|
·support our
troops, support Bush, support Cheney, support victory in Iraq, support victory in Afghanistan,
Clinton Liebrary, http://PoliSat.Com
, PoliSatDOTcom, Salute America's Heroes, Fallen Heroes Fund, oppose Gore's Global Warming theory, support milblogs, Michael Yon, Pat Dollard, BlackFive, MilBlogs, MilBlogging, Michael Yon, Mudville Gazette, HotAir.Com, JawaReport, PajamasMedia , VictoryCaucus , VetsForFreedom ,
FreedomsWatch , DayByDayCartoon , WrennCom.Com , Video , Political Satire, Politics, News, oppose MoveOn.Org, oppose Code Pink, oppose DailyKos, oppose ANSWER, support PoliSat.Com, support WrennCom.Com, ·
|
|
This is the archive for Daily Updates for the period from
August 1 through 10, 2004, appearing below in reverse chronological order.
Aug. 10,
2004 #01: No update today. Editor on special assignment.
Aug. 9,
2004 #01: No update today. Editor on special assignment.
Aug. 8,
2004 #01: No update today. Editor on special assignment.
Aug. 7,
2004 #01: No update today. Editor on special assignment.
Aug.
6,
2004 #01: Political
Satire/Commentary where satire is always
commentary but commentary isn't always satire™
(but we're confident you'll know the difference) Search
PoliSat.Com Home Tell
a friend about PoliSat.Com Subscribe
Permanent Link
to this installment in PoliSat.Com's Archives Google-News
list of recent updates About
author, Jim Wrenn.
Swift-Boat
Veterans Unwittingly Expose Swift-Boat Journalism and Asymmetrical Media Warfare by Dominant
Media Regarding Allegations against John Kerry and George W. Bush.
I found the explanation by the soldier whom Kerry pulled from the water to be
compelling and persuasive proof that Kerry exhibited courage in doing so.
Likewise, I also found George Bush's having become a National Guard fighter
pilot (which requires more than a year of active-duty training in contrast to
the six-months basic training applicable for most National Guard service) to fly
what John McCain has described as one of the most dangerous fighter planes then
in our inventory to be persuasive proof of Bush's courage. The
death-by-aviation-accident rate for this plane posed a greater statistical risk
to its pilots than the risk of death faced by those serving in Vietnam in
non-combat branches such as Al Gore, who served there as a military
"journalist" (here).
That Bush's Air National Guard service required intrinsically dangerous duties
obviously requiring more courage than most active-duty assignments in
non-combat-branches in Vietnam did not deter the investigative
"journalism" instincts of the media to trumpet claims by some that
Bush was "AWOL"-- i.e., claims that he failed to attend all
drills during the final year of his multi-years service obligation.
None of those claims undermined the indisputable courage of his service during
the years before the final year, yet the media found the "AWOL"
allegations worthy of investigation. Are not allegations of being
"AWOL" the equivalent of challenges to one's patriotism? Are not
excused absences from duty or early releases in accordance with
established policies the opposite of being "unpatriotic"? Did
the media not fan a firestorm of demands that Bush furnish decades-old records
to "answer" the "AWOL" allegations?
In contrast, did not the dominant media treat the persuasive evidence of
Kerry's courage in pulling the soldier from the water as being sufficient to
extinguish any journalistic obligation to "investigate" the claims of
the Swift-Boat Veterans first made public many months ago? Did not
"60 Minutes" and other "investigative" journalists in the
dominant media ignore those claims rather than trumpeting them the way
they trumpeted the "AWOL" allegations against Bush? Why?
Just as claims that Bush may have obtained early release from duty during the
final year of his Air National Guard obligation did not in any way negate his
courage in flying dangerous fighter planes throughout most years of his service,
the Swift-Boat Veterans' assertions do not negate the fact that Kerry pulled the
soldier from the water. The question is why the dominant media did not
consider the "AWOL" allegations against Bush as being out of bounds
but do appear to consider the Swift-Boat Veterans' allegations against
Kerry to be out of bounds.
One of the Swift-Boat Veterans who was on the same mission (but commanding a
different boat) when Kerry pulled the soldier from the water said that his boat
stayed beside Kerry's boat the entire time and that there was no gunfire when
Kerry pulled the soldier from the water following an incident involving
explosion of a mine. He also says a member of his crew (or said crew
member of another boat) pulled two men from the water and did not receive (or
expect) a medal for doing so. He denies the implication (not corrected by
Kerry) that only Kerry's boat was involved in such rescues. He says the
assertion to the contrary by the soldier Kerry rescued is the product of that
soldier's perspective from his position in the water prevented him from knowing
how long more than one boat had been in the vicinity at the time of, rather than
merely immediately after, Kerry's pulling him from the water. Fog of
war.
