What is inconsistent or inaccurate in any of this?The problem was what she was saying on her show all week. "Hastert must have known." "I can't believe that Hastert didn't know. That just strains credulity." "It's just not believable that they didn't do anything about this unless they were trying to protect the seat."
She got caught up in what the Drive By Media was selling and bought their version of "The Truth." She had Hastert on her show Friday, was apparently quite respectful and appears to be back on the right path. I think she's wrong in pushing the "let's just move on" idea. That let's the dhimmicrat lies stand. I think the story that must come out of this is the story of how George Soros funded organizations coordinated this, most likely with the DCCC and DNC, as a planned political sliming.
The key factor for me is the threat by Mike Rogers and CREW to out more "gay Republican" office holders and staffers, starting Monday. Rogers has been up front that he used information to blackmail a sitting US Senator, reportedly over the Alito vote. The only "Republican" who voted against Alito is Lincoln Chaffee. If that turns out to be true that is a major felony and a scandal to make Watergate look extremely minor. Senior members of the Dhimmicrat party could do serious jail time if they had knowledge of that little "dirty trick."
I will concede the apparent inconsistency in Laura's recent statements. I am rarely in a position to listen to her show and haven't during the last week. I tried to see if I could find transcripts so that I could read contextually what she said, when she said it, and in reference to what revelations in the Foley scam, but could not find any. So I will defer to the testimony of my fellow FReepers.
The one caution I would make (I always do) is to avoid the same knee-jerk response to what someone on "our side" says as automatically being "turncoat" when all it is is criticism. Sort of a "Fool me once" kinda thing. If I allow myself to be offended by an ill-advised or intemperate comment, I may be cutting myself off from a valuable resource. There are some RW pundits that I take with a heavy grain of salt, but few that I refuse to listen to or consider ther viewpoint outright. In the final analysis theirs is but a single voice among many necessary to formulate an informed opinion
In the past few months I have heard virtually every conservative pundit thrashed over one issue or another - actually I can't think of one that hasn't been the target of slams from elements on the right. Whether or not the criticisms are warranted is debatable - what isn't debatable (IMNSHO) is that the Dhimmicrat strategy to divide & conquer is working. Keep the "repukes" infighting - that's the key.
Some would say that this is what Laura engaged in, and they may be right. If so, she should be spanked and brought back to Jesus (so to speak). So should those who would lump her in with obvious leftist partisans like timmah russert and Steponallofus.
I appreciate all the comments - in the end I keep my own council. One of my FRiends referred to "Throwing out the baby with the bathwater".
Sage advice.
It is pretty incredible watching how the US "News" Media IS continually trying to "Tet" the mission in Iraq. Tet, for those of you who do not know it. was a North Vietnam Offensive against South Vietnam during the January 1968 Tet Holiday . It was a bloody defeat for the North Vietnamese that shattered their Viet Cong guerrilla units. However, because of the reporting in the US "News" media, the public perception of the time was that Tet was an clear indication the USA had lost the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tet_Offensive
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1715700/posts
American casualties in Iraq rise sharply
The Washington Post ^ | October 8 2006 | Ann Scott Tyson
This story from the Washington Post is a perfect example of how the Junk Media is trying to repeat the same scenario in Iraq. Due to petulant dislike for the President and a fanatical feverish need to re-establish the Democrat Party in power the US Media has simply pull out ALL the stops to lie, distort and mislead on Iraq. Statistically it is nonsense to draw any conclusion on a war based on a single month's data. April 1945 was the bloodiest single month of the World War 2 for the USA. 4 months later the war ended. 1 month blip in casualty figures is utterly irrelevant as an indicator of long term trends. Notice, the Washington Post suddenly wants to site casualty figures where before they always were measuring deaths. Of course they do that because the casualty increase sounds so dramatic and scary. It written that way to have the reader make negative assumptions about the war.
It is also totally misleading and intellectually dishonest to not put the casualty figures in context. Given the nature of the operations ongoing at this point of the war the increase in casualties is a completely understandable and expected outcome. We are engaging in offensive operations in Urban terrain. EVEN the Washington Post was forced to admit the last time we took casualties like this was when the Marines cleaned out Fallugha.
