|
“Madame Secretary, please, I know you feel terrible about it. That's not the point. I was making the case as to who pays the price for your decisions. And the fact that this administration would move forward with this escalation with no clue as to the further price that we're going to pay militarily -- we certainly know the numbers, billions of dollars, that we can't spend here in this country. I find really appalling that there's not even enough time taken to figure out what the casualties would be.” --Senator Barbara Boxer, Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Iraq, January 2007
Oh Look!! Catfight!! Political chicks in the media mud-- a She Said, She Said Capitol Hill Smackdown!! Somebody better apologize!
Why fall for the distraction? Have we become too accustomed to having the punditocracy tell us what was said and not only interpret the actual events, but provide opinions for us to adopt (and argue with each over)? Are we more interested in the mass-produced faux-controversies about what was “suggested,” or “implied,” or said “as if,” than what was actually said? American political discourse reduced to garish, gaudy, foam-at-the-mouth Roller Derby.
Who is owed an apology? WE ARE. We are owed an apology from the faux-pundit, emotional button pushers; we are owed an apology from the zombified public that falls for it time and again.
Former Fox Newsman, White House Spokesmodel Tony Snow told Fox News,
"I don't know if she was intentionally that tacky, but I do think it's outrageous. Here you've got a professional woman, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and Barbara Boxer is sort of throwing little jabs because Condi doesn't have children, as if that means that she doesn't understand the concerns of parents. Great leap backward for feminism."
Former Gingrich staffer and Reagan speechwriter Tony Blankley, in a near apoplectic fit on The McLaughlin Group claimed that Eleanor Clift misrepresented what Senator Boxer had said, when it was Blankley that was completely misrepresenting the Senator’s statement and intentions. He also mentioned that Ms. Rice was a “black woman.”
So, rather than address the issue the Senator raised or what her actual statement was, the corporate media vultures immediately start screeching about some perceived insult, using a “leap backward for feminism” gimmick and “playing the race card” themselves, while pretending that race or gender had anything to do with the fact that WHAT BARBARA BOXER SAID WAS RELEVANT, TRUE AND THE POINT NEEDED TO BE MADE. And why do they do this, why do they throw out red herrings for the salivating audience to play tug of war over? Because it’s all they’ve got. They can’t win on the issues so they have to make sure they keep the public talking about-- nothing.
If we don’t fall for these weapons of mass distraction we might think about the cost of this war, about who is paying the cost and who is raking in the profit. We might think about the reasons that this war was started. We might think about the underlying -- unspoken -- meaning of Congressman Rangel’s legislation for a draft and Senator Boxer’s questions about how much more blood will be spilled for a lie. This administration and this war have taken the blood and treasure of the American people and transferred it to this President’s “base,” the MegaRich and the corporations.
Scratch the slimy surface of a Congressional catfight-- find a class war.
*****************
SENATOR BARBARA BOXER:
“The Military Times published a poll which found that only 35 percent of military members approved of the way President Bush is handling this war, and only 38 percent thought there should be more troops. So from where I sit, Madame Secretary, you are not listening to the American people. You are not listening to the military. You are not listening to the bipartisan voices from the Senate. You are not listening to the Iraq Study Group. Only you know who you are listening to, and you wonder why there is a dark cloud of skepticism and pessimism over this nation. I think people are right to be skeptical after listening to some of the things that have been said by your administration.”
<snip>
SENATOR BARBARA BOXER:
“Now, the issue is who pays the price, who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price. My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young. You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, within immediate family. So who pays the price? The American military and their families, and I just want to bring us back to that fact.”
“SO WHO PAYS THE PRICE? THE AMERICAN MILITARY AND THEIR FAMILIES, AND I JUST WANT TO BRING US BACK TO THAT FACT.”
“NPR has done a series of interviews with families who have lost kids. And the announcer said to one family in the Midwest, "What's changed in your life since your son's death?" The answer comes back, "Everything. You can't begin to imagine how even the little things change, how you go through the day, how you celebrate Christmas, how you celebrate any holiday or birthday. There's an absence. It's not like the person has never been there. They always were there, and now they're not. And you're looking at an empty hole. He has a Purple Heart, the flag that was on his coffin, and one of the two urns that we got back." He came back in three parts: two urns and one coffin. He's buried in three places, if you count their house. He's buried in New Jersey. He's buried in Cleveland.
“That's who is going to pay the price.”
"And then you have the most moving thing I've ever heard on a radio station, which is a visit to a burn unit and a talk with the nurse. Devon suffered burns over 93 percent of his body, three amputations: both legs, one arm. His back was broken, internal organs exposed. As the hospital staff entered the room, they would see photographs on the wall, pictures of a healthy private standing proud in his dark-green Army dress uniform.
“ "It's very important," says the major, "that nurses see the patient as a person, because the majority of our patients have facial burns, and they're unrecognizable, and they're extremely disfigured."
“So who pays the price? Not me. Not you. These are the people who pay the price.”
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
