Expanding on BooMan’s take on the bin Laden tape this week, I present this week’s Wankers: Sean Hannity and former WH Chief of Crap, Andrew Card.
Two YouTube videos feature segments of Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes, featuring a total of four guests appearing to offer comment on the recent video released by what appears to be Osama bin Laden. The guests and co-host Sean Hannity work towards connecting bin Laden’s speech to the current tone among the Democrats.
In the first video, former Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card finds it “outrageous” that the video has been released to coincide with the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11/2001.
“He’s taunting America again,” says Card, “and he’s calling for us to take action that is obscene, and I can’t believe that there are people in Congress that will actually follow the direction of a sworn enemy of this country rather than take the direction of the person sworn to defend the country, the President of the United States.”
Sometimes, wankery is just wankery on its own merit. Card flat out accuses those in Congress who want to end the war of treason. Following the “direction of a sworn enemy of this country” is pretty much the definition of a traitor, yes?
There are so many things wrong with Card’s statement it actually makes my head hurt. First of all, he restricts the valid positions of the “debate” on Iraq to “You’re with us or against us.” There’s only Good and Evil, Bush and Osama, Us and Them. There’s no debate in Card’s world, only Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad.
Secondly, he’s accusing not just Congress but most of the United States of taking direction from America’s Public Enemy #1. Regardless of the validity of the OBL tape, Card has no right to attack anyone like this, because there are literally hundreds of millions of Americans with the same position: Bring the Troops Home (including a pretty high percentage of BMT readers and myself.) He’s accusing anyone of not following the President of being a traitor to America and he’s doing it on national television.
You don’t get much further down the wanker scale then this jagoff. Except of course, if you let somebody on your show get away with implying that a hundred million plus Americans are following Osama bin Laden…which is exactly what Sean Hannity does.
And then he adds to it.
“He seems to adopt the exact same language being used by the hard left in this country,” Hannity says, “as he describes what’s going on in Iraq as a civil war. He actually used the term ‘Neocons.’ He talks about global warming. He demonizes capitalisms (sic) and corporations in this whole thing — very, very specific language. It seems to be coming from somebody who is keenly aware of the world situation and the battle and the conflict in America over this war, and even admonishing the Democratic Party for not ending the war.”
The cycle of wankery is complete. Not only does Hannity not call him out, but he makes it worse. It’s a disgusting reductio ad absurdum argument that’s designed, specifically, to scare the crap out of Democratic Party staffers and have them go “You know, boss…”
And thus, Magical September becomes truly magical. All valid opposition to the Petraeus White House Report and therefore the entire absurdity of the Long War becomes invalidated by the idiotic bumper sticker “That’s what Osama wants us to do.”
And what’s worse, I fully expect the Dems to fall for it. Meanwhile, the GOP 2008 Presidential candidates can happily get away with poo-pooing Osama’s existence.
Fred Thompson’s reaction to today’s Osama bin Laden tape:
“Bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else,” he said.
Mitt Romney on bin Laden:
[Romney] said the country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said.
Bush on bin Laden:
“I truly am not that concerned about him.”
The questions Steve at C&L asks are good ones.
At what point did the GOP decide that bin Laden no longer matters? And how would the right respond if Dems made similar comments?
The answer of course is that Osama is nothing if you’re a Republican. He’s a small man. He’s a bit player in the Warren Terrah. The fact that we haven’t caught the man yet is meaningless but the fact that he’s still out there should scare you into doing Bush’s bidding. And Bush’s bidding is that the Long War will go on forever.
Hell, didn’t you hear? Osama magically appeared NOW not because Bush needed a cudgel to crush the growing opposition, but because we’re winning in Iraq so convincingly that he had to say something in order to stay relevant, the good Cap’n Ed tells us.
His video message was timed to deliver that purpose. His announcement would have immediately preceded the attacks in Germany and Denmark, emphasizing AQ’s ability to strike anywhere in the world. And it probably would have had the effect Osama intended, had it worked; there is little doubt that war critics would have redoubled their effort to discredit the forward strategy and force Bush to pull out of Iraq.
Ask yourselves this: why does Osama want to push us out of the Middle East, especially Iraq and Afghanistan? It’s not because we’re losing in either theater. If we were losing, he’d be happy to beat American military forces for as long as we stuck around. He wants us out because he’s losing — and he tried to hit Germany and Denmark because he can’t beat the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Or perhaps people think it’s a coincidence that Osama finally reappeared after the surge pushed AQI all the way to the Syrian border?
(emphasis mine)
Suuure Ed, because we’re really winning in Iraq. After all the odds of Osama popping up the moment Bush needs him the most and being manufactured by our side as propaganda is less than the odds that all the dead and injured soldiers are really just doctored footage, right?
At some point, this idiotic argument that “Dissent is Treason!” has to be challenged by more than bloggers and guys like me. It’s got to be done by the Democrats in Congress, by the ones running for President, by the news outlets themselves and by America…all of it.
For fuck’s sakes, this is the same Sunday Wankery column I could have written this time 2 years ago. It was over the top and out of bounds then. It probably cost Kerry the election.
If the GOP accuses you of doing something, it’s because they are already doing it. Never has this been more apparent than this week.
