Althouse: "It's as if, despite all their pieties, finger-pointing, and moralizing, they were just hypocritical shills for the Democrats all along..."

August 10, 2011

"It's as if, despite all their pieties, finger-pointing, and moralizing, they were just hypocritical shills for the Democrats all along..."

"... Record numbers of U.S. troops are dying under Obama, but the anti-war movement is nowhere to be found.“

63 comments:

Shouting Thomas said...: Obama is black and a Democrat.

The Woodstock Times featured endless articles and letters condemning Republicans as "war criminals" during the Bush era.

Now? Nothing. Well, the crazy left has taken up the cause of Hamas.

The "Republicans are tools of Wall Street" thing is still going on. No mention of the $1 billion in campaign funds Obama raked in. No mention that Wall Street was his biggest contributor. And, certainly no mention that he refused federal financing so that he could collect more money.; 8/10/11, 8:25 AM
Curious George said...: This just occurred to someone?; 8/10/11, 8:28 AM
TMink said...: It is as if, because it actually is. Let be be finality of seem indeed.

Trey; 8/10/11, 8:29 AM
TMink said...: Curious, it is progress for someone!

Trey; 8/10/11, 8:29 AM
traditionalguy said...: You know that Obama is a lame duck when MoDo writes about his failures as only MoDo can write.

His only mission now is to screw up foreign policy even more in the 18 months he has left.

He is ignoring Syria's murder of whole cities and condeming Israel for building a housing project in the Jewish areas of Jerusalem.

It is the only card Obama has left to play...blatant antisemitism.; 8/10/11, 8:30 AM
rhhardin said...: The record numbers are records on the small side, owing to the high proficiency of the modern military.; 8/10/11, 8:31 AM
Bob_R said...: I've come to believe that all of the political "beliefs" of the left are simply social class markers, like brands of clothing, cars, appliances and choices of music, movies, and books.; 8/10/11, 8:34 AM
David said...: You got it Bob R. Liberalism (now being rebranded as Progressive) is a fashion statement.; 8/10/11, 8:37 AM
Lincolntf said...: I've been saying that for a year, glad to see it's just as obvious to everyone else. They truly have NO principles beyond accumulating power. They don't care if they make a mockery of the seriousness of war and pacifism, lie to their own children about the nature of the Climate or simply, say, occupy a State building for, a week. Whatever it is they'll do it if they think it means they can stuff their grubby mouths. Stupid or evil, take your pick.; 8/10/11, 8:40 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: I've come to believe that all of the political "beliefs" of the left are simply social class markers, like brands of clothing, cars, appliances and choices of music, movies, and books.

The left likes passion, too. They are extremely passionate.

Which, of course, means we must do as they say.; 8/10/11, 8:42 AM
ndspinelli said...: I often walk on the very liberal eastside of Madison. During the Bush years there were signs on every block; "End The War..No War for Oil, etc." When I walk now there are none..NONE! Now, it's all "Afscme, This is What Democracy Looks Like", yada yada. I see hypocrisy on both sides but none greater than this.

The anti war left brought down a liberal Dem president in the 1960's. That would never happen in this current culture.; 8/10/11, 8:42 AM
Bushman of the Kohlrabi said...: Remember when military body counts and coffin pics were all the rage? Seems like a lifetime ago.; 8/10/11, 8:43 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Listenh, when you're getting marching orders like this, you've got to expect the front line troops will get lost!; 8/10/11, 8:57 AM
Scott M said...: I see hypocrisy on both sides but none greater than this.

Exactly. It's also something a liberal will get extremely uncomfortable talking about.; 8/10/11, 8:59 AM
MayBee said...: I haven't heard the term "grim milestone" on the news in the longest time.; 8/10/11, 8:59 AM
Peter Hoh said...: It's like the anti-deficit crowd when the GOP is in charge.; 8/10/11, 9:01 AM
Scott M said...: It's like the anti-deficit crowd when the GOP is in charge.

Yes, because we were all so silent about the ridiculous prescription crap Bush signed into law. Try again.; 8/10/11, 9:02 AM
Scott M said...: In fact, Peter, why not try commenting on the subject of the thread? Don't you find it just a tad curious?; 8/10/11, 9:04 AM
Dave D said...: Where are the useful idots "code pink, et al) these days?; 8/10/11, 9:14 AM
Kansas City said...: It is not the peace movement that is disturbing. They are always lunatic lefties.

The disturbing aspect of this is what the democratic party did in opposing the war as part of an effort to gain power, with Obama being Exhibit A. They declared the successful Iraq war as lost and tried to make that be the result entirely to gain political power. It was shameful, they got away with it, and they succeeded in securing two years of complete power. Fortunately for the country, their ideas were so bad and their timing (bad economy) unlucky, so they have lost their power.; 8/10/11, 9:18 AM
Shouting Thomas said...: Where are the useful idots "code pink, et al) these days?

