"Dubya has bigger fish to fry"

Steve, E.D. -- and even Brian -- of Fox&Friends are not amused at Senator Dick Durbin's "veiled" trashing of the U.S. military.

"Until recently, this reductio ad Hitlerium [sic] could be ignored as the sole domain of ideological leftists and certain Hollywood fools. Now it's fast becoming a Democratic talking point for the 2006 mid-term elections," says a Washington Times editorial this morning:

The Senate's second-ranking Democrat has officially joined the ranks of the unhinged. Speaking on the floor of the Senate Wednesday, Sen. Dick Durbin recited the contents of an e-mail he received from an anonymous FBI agent. He then said: "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

The senator's slur does more than falsely malign American soldiers; it insults the millions of the innocents whom Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot butchered in the 20th century. Mr. Durbin cheapens their suffering and degrades their sacrifice for partisan gain.

Yes, but it's the sham support of our magnificent military that sticks in our craw, and a caller to Fox&Friends says it best:

Senator Durbin -- and I use the term Senator loosely -- should apologize mainly to the men and women fighting in Iraq.

That's what we think.  Even as persons of the left like Durbin -- who appear ready to say whatever it takes to stay in power -- claim they have all the respect in the world for our armed forces, they feel free to trash the mission our armed forces are committed to carrying out.  Could anything be more condescending? Hate the sin, love the sinner?  Not. We can't help but wonder. Has Dick Durbin calculated that the military vote in Illinois is expendable? Possibly. Take this contrarian caller's opinion on Fox&Friends re Durbin:

He is a courageous patriot.

Uncurl, oh toes.  Just remember, "democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried." Unlike GW, politicians like Dick Durbin aren't into the vision thing.  They're just trying to separate themselves from any possible failure and win the next election. Statesmanship need not apply.

Update:  Fun follow-up on Fox&Friends. Says E.D., "Our e-mails were running 1000 to 4 against Senator Durbin's comments yesterday, and it's even more skewed today." But what about that New York Times/CBS News poll that headlines "Bush's Support on Major Issues Tumbles in Poll"? As always, Lucianne gets it just right:

It's very, very important to liberals to be loved.

Dubya has bigger fish to fry.

Yah.  That's what we were just talkin' about.  Statesmanship.

Update II:  You know what else sticks in our craw?  These cheap, politically correct calls for "apologies," whether it be for previous generations' bigotry and unconscionable treatment (by today's excellent standards) of our fellow Americans "of color" or Senator Durbin's phony piety that says we love our military, but they are torturing our enemy. Michelle Malkin -- who as always has lots of good links -- tells it like it is:

What President Bush should do is to call on Durbin to retract his remarks (not just apologize) and ask forgiveness from our troops and the American people.

This should not stand.

Comments

[Mr.Kurtz]

Even the Chicago Tribune turned on him this morning with the (obvious) suggestion that the only thing that matters to him are the microphones that feed his pathetic need for attention.

He should indeed apologize to the troops, publically and individually.

[Tara]

Amen to your fine post today.

A lot of Americans have forgotten that day, September 11, 2001, and it's deplorable to me as an American that I have to hear this kind of trash being said by a Senator on the floor of the US Senate...I know people who have sons and daughters on their way to Iraq and they are so afraid that Durbin's seditious slander is going to get our troops killed that they are nearly frozen in their fear..and make no mistake..it is not President Bush they are angry at..because they know why we are in Iraq and don't buy into the fever swamp of the Leftist mind...but they are increasingly distraught that Democrats will say and do anything to hurt and undermine our troops and destroy Bush and this country's will to fight this war for their own political gain.

It makes one despair, doesn't it?

[Michael]

Preach it Sister!!!!!

I love it when you talk like that! How refreshing - Someone with the moral clarity to see thru the relativism and moral equivalencing of the left.

Common sense still reigns supreme throughout this great nation, and common sense tells anybody with any sense of history or moral clarity that remarks like Durbin's are pure, unadulterated horse-crap.

[Kathy K]

An e-mail from an anonymous FBI agent? ROFL

I think I'll send him an e-mail from "FBI.gov" and tell him that the agent who previously e-mailed him is under investigation for indulging in practical jokes aimed at gullible senators.

It's very easy to spoof e-mails (not easy to spoof them so that anyone net-savvy can't tell immediately, but very easy to spoof so the 'from' address shows as something else).

[Patricia]

Amen, sistah, all of that.

