Categorical Aperitif

Dear Representative McHenry:

Those of us who opposed the Iraq war routinely get accused of "not supporting the troops" and "hating the military" and such; though false, these slurs are understandable, since they distract attention from the extent to which we have been right about this war being a ghastly, tragic mistake—and with no respectable reasons left in their arsenal, it's not surprising that war supporters would turn to the verbal equivalent of feces-flinging. But I have never, never heard a war opponent refer to a U.S. soldier as "a two-bit security guard." We may not like this sick, stupid war, but we do not have contempt for the people who have been forced to fight it. But they're just employees to people like you, aren't they? Not long ago I read a suggestion for a bumper sticker: "There are two kinds of Republicans: millionaires and suckers." I'm not usually fond of bumper-sticker slogans, what with their built-in oversimplification and all, but the more I hear you people talk, the more I think that that one is spot on.

Give those people a McApology or get McLost,

--nash

Update: Representative McHenry has apologized—and it turns out that the offense was not as originally reported, either. The offendee was a foreign contractor, not a U.S. soldier. The use of the expression "supervisor" rather than "commanding officer" in the video should have clued me in to that likelihood. (Contractors outnumber U.S. troops, after all, and more of them are foreign than American.) I apologize for my stupidity. Unfortunately, ThinkProgress has yet to apologize for its. They have only posted updates, and from what I can figure, their original source for the claim was an opposing politician's press release which only called the offendee "a sentry protecting U.S. personnel in Iraq"—a fair description, given what is said on the accompanying video. Who embellished this to "U.S. soldier"? ThinkProgress claims that two sources—Carolina Politics and the opposing politician, Lance Sigmon—"originally reported" the "soldier" claim, but Sigmon's post only refers to the offendee as a sentry. The Carolina Politics post has been updated and corrected, but a cached version links to the Sigmon post and bears the headline, "McHenry Refers to Soldier as 'Two Bit Security Guard'." This seems to be where "sentry" got turned into "soldier"—with ThinkProgress then embellishing this further to "U.S. soldier." Pretty shabby. It's a sad day for a "progressive" site when The Weekly Standard gets to score cheap points off of you for what is at best shameful carelessness and at worst pathetic sleazery—and when you're reduced to linking Captain Ed in your defense.

He's right, though, that TP's error doesn't let McHenry off the hook. My thoughts above about the mindset revealed by that "two-bit security guard" comment still stand. Plus, when one considers the disparities between soldier pay and contractor pay—"Some contractors make in a month what many active-duty soldiers make in a year. Indeed, there are private contractors in Iraq who make more money than the Secretary of Defense or the commanding generals"—"ten-bit security guard" would probably have been more apt.

// posted by nash @ 2:31 PM