They are championing Hamas.; 8/10/11, 9:18 AM
virgil xenophon said...: Rght about that, Bushman. ESPECIALLY on the nightly news, McNeil-Leherer Rpt, etc. And when criticized by the right as attempting to purposley destroy morale and America's support for the war the reply would be: "Oh, no, we do it simply out of our great respect for the memory of the fallen," etc. Yeah....so where's the "great respect" now, huh? Last time I checked of you wanted to find the names and/or the pictures of "the fallen" on the scroll at the ending of the nightly news under the reign of the Obamassiah you'd better file a missing persons report, because the names of our casualties have conveniently become "non-persons" TOTALLY MIA to the MSM.; 8/10/11, 9:21 AM
Peter Hoh said...: Scott, my comment did address the topic of this thread. There are groups that use issues to further their political agenda, without particularly caring about those issues when their party is in power. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been following the news.

Then there's the issue of where the media directs its attention. The Code Pink crowd is/was better at attracting media attention than the bunch of peace activists who are still gathering every week on the "peace bridge" near me, but no one is going to give them any attention, because, rain or shine, Obama or Bush, they're out there protesting war week in, week out. There's no news there.; 8/10/11, 9:24 AM
Peter Hoh said...: I haven't watched the NewsHour in years. Have they stopped showing the photos of the fallen?; 8/10/11, 9:25 AM
virgil xenophon said...: PS" And where was the high-decibel clamor, the hue & cry by the MSM DEMANDING to picture the coffins of the SEALS as they were being off-loaded at Dover AFB on return to America, eh? You know, to "graphically bring home the high costs of the war to the American people" as one representative of a maj. tv network once put it during the Bush Administration. Now? ("Crickets chirping.."); 8/10/11, 9:30 AM
Chuck66 said...: Irony is me and other conservatives are starting to become anti-war. Not in a pacifist way, but in a "we don't care what happens to them in Afganistan" way. Why should Americans, and primarily only Americans, die for that useless country?; 8/10/11, 9:59 AM
Robert Cook said...: The republicans who prosecuted our baseless wars abroad were and remain war criminals, but they are joined now by Obama and his administration.

Why do you think Obama refused to "look back" and investigate the previous administration? Because he knew he would putting himself in the docket along with them. Crooks of a feather, and all that.

The Democrats who protested so vehemently against the "Republican wars" and who have disappeared now are hypocrites, yes indeed.; 8/10/11, 10:14 AM
Freder Frederson said...: Irony is me and other conservatives are starting to become anti-war.

And doesn't that make you as much a hypocrite as the liberals you all are condemning here?; 8/10/11, 10:25 AM
Alex said...: Robert Cook is so original. Hey Cook - I guess I'm a war criminal too. What's my punishment?; 8/10/11, 10:27 AM
Alex said...: And doesn't that make you as much a hypocrite as the liberals you all are condemning here?

So conservatives are honor-bound to keep supporting insane wars?; 8/10/11, 10:27 AM
Freder Frederson said...: So conservatives are honor-bound to keep supporting insane wars?

Considering I was called a traitor and worse on this very blog for not supporting the Iraq war (and my contention was and still is that not only was the Iraq war wrong but that it drew necessary and precious resources from the Afghan effort) during the Bush years, yes, you are stuck supporting any insane war the President and congress decide to involve us in.

By the standards set by many of commenters (and Glenn Reynolds himself) on this blog, non-support of the war is treason.; 8/10/11, 10:34 AM
Scott M said...: I believe you're missing the point, Freder. If you protested vehemently during the Bush administration, but stopped doing so under Obama, that would make you a hypocrite. If you didn't, what are you carrying on about?; 8/10/11, 10:36 AM
whiskeypundit said...: Yes, what credibility the anti-war movement had is gone now. Like so many before them, their Obamalove has been their end. Hope he was worth it.; 8/10/11, 10:38 AM
Holmes said...: G-D right. I walked by the Whitehouse last year, and there was one lone protester/homeless person with an Iraq war protest sign around his neck. I asked him where his friends were? He shrugged. I told him he was the last honest liberal in the United States.; 8/10/11, 10:45 AM
Robert Cook said...: "There are groups that use issues to further their political agenda, without particularly caring about those issues when their party is in power."

This is true of both parties, with only a few persons in or constitutents of either party willing to criticize when their team is in power.; 8/10/11, 10:54 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Robert Cook is so original. Hey Cook - I guess I'm a war criminal too. What's my punishment?"

I don't know, Alex...what have you done to make you a war criminal?; 8/10/11, 10:56 AM
sorepaw said...: We have indeed come a long way from the Vietnam era, when anti-war protesters went after LBJ and Tricky Dicky alike.

