Nutroots city limits: the ‘good news is bad news’ fallacy and general thoughts on their negativity
It never fails to amaze me how the far left Nutroots inhabitants will go in order to spin positive developments, especially as they relate to the war on terror, as bad news. I know why they do it, of course – and that’s to try and paint the President as an ineffective and incompetent war on terror leader. Since 9-11, the President has generally been viewed favorably on issues related to fighting the war on terror (with the exception this year being his handling of Iraq, which has been spun into a ‘disaster’ by Democrats) while Democrats have justifiably been looked upon as weak on fighting terror.
Democrats have understandably worked hard at trying to counter that widespread belief (not just belief, actually, but truism). Some of the ways they’ve attempted to accomplish this I’d classify as legitimate, like for example, by nominating a Vietnam war veteran to be their candidate for President. The belief from the DNC was that having a war veteran as a candidate would show that their party was indeed serious about fighting the war on terror, because they had a war veteran as their nominee. The questions about Kerry’s service aside (which is a whole nother topic in and of itself), this was, in my view, a legit tactic by the DNC to try and push forth the image that they were strong on defense because a ‘defender of our country’ was their candidate for the position of Commander in Chief. It backfired, of course, but I have to give them credit for trying to put what was perceived by them to be a strong face on a party generally viewed to lack a spine when it came to combatting terror.
While that was a legitimate, although misguided, stab at changing the minds of the majority of Americans that Dems were weak on national security issues, other tactics – as tried by the Nutrootian wing of the Democratic party, have not been legitimate and should be viewed by any thinking person as such, whether he/she be a Republican OR Democrat. The tactic I am referring to is the one in which good/positive news on issues related to the war on terror is equated to bad/indifferent news. At the very least, they poohpooh anything positive as “no big deal” – at their worst, they actually paint those successes as bad news. It’s one of the most nonsensical attempts at spin in the history of our nation, but spin they do.
Examples:
1) When the first statue of Saddam fell as our troops took Baghdad, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi gave us her less than 2 cents worth when she commented that “We could have probably brought down that statue for a lot less.”
2) The complaints about how the falling of the Saddam statue was “rigged” and that most Iraqis ‘really didn’t want the statue pulled down’ and not that many were excited to have the dictator’s statue come down.
3) When the President did the aircraft carrier landing and applauded the troops onboard the ship for a job well done, it was nothing but a “photo op“, “staged“, “phony“, “flamboyant showmanship“, etc.
4) Reps. Waxman’s and Conyers’s complaints about the COST of the aircraft carrier landing, which was probably the first time in history they were ever concerned about the cost of ANYTHING.
5) When the President visited the troops at Tgiving almost three years ago to give them a morale boost, some Democrats suggested that he did it for a “photo op” and complained about the alleged “fake turkey” Bush was holding in a photo published around the world (when in fact it wasn’t a fake turkey) and whined that some soldiers (amongst the throngs of soldiers who pressed forward to the President to talk to him and have their photos taken with him) were upset that they weren’t allowed into the dining area the evening he appeared and furthermore tried to make it look like a majority of them were displeased with his visit even though nothing could be further from the truth (as a sidenote, we’d just had Democrats moaning and groaning a few months earlier stating that Bush “owed” the troops a visit).
6) When Saddam Hussein was captured in December 2003, almost 35% of this country went into what seemed like a depression of sorts because they knew it was good news for Bush and bad news for them. We were heading into presidential election campaign season and that good news for America and Bush was a setback for Democratic efforts at convincing Americans that a) Bush as an ineffective war on terror leader and that b) the war in Iraq wasn’t worth it.
7) Highly ridiculous statements coming from the far left in Washington DC, such as when Kerry questioned the legitimacy of the first post-OIF Iraq elections, instead of praising the work of all involved (especially our troops and Iraqi troops) in getting the elections to take place with much less violence than was anticipated by our armchair generals in the press and in Washington, DC.
8) The killing of Zarqawi was portrayed by the far left as ‘no big deal’ because Zarqawi was a “Bush creation” and furthermore “we” (meaning US troops) had supposedly killed more people in Iraq than Zarqawi, so what was the use in celebrating? A top DNC official actually described Zarqawi’s demise as “murder.”