Nothing else in war generates casualties, major and minor, like Urban combat. Not only does the combat take pace at shocking close ranges, but there is a huge increase in minor wounds. Sprains, broken bones, contusions, bruises etc are common in Urban Combat. Just too many hard surface for people to run into. Then there is the fact we are expanding operations to clean out the Shi'a militia. Adding them to the to do list, we are upping the tempo of our operations. The casualties, while terribly painful in individual human terms, are in terms of militarily conflict insignificant. The Do Nothings the Right wings Neo Isolationists on the left are trying to manufacture into a New Tet
The Post contention in this "news" story is that the effort in Iraq is a disaster. That things are going from bad to worse and nothing we can do will change it. The point of this story is to validate the spin from the Democrat Leadership that the US has no choice but to cut and run from Iraq. It complete nonsense.
Of course Casualties and attacks are up. We are engaging in offensive operations in Urban terrain. NOTHING in war generates minor casualties, sprains, broken bones, contusions etc like Urban Combat. Just too many hard surface for people to run into. Plus since we are expanding operations to clean out the Shi'a militia we are upping the tempo of our operations. Militarily this an insignificant blip on the screen which the Neo Isolationists and fevered Know Nothings are trying to manufacture into a New Tet
I think we can define the American Public as P.A.D.D. Policy Attention Deficit Disorder. We are winning in Iraq. The Terrorists and Militia's have been unable to evolve beyond state 1 of Guerrilla War Counter Insurgency is slow, painful work. But the progress is all on our side. The "Insurgents" has demonstrated no ability to politically or militarily evolve. Guerrilla war strategy consists of 3 phases.
1. Stage one: very small unit harassment actions.
2. Stage two: continuation of state one with an evolution to large units actions. Development of larger and large geographic areas fully under Guerrilla control.
3. Stage three: conventional warfare between large units.
The Terrorists are still stuck in stage one of Guerrilla Warfare. They can wreck stuff and kill people they cannot grow. They cannot take and hold ground or engage in anything beyond small scale hit and run attacks. Their failure to develop a shadow political structure to act as a polar opposite to the Iraqi Government is their fatal flaw. They simply lack the structure or local support network needed to move beyond state one Problem is thanks to the Junk Media and the Treason of the Democrat Party Leadership most Americans have no clue how well the mission is actually going. All they see is the thing that are seemingly going wrong. They are not actually going wrong, that is actually how combat works.
It is incredibly odd how Democrats, via their mouthpieces in the Junk Media, demand a level of perfection in Military operations that NO Journalist or Politician could ever live up to in their own professional spheres. Odd how Americans, who live with a very high level of incompetent in their government, their media, their day to day lives are so surprised and upset to discover war does work on a perfectly flawless time table. They seem to think war should work like their two hour Hollywood action movies told them it did. 2 Hours, bad guys dead, sympathy frag of supporting actor, hero gets girl and lives happily ever after. These absurd expectations explain how it is Americans get "war weary" so very very rapidly. It is one of the biggest Achilles heels of US Foreign Policy. Our foes count on us getting bored with it all and just going home. I guess we could call it the America's Policy Attention Deficit Disorder.
Counter Terrorism (or Counter Insurgency) is as much about politics as it is about war. Conventional Military often find them incredibly frustrating because they are usually a case of 3 steps forward, 2 steps back, pause, repeat. Conventional Military people think in terms of go there, kill them, wreck their stuff, make them stop pissing us off. Counter Insurgency does not work that way. Counter Insurgency works by making the local political structure strong enough to contain or beak the Insurgency. THAT is a slow painful process.
It is made a lot hard in Iraq by the hyper negative Media coverage and excessive nonsense spewed out by Domestic Politicians using the war because they think it will help them politically. I suspect that if we win Nov 7th, the Iraq mission is won. By 2009 the Iraqis political structure will be strong enough to stand on its own with minimal US support. Probably Iraq security forces stiffened with US SOF support teams. However, if the Democrats win November 7th, we can count on them "Teting" us right into another Vietnam style defeat. Iraq will be another war won militarily lost for perceived domestic partisan political advantage.