I guess the present-day "anti-war" movement thinks like the National Organization for Women did during the OJ trial.; 8/10/11, 10:57 AM
sonicfrog said...: War Criminal... Wasn't that a Michael Jackson song????; 8/10/11, 10:58 AM
Anonymous said...: Blogger Robert Cook said...

"There are groups that use issues to further their political agenda, without particularly caring about those issues when their party is in power."

This is true of both parties, with only a few persons in or constitutents of either party willing to criticize when their team is in power.

While this is true of both 'parties' it has never been true of The Party.; 8/10/11, 10:58 AM
traditionalguy said...: Chuck66...Conservatives who can see the terrain in Afghanistan mountains have been screaming to get the US targets the heck out of that never winnable shooting gallery over bragging rights to a useless place for many tears now.; 8/10/11, 11:00 AM
traditionalguy said...: Many tears is better than many years.

It took Obama to make the Afghan target range into a mandatory triple troop commitment war to the end, but with the surrender date publicly marked on the calendar.

With Obama as their Commander in Chief, the military is assigned to death and defeat. Go get em boys.; 8/10/11, 11:20 AM
traditionalguy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/10/11, 11:20 AM
Roger J. said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/10/11, 11:38 AM
Hoosier Daddy said...: "...By the standards set by many of commenters (and Glenn Reynolds himself) on this blog, non-support of the war is treason..."

The only person I recall you getting your panties in a bunch over the traitor epithet was C4. Now you want to attribute it to everyone who disagreed with you on the war. That's fine but proves you're the dick everyone thinks you are.; 8/10/11, 11:40 AM
Roger J. said...: Seems to me the issue is war--code pink the bitches that organized that dont seem to understand that we continue to be getting our ass kicked in a-stan and are now in libya--where are these worthless cunts now? where are their signs--its all OK because we have the boy in the white house doing it and not the texas dude. It aint about principle--its about politics--shame on code pink, cindy sheehan (remember her?) and the rest of the worthless cunts that made up code pink.; 8/10/11, 11:42 AM
Roger J. said...: good to see Freder back--I do miss his inanities--; 8/10/11, 11:44 AM
RonF said...: The anti-war movement's true aim was to destroy the Bush Administration's ability to implement it's domestic policy by discrediting it through any means possible. Now that an administration whose domestic policies they favor is in power, they don't want to damage it and thus don't want to criticize it.; 8/10/11, 11:52 AM
grackle said...: It's like the anti-deficit crowd when the GOP is in charge.

Actually, there were anti-deficit Republicans back then. For instance, there was the "Fiscal Responsibility Team" in the Senate:

Tom Coburn, Sam Brownback, Jim DeMint, John Ensign, Lindsey Graham, John McCain, and John Sununu.

They had their counterparts in the House. Remember “Porkbusters?”

http://tinyurl.com/4gv7csu; 8/10/11, 11:59 AM
Pragmatist said...: Of course if Obama had pulled out the troops and there were no more killed then he would be called a Cut and Run Dem or worse. And I think it is nowhere near the numbers killed in Iraq. But lies, damn lies and statistics. No reason to let facts get in the way of a good headline.; 8/10/11, 12:18 PM
purplepenquin said...: Couple lefty-blogs have taken Obama to task about his war stance. Check out BadTux the Snarky Penguin (no relation to moi) for one such example.

But yeah, a lot of anti-war liberals still continue to support Obama much like a lot of small-gov't conservatives still support Big Gov't Programs like the War on Drugs...for those folks, politics trump all and core values be damned.; 8/10/11, 12:24 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Eh, this article isn't very honest. We lost a lot more people in Iraq and that was Bush's war.

The total lack of an antiwar movement after Obama was elected is notable, but it was falling apart before that.

The reason is that we won in Iraq and Bush outlasted them. He exposed them as the empty shell that they are. We didn't lose in Vietnam because of them, either. The idea that the antiwar movement is a potent political force was never true, and now it's been proven.; 8/10/11, 12:26 PM
n.n said...: Stick to the narrative and everything will be just fine. Everything else is superfluous; but, will be recalled at an opportune moment.

WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Serbia, Pakistan, Libya

It's long past time for a "humanitarian intervention" in Syria.

The point is not to suggest that Democrats have lead America in to the major wars over the last 100 years, but that there are interests that cross the partisan divide, which may or may not correlate with the interests of America and her citizens.