There is no reason to doubt such soldier's sincerity in his recollection of
Kerry pulling him from the water or in his recommendation that Kerry receive a
medal for doing so. There's no reason to doubt his sincerity in not
recalling the presence of another swift boat while, rather than merely after,
his being pulled from the water. Fog of war. Regardless of which
version is correct, there is no doubt that Kerry was serving his country in a
combat zone at great risk to his personal safety. To my mind, that was
indisputably courageous. Likewise, to my mind, flying what is known to be
a highly dangerous fighter plane even in the Air National Guard is also
courageous.
Do all who display courage seek to minimize its scope or do some seek to
maximize it? Most genuine heroes (Bob Dole, for example) try to minimize
the scope of their courage rather than wearing their heroism on their
sleeves. Do some who've served in combat refuse to decline heroic credit for non-heroic acts because
they perceive themselves as having performed other heroic acts without receiving
recognition? Would that be evil or just human nature? The latter, of
course. In a campaign in which a candidate so aggressively touts his
heroism, is it relevant that some who served with him and observed the incident
in question first-hand perceive claims of heroism as being greatly exaggerated? Of
course it's relevant. It would be irrelevant, of course, if Kerry, like
most recognized for heroism, were to have aggressively sought to minimize rather
than maximize its scope.
If Bush were to have been the Vietnam veteran decorated for pulling the soldier
to safety, would the dominant media not have hungered for fog-of-war
assertions by other Swift-Boat Commanders on the same mission minimizing, rather
than maximizing, his courage in doing so? Does a wild bear fertilize the
woods?
I find the undisputed evidence of Kerry's post-Vietnam-service defamation of our
military by speciously asserting (not merely implying) that commission of
atrocities comprised military policy from the top down rather than having
constituted isolated incidents that occur in every war to be far more disturbing
than the allegations by the Swift-Boat Veterans, which could be construed as
different recollections from the fog of war. Likewise, I find the dominant
media's asymmetrical interests in the "AWOL" and
"Swift-Boat" allegations more disturbing than either set of
allegations.
Regarding Kerry and his supporters now demanding that Bush demand that the
Swift-Boat Veterans "shut up," has he, or any of those supporters
(other than Joe Lieberman) demanded that Ted Kennedy "shut up" his
hateful, mean-spirited allegations (here,
here
and here)
against Bush? Of course not. Have they demanded that Howard Dean retract
his attacks on Bush's patriotism? Of course not. Have they treated
Michael Moore as pariah (rather than as a political celebrity)? Of course
not. Did they denounce (rather than merely tepidly declining to endorse)
Al Gore's Elmer-Gantry-like speech accusing Bush of "betraying" his
country (here)
and equating Abu Ghraib abuses by a few of our soldiers with Saddam Hussein
systematic system of torture and murder (here)? Of course not.
Swift-Boat
"Journalism."
As
dominant media tracking
the claims of the spokespeople flacking
against or in favor
of viewpoints we savor,
we're balanced reporting such flacking.
We're
equally quick to disfavor
attackers of viewpoints we favor
as when we condemn
the ones who defend
attacks from the viewpoints we favor.
So
therefore, we cannot perceive
the reason so many believe
we're biased not fair
in print or on air
on viewpoints in which we believe.
We're
sure 'twas our duty to push
the claims charging "AWOL" by Bush
and equally sure
critiques from the tours
of Swift Boats we needn't have pushed.
In
choosing the news to be pandered,
we're Media "Swift Boat" Commanders
obliged to suppress
the views we detest
and pacify those of our camber.
The dominant media have demonstrated greater credulity in propagandistic
allegations by Michael Moore than first-person assertions by Swift-Boat Veterans
who served on missions with, although not under, Kerry in Vietnam. The
dominant media do not view the Democrats' treatment of Michael Moore as an
honored guest (seated with Jimmy Carter) at their convention in
Boston as being mean-spirited, yet they are prepared to view as mean-spirited
the inability of Bush to silence the Swift-Boat Veterans.
Furthermore, if Kerry's service to his country in Vietnam entitles him to be
heard about his service there and to defame the service of others as he has
done, the Swift-Boat Veterans' service to their country entitles them to be
heard regarding their first-person observations of his service as well as what
they deem to have been his post-Vietnam defamation of virtually all who served
in Vietnam.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
August 5, 2004 (Thursday)-- No Update today.
Time consuming medical appointments.
Aug. 4,
2004 #01: Political
Satire/Commentary where satire is always
commentary but commentary isn't always satire™
(but we're confident you'll know the difference) Search
PoliSat.Com Home Tell
a friend about PoliSat.Com Subscribe
Permanent Link
to this installment in PoliSat.Com's Archives Google-News
list of recent updates About
author, Jim Wrenn.
Faster-loading, permanent link to this is at http://PoliSat.Com/DamselInDistress.htm.
See also Kerry versus
Kerry versus Kerry.
