Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Blind Rage

Congress is holding hearings on the Pat Tillman and Jessica Lynch episodes from Afghanistan and Iraq.

Give me strength. I guess I should be happy that the loyal opposition's desperate reach for a scandal leads them to allege scandal where there is really nothing. But this is standard operating procedure for these people, so I am not surprised one bit.

Congress thinks that the death of Tillman in a friendly fire incident and the incorrect initial reports that Lynch fought a brave battle when her unit was ambushed and pretty much wiped out in the invasion are both scandals.

Of course, this requires you to forget that the military reported the correct facts on Tillman's death about five weeks after his death. Whatever cover-up was localized and corrected. And the motive is not clear, either. This also requires you to neglect the fact that friendly fire is fairly common in war. That's war.

This line of reasoning also requires you to forget that our initial reports about Lynch were based on Iraqi intercepts that seemed to give credit to a blonde female soldier for putting up steadfast resistance. In fact, it seems likely that a blonde male soldier was the one who resisted above and beyond what one would expect of a rear echelon type (no disparagement intended as I was one myself). I've known this fact for years, so I don't know where the scandal is in this either.

Our Congress should establish a Committee on Plastic Turkeys for all the pretend scandals they will dig into.

What a Congress we have. Their arrogance is matched only by their ignorance.

UPDATE: Perhaps I should have written that their arrogance is matched only by their ambitions. The ability to pretend these two incidents are scandals is truly astounding. But politicians (of both parties) can be expedted to be shameless in pursuit of partisan political advantage. The willingness of our press to go along with this power grab is reprehensible.