9) The attempted advancement by the far left’s cohorts in the media that US troops ‘beat Zarqawi to death’ because he was not killed in the initial air raid on his safe house. The MSM tried to advance this belief by quoting one neighboring Iraqi who simply went by the name “Mohammed” (as if that told us anything, since we have hundreds of thousands of people in this country who could remain anonymous simply by referring to themselves as “John”). Ignored in all this was the fact that the air raid on Zarqawi’s safehouse was meant to kill him, so any fighting after the fact that would have resulted in his death would have completed the mission. Duh. Thankfully, this try at painting our troops as brutal thugs who killed via ‘abuse’ the seriously injured ringleader of terrorism in Iraq after the air raid designed to finish him off never went anywhere.
10) This week’s thwarted terrorist attacks on airliners that had flights scheduled from the UK to the US. Some far left Democrats, like Senator Harry Reid, tried to say that the thwarting of these terrorist attacks was actually a sign that we needed to ‘change course’ in Washington, because terrorist were still planning attacks. The fact that the attacks were foiled thanks to vigilance on the part of British and US intelligence services – using tactics that the far left in this country might very well object to and leak to the press if known – must have escaped Reid’s radar.
What’s disappointing (but not surprising) to me is this continued trend amongst Nutroots inhabitants and others who don’t support the President to continuously poohpooh things that should be viewed as positive, significant, events that have happened over the last several years simply because of their hatred of the President and desire to win elections at any cost, even if it means losing in Iraq. Attitudes such as these are one of many reasons voters have continued to reject the Democratic party in the elections over the last several years. They’ve lost several elections in the last 5 years. They lost in 2000, they lost big in 2002, even bigger in 2004, they they lost the Afghanistan elections – which the far left predicted would be deadly on a massive scale, chaotic, and illegitimate, and they lost the Iraq elections – which the far left predicted would be deadly on a massive scale, chaotic, and illegitmate. Detecting a pattern yet?
The only “victories” that far left Democrats seem to be celebrating these days are when a handpicked candidate in CT who thinks the Iraq war is a “mistake” and that we should start redeploying troops as soon as possible while only leaving ‘tactical’ support in Iraq (hmm, where have we heard that before?) defeats a long term public servant to their state simply because that long term public servant refused to endorse any policy that would have equated to the US cutting and running out of Iraq, one country where the war on terror is currently being waged. Pulling out too soon, Lieberman asserted, would have disastrous consequences in the war on terror. Far left Democrats in CT didn’t care.
The far left representatives in Washington, DC continue to get it wrong and go negative at every turn. As a piece of friendly advice to the nutters, I’d advise a different course of action – instead of constant negativity and Bush-bashing, tell the nation what your party can do and how they can do it better. Because the bitter pills being consumed on a daily basis by the far left aren’t helping the more sane wing of the Democratic party any, nor does it project an image of strength to our enemies. Howard “we can’t win in Iraq” Dean is the DNC chair, for crying out loud. Wonderful. Same ol’ negativity and “can’t do” attitude we’ve become used to these last few years. The way to recovery is to first acknowledge there is a problem. Dean, Pelosi, Reid, and others obviously don’t realize that such open displays of bitterness is what helped the Dems lose the elections and the sad thing about it is that Dean and Pelosi in particular are in leadership positions in the Democratic party. The far left is at the helm of the Democratic party, and it’s a scary thing to watch. What’s even scarier is that the far left had a victory this last week with the defeat of Joe Lieberman, which has galvanized Nutrootians nationwide. A change in just a few seats in the House and Senate this fall can significantly effect the war on terror and how we fight it – and not for the better.
The ability of the far left to try and spin the foiling of the planned airliner terrorists attacks this past week into a negative is proof positive that they have completely lost touch with reality and, quite frankly are not really interested in discussing alternative solutions for how to keep this country safer. Their only interest is in turning their backs on the threats we face in hopes that they will just go away, and painting anyone who doesn’t ascribe to that philosophy as a bloodthirsty warmonger who must go.
Had the airliner attacks that were thwarted earlier this week happened, it would be “BUSH KNEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We demand an investigation!!!!! What about that memo????” but the attacks didn’t happen, which you’d think would make people breathe easier, but to the people who view even positive national security developments as a way to somehow spin Bush and other Republicans as ineffective leaders in the war on terror, it’s just another ‘day at the office’, if you catch my drift.
Business as usual in the city of Nutroots.