[kitty]

Rush's advice it to ensourage Durbin the dick to KEEP TALKING. Durbin is vocalizing what the Dems believe but are too afraid to say out loud. This is what the Dems think and feel, says Rush, and he's right. Expose these frauds for what they really are. They're pro-military? Yeah, right. I think Durbin has got the Dems as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers.

[Teresa]

I'm still waiting to find out if the contents of the email had been verified... Anyone can write an email and say anything they want to say. How do we know it's true or partly true or skewed truth? I haven't seen ANYONE anywhere address this. The fact that Durbin calls it an email from an FBI agent seems to stop anyone from asking if it's real or not or if it's only partly real or what... humph!

[Ulrike Meinhof]

The silly little "reductio ad Hitlerum" (note proper spelling of this U of Chicago-coined phrase) is used by both parties, whenever expedient: "Saddam is like Hitler," said one elder Bush, or, "appease Saddam now, just like Chamberlain did in Munich," and Lord, what will happen next? Yawn.

As for the political entertainment industry's (read: Rush, Fox News, Wash Times, et al.) ratings-generated and air-filling demands for apologies, forgiveness, "this cannot stand!" puffery and red-faced outrage over "insults" to the memories of long-dead Cambodian and Ukrainian kulaks, dusting off of old Churchill quotes and down-home phrases like "fish to fry": is this really political activity? Sounds more like the type of advice given to children from a playground monitor. How one can spend one's free time, nose-breathing to the voice of Rush in the background while he leafs through newspapers for comments that have pricked his carefully medicated and purely civilian sense of decorum and honor, is a question only Americans of a certain leisure and habitude can answer.

Your class of true believers -- your Blue Army -- has little to say to those who, seeing the folly of this war, and the use of American soldiers in Gitmo and Afghanistan to set up de facto life imprisonment camps, replete with torture rooms and contrary to international and domestic law and convention, actually bother to raise their voices in dissent, "magnificent" military or not (and just what does "magnificent" mean?).

If it's not some career pol like Durbin, reading from a speech some aide wrote for him, maybe next time it'll be someone else, maybe with a bit more talent, a bit more eloquence. Your choir won't be able to drown them all out.

[Teresa]

Ah - a voice screeching once again about "international law"... I was just over at Instapundit (yeah I bet you hate him too...) where there was a link to some discussion about how often "international law" has been misused and misquoted in order for liberals to make a point. Before you start invoking the infamous "International Law" screed - please find out what the law really is and how it really works. Otherwise you're just spouting hot air and making the room smell.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

How, Dearie, would you know if I knew how international law "really works" or not? Are you so sure of your own tenuous toehold upon it? Do you have schematic drawnings, or a see-through ant farm wherein its intestine workings are revealed to bloggers with 3D glasses from the latest issue of "Dynamite"?

And, really: what is "the law"? Does not Everyone strive to reach it, without success? And is the smelly room (surely a metaphor) argument meant to shoo me away to my NRO Press edition of Pufendorf (signed by Jonah and Derbs!), which I know that you, Fair Barrister, have digested in its entirety.

All this lad knows -- by watching 'es Fox News, mind yoo -- is that "international law" is a big scary thing, and violators of it should be punished, severely, preferably through bombing, except for our own magnificent soldiers if they happen to get out of hand now and then. No ICC need apply!

Anyway, if you want more, you can read how our President feels about the bad men who violate international law -- especially "international peace" (try defining that one, liberals!). He wrote all about it here on one of the Internets:

http://www.c-span.org/resources/pdf/iraqdecade.pdf

Amnesty International is cited quite approvingly. Whoopsie! That was before they became absurd, irresponsible, reprehensible, and, as the President pointed out, people who "disassemble" the truth.

[Sissy Willis]

Thanks, Ulrike, for the fake Latin correction, and thanks, Teresa, for the Ulrike correction. :)

[mary]

Dick Durbin told it like it is, and is being attacked for his honesty. It is not honesty that puts our troops in danger, it is the people who lied and deceited us into this war, and continue to violate human rights everywhere.

Get real.

[Sissy Willis]

Thank god you are not the Commander-in-Chief, little gal.

[Alex Schoolcraft]

Steve,
What happened to your pact to "always wear a power tie"? You're still wearing pink. Brian looks great in his bright red power tie. E.D. always looks nice by the way!

[gwen]

I would like to fill in for the CNN Network, and present a fair and MORE balanced news network, since they fail daily to get my attention.

Btw Steve, does that tie REALLY match your shirt this morning? *wink wink*

Gwen Wolverton
Niceville Florida