Wednesday - January 17, 2007

Gun Toting Liberal Goes Postal

 or He Isn't Really a Bad Guy....

The Gun Toting Liberal blog went ballistic over Michelle Malkin's recent trip to Iraq.  Before I get to my main point, the author doesn't seem like a bad guy.  He is veteran and at the end of his tirade, he seems to calm down.  He probably would be a nice person to have a beer with and discuss politics.  But, he exemplifies the problem that plagues most on the left, in that semantics and nuances mean more than actions and reality.

Here is what got him so riled up:

Get this:

    “… Michelle and I spent four days patrolling the environs around Forward Operating Base Justice in north and west Baghdad last week. FOB Justice is near one functional neighborhood, Khadimiyah, one mostly recovered neighborhood, Al Salam, one dysfunctional neighborhood, Al Hurriyah, and an al Qaeda-influenced area the name of which I never learned. …” - Hot Air

No doubt, the troops might have slapped a couple of pea pot helmets on your thick heads and congratulated you for entering the “war zone”, but to insinuate that you and “Michelle” had the honor and the courage to take up arms against the agressors on “patrol duty” is a JOKE. If you want to go on “patrol duty” in a “war zone”, go through boot camp, earn your security clearance, and learn to shoot an M-16, for crying out loud.

My God, I cannot BELIEVE this guy is attempting to place himself and Michelle Malkin into the same boat as America’s Finest and Bravest, just because he and she were shielded and treated as “embeds” in the Sandbox. As brave as embeds MIGHT BE, our troops are, and always WILL BE MUCH higher in the evolutionary chain than the embeds. Not to mention they have all had to prove themselves mentally, and physically, at MUCH HIGHER STANDARDS than any “embedded blogger”. Apples and oranges… apples and oranges…

I am APPALLED at this insinuation that an inbedded BLOGGER could consider themselves as being “on patrol” in a “war zone”. Only well-trained MILITARY personnel patrol the REAL war zones. You want to “patrol” in a “war zone”? Do your pushups, and pay your dues. Taking a long, bumpy ride on a C-130 doesn’t make you a “troop” on “patrol”, it makes you a LIABILITY who needs to be coddled and protected from the “bad guys”.

Semantics.  Yes, the author of the report might have better said, "We went on patrol with" or "we rode with" or "we followed", but if you read the reports from Michelle Malkin, there is no indication they had delusions of grandeur.  The troops were the heroes and they were just reporting.  

The bottom line is that Michelle and Bryan went to Iraq.  While the troops face dangers on a daily basis,  these two did expose themselves to risks that few others dare to.  How many mainstream reporters leave the "green zone" these days?  Very few, and that is why we get reports from locals, who often have feudal axes to grind.  And, if I may ask, if these had been "liberal" bloggers, would the Gun Toting Liberal have taken offense? Probably not, because we know the left supports the troops. Which brings us to another question (and if I'm wrong here, let me know and I will correct it), how many left leaning bloggers have gone on patrol with our soldiers in Iraq?

Technorati Tags Iraq Left Blogging