In any case, until we decide to increase domestic resource recovery, energy production, and manufacturing, and we choose stable and similarly governed trade partners, then we have little choice but to intervene with our armed forces.; 8/10/11, 1:40 PM
Cedarford said...: The disgusting thing to me is how obvious it now is that the Lefties, progressive Jews of the media - never cared one iota about the "hero troops". Troops they relentlessly exploited the the good names, honorm duty to country and sacrifice of "Because we foes of Evil Bush care about the lives he and Cheney and Rumsfeld are murdering along with innocent Muslim babies". That they sought to blubber over on TV shows with their latest "hero death count thanks to ChimpyMcHitlerBurton", eager death milestones 3,000 dead!!, their little fake cemeteries and pouring blood n things... they couldn't wait to do agitprop on.

What was the last time a progressive Jewish producer wired in to the Democrat Party ordered a news show to run names and faces of the Hero dead? Was it Jan 21, 2009?
The last blubber piece the NY Times ran about the innocent wives and children of a terrorist also killed in an extrajudicial assassination of the terrorist?; 8/10/11, 2:02 PM
Cedarford said...: Hoosier - The only person I recall you getting your panties in a bunch over the traitor epithet was C4.

And Freder omits it was not a judgement about the war, which many of us opposed or opposed when it went into neocon nation building and a stream of dead bodies and hundreds of billions blown on the "noble, purple fingered freedom lovers".

It was over Freder becoming so obsessed with the cause of enemy and terrorist rights he veered solidly into being an enemy and terrorist rights sympathizer who put their rights higher than his own soldiers and own people.

He made the transition to Quisling.

Then solidified it with Freder statements like it would be preferable to see tens of thousands of Americans, even hundreds of thousands in a nuke bomb attack - die - than violate the "due process rights of an accused terrorist not to be questioned against his will".; 8/10/11, 2:09 PM
Gene said...: Unless one is worried about the prospect of building oil or gas lines through the country there's simply no reason for us to be in Afghanistan any more. The 9-11 plotters came from Saudi Arabia and Osama bin Laden is dead. We don't have to kill any more Afghans to even the score. More to the point, there's no good reason to risk the lives of any more American soldiers.

I know there are people here with sons and daughters fighting in Afghanistan. I honor their commitment to America. And the best way to help them, I say, is to bring the troops home and reward them with good jobs rebuilding America's crumbing infrastructure.; 8/10/11, 2:10 PM
Anonymous said...: "Blogger Gene said...

Unless one is worried about the prospect of building oil or gas lines through the country there's simply no reason for us to be in Afghanistan .."

Ted Rall, you old rascal. What have you been up to?; 8/10/11, 2:59 PM
sorepaw said...: No reason to let facts get in the way of a good headline.

Pragmatist's operating philosophy...; 8/10/11, 3:24 PM
sorepaw said...: But yeah, a lot of anti-war liberals still continue to support Obama much like a lot of small-gov't conservatives still support Big Gov't Programs like the War on Drugs...for those folks, politics trump all and core values be damned.

You won't find me supporting the War on Drugs.

But that makes me wonder... since Obama and most Democrats in Congress also support the War on Drugs, how do anti-drug-war liberals deal with that?

Or have anti-drug-war liberals become extinct?; 8/10/11, 3:28 PM
Gene said...: LarsPorsena: Ted Rall, you old rascal. What have you been up to?

Dear Lars, you may have me confused with someone on the left, an assumption which would give my friends quite a belly laugh. I don't know your friend, Mr. Rall, but I suspect that, unlike me, he isn't a Vietnam vet.

I'm not opposed to war when necessary. I just don't see that the first decade of our 30 years war in Afghanistan is getting us anywhere. I also know that the money we're wasting on bombs and missiles could be put to much better use at home rebuilding bridges, roads, schools and our failing power grid.; 8/10/11, 5:47 PM
Fen said...: Where is the Fen's Law tag?

The Left doesn't really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about.; 8/10/11, 10:44 PM
Freder Frederson said...: than violate the "due process rights of an accused terrorist not to be questioned against his will".

As usual you are a damn liar.

You have attributed a direct quote to me that is completely untrue.

We never got to a discussion of what "due process rights" terrorists and detainees have. You (and many others on this site) simply accepted that it was legal to torture detainees in direct contravention of international and U.S. law. And you had to deliberately misread to Geneva Conventions to justify your position. That is what I objected too.

And to your larger point. You are completely wrong. I was called a traitor when we were discussing the war in general as well, not just my objection to torture and mistreatment.; 8/11/11, 2:32 AM
Freder Frederson said...: The only person I recall you getting your panties in a bunch over the traitor epithet was C4. Now you want to attribute it to everyone who disagreed with you on the war. That's fine but proves you're the dick everyone thinks you are.

Other people called me a traitor. Even short of calling me a traitor, the general attitude on this blog was that questioning the war or how it was carried out was un-American.; 8/11/11, 2:59 AM
jamboree said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/11/11, 3:14 AM