John
Kerry's "secret plan" to "win" Operation Iraqi Freedom is
exposed by PoliSat.Com revealing the details of the plan, code-named
"Damsel in Distress."·
Everyone knows John Kerry's portrayal of himself as a war hero benefited from
the cinematic expertise of a colleague of Steven Spielberg in the form of a
movie adapting Kerry's 8mm movies re-staging his heroic events in Vietnam.
However, few people know that another colleague of Spielberg, whose name must,
of course, remain anonymous, applied cinematic/computer-programming skills to
test Kerry's hypothesis that the way he would fight terror would be
"smarter and better" than George Bush's way.
PoliSat.Com's highly unreliable source within the Kerry campaign has obtained a
copy of this highly experimental computer-modeled test of Kerry's
theories. Of course, Kerry's campaign (including PoliSat.Com's highly
unreliable source) will vehemently deny the existence of the test, code-named
"Damsel in Distress" (high-resolution version is here;
faster-loading, lower-resolution version is here).
Kerry's strategic advisers arranged the highly secret project to test Kerry's
theories for weaving the handling of Iraq into his strategy against
terrorism. Kerry's statements on the campaign trail asserting that he
knows how to accomplish this but cannot make the details public have led some in
the media to liken his claim to Nixon's "secret plan" to
"win" the war in Vietnam. When reporters asked a high-level,
former Kerry advisor (Sandy Burglar*, who
spoke on condition of anonymity), whether Kerry's "secret plan" is the
equivalent of Nixon's-- i.e., "Iraqification"-- Burglar
scheduled a press conference at which he anonymously denied "Iraqification"
is Kerry's secret plan. Then, speaking even further off the record than
merely anonymously, he told the press the real name for Kerry's plan is "Chiracification."
This prompted a flood of additional questions from reporters. What is
meant by "Chiracification"? Burglar told the reporters that
unlike George Bush's "simple minded" approach, "Chiracification"
would involve applying a highly intellectually nuanced strategy to reduce the
threats of terrorism by secretly paying the terrorists in the hope they'll turn
their attention to China rather than the United States. When questioned
about the sanity of such strategy, Burglar replied, "Well, it worked for
Chirac, didn't it?"
Speaking to PoliSat.Com's Washington Bureau Drawer Chief on deep background,
Burglar acknowledged that the expected unpopularity of a strategy named for its
foremost practitioner (Jacques Chirac) made it necessary for the strategy to be
named "Damsel in Distress." As proof of the success of
Chiracification when practiced by Jacques Chirac during the period preceding
Operation Iraqi Freedom, Burglar directed the press to three prominent
sources: Source 1: main-source
here; photograph
here; soundtrack
here; Source 2: video
here; Source 3: video
here.
Despite Kerry's secret adoption of "Chiracification," Burglar
vehemently denounced Rush Limbaugh's theory that John Kerry is the "Frenchurian
Candidate." Burglar also denied that a coded command in a telephone
call to him from Dominique
de Villepin prompted him (Burglar) to stuff classified documents into
his socks and underwear while in the National Security section of the National
Archives.
When one of Kerry's top foreign-policy advisors learned PoliSat.Com was
preparing to expose the secret computer-model testing of the "Chiracification"
strategy (code-named "Damsel in Distress"), he contacted
PoliSat.Com's Washington Bureau Drawer Chief. Unable to dissuade
PoliSat.Com from exposing the project, he insisted that PoliSat.Com be
"fair and balanced" by presenting both sides of such a complex set of
strategic issues. Therefore, to show the contrast between Kerry's
intellectually nuanced·º¹·º²·
but linear policy of assuring the terrorists that if they strike us, a President
Kerry would "swiftly strike back," PoliSat.Com provides the following
links: Un-Boxed
Dots and Strategery.
Finally, Burglar denied that since Scoop Jackson, the donkey kicking ass has
changed to an ass just kicking. As an example that the donkey "still
can kick ass," Burglar cited Kerry's occasional willingness to criticize
the Dean
of Mean and Doctor of Spleen, by expressing his lack of complete
agreement with the various conspiracy theories touted by Dean in his futile
effort to make Michael Moore seem lucid by comparison.
--Jim
Wrenn, Editor at PoliSat.Com.
*I
can't remember who originally dubbed Sander Berger "Sandy Burglar"; I
only wish it were I.
Aug. 3, 2004 #01: No update today
(Monday)-- Editor still recovering from being away for in-laws' anniversary.
Aug. 2,
2004 #01: No update today (Monday)-- Editor away for in-laws'
anniversary.
August
1, 2004 #01: No update today (Sunday). Editor away for in-laws
anniversary.
Installment
immediately preceding the one above, go
here.
Other sites that feature
PoliSat.Com's Political Satire/Commentary-- Click here
to view our Affiliates page.
·
