ms. Berger wrote about 20 war-related letters, about half of which admonished then-President Bush to “Bring our troops home now.”

Within the last two weeks, President Obama said he would not “Bring our troops home now.” Instead, the withdrawal from Iraq will drag out until the end of 2011, just in time for the 2012 U.S. election campaign. This is the same date agreed to by the Bush administration and the Iraqi government. Also, the pre-Obama agreement provides for combat troops to be out of Iraq cities by 6/30/09, and for all U.S. troops – not just combat – to be out of Iraq by mid-2010 should Iraqis so vote. At the same time, Mr. Obama announced he would increase the number of troops deployed to Afghanistan. In other words, for all intents and purposes, Mr. Obama is following Mr. Bush’s policy.

Despite Mr. Obama’s actions being clearly in opposition to her constantly stated position over a period of at least three years, in her first war-related letter since his election and since he announced his plan, Ms. Berger did not admonish President Obama to “Bring our troops home now.” Why not?

The answer is simple; Ms. Berger has a different set of rules depending on who’s in office. You’ll note this letter didn’t come until after the Obama administration changed the policy that had been in effect since at least the early 1990s. I could be going out on a limb, but I doubt we’ll ever see a “Bring our troops home now” letter from Ms. Berger with a Democrat in office.

Another teaching moment came when I noted Ms. Berger’s inconsistency in a comment on the Times website. Instead of acknowledging the fact or simply leaving it alone, local lefty Rich Laughlin (He posts using the alias “Lock.”) took the bait and defended Ms. Berger, asserting the observation “could be misinterpreted by some as an unhealthy obsession, or, at best, a dumb waste of time and energy.” Mr. Laughlin has a history of raising objections when his allies’ current comments are found to be at odds with their previous comments. Mr. Laughlin isn’t alone with that reaction, however. As I’ve noted in previous critiques, the Times has refused to post my comments when I point out positions currently espoused in editorials differ from those expressed before Mr. Obama’s election.