“There’s been a lack of acknowledgement by our president in understanding what it is that the American military provides in terms of, obviously, the safety, the security of our country,” Palin said during an interview with Fox News’s Greta Van Susteren. “I want him to acknowledge the sacrifices that these individual men and women — our sons, our daughters, our moms, our dads, our brothers and sisters — are providing this country to keep us safe...I want to see more acknowledgment and more respect given to them.”
“I want our president and this administration to listen to the advisers who they hired,” she said. “McChrystal, for one, back in March, telling the president, 'Here's what we're going to need there' and then ramping up that advice lately, saying, 'Mr. President, here's what we need in Afghanistan to win, to make sure that those terror cells don't grow, so that those terrorists don't come back over to the homeland in America, on our soil, and kill innocent Americans.'”
“I want him to listen to his advisers,” Palin added. “That's what he asked for.” (Andy Barr, Politico)
And there it is in a nutshell. When people accuse me of despising Sarah Palin for all sorts of reasons (the media tells me to, she speaks truth to power and that scares me, she represents the greatness of America and I refuse to see it, she is a strong independent woman and that rattles me, to name just a few accusations), all I'll point to is this. I'm going to try to frame this thoughtfully but the anger I feel will impair my eloquence.
Let me reiterate this: Sarah Palin, the quitter, the whiner, the everyone-before-me blamer, the former Vice Presidential candidate who claimed her two years spent as the governor of a state next to another country qualified her without a shred of doubt to practically lead troops into battle herself, is accusing this president of under-appreciating our armed forces.
Instead of constructing an argument based on facts and inferences made through in-depth research and rumination over a subject matter such as strategy formulation in the Afghan war, Ms. Shoot From the Hip, now all but guaranteed a national media platform, speaks before thought. She flips through her deck of cards prepared by every culture-warring heartland conservative Republican operative and finds a hot-button issue (COUNTRY FIRST!), frames them without nuance or context (LOWER TAXES NOW!) and glosses it over with a hue of gung-ho patriotism and an (ironic) air of superiority over those who disagree (REAL AMERICA!). And now, as she enjoys the fawning of media attention which she inevitably (and also ironically) decries as either biased, elitist, sexist, vindictive, or all of the above, she claims without reservation or pause while wearing an Army shirt that the commander-in-chief does not adequately "acknowledge" the sacrifices made by those whom he commands.
Here is some more rub of irony Raindancers. This woman, for all of her can-do America-first support the troops Don't Tread On Me uphold the Constitution grandstanding, who was to be a heartbeat away from taking the oath of the Office of the President, fails to understand the nature of that office's role as prescribed in the sacred founding document of our government she loves to wax on.
The President of the United States, a civilian, is, as per Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of this nation. His command is therefore supreme (chief) above all in the military hierarchy, including his senior-most generals. It is his duty and his alone to deploy and direct our troops, and in so doing it is his dictation of what the mission should be that is the prerogative his commanders follow. Not the other way around. A President should never hide behind his generals, as another recent president ("The Decider") had a tendency to do. The President does not accept the mission suggested by his advisors; the President dictates the mission to his advisors. And he subsequently ensures that those implementing his decisions, from the highest-ranked general to the private on the ground, have every resource necessary to finish the job.
So while Mrs. Palin clamors that the President is "dithering" by prolonging his decision regarding Afghanistan and that he should just blindly follow the advice "he asked for," she demonstrates on full display her intellectual and administrative weakness, her lack of understanding of the Constitution (again) and the role of the President, and her inability to lead. While she accuses the President of not appreciating the sacrifice our troops are asked to make every day, she fails to understand that precisely by being deliberative in his decision-making, while garnering and absorbing every piece of information he can, examining every angle he sees, challenging every assumption he makes, and contemplating every competing argument he can hear, the President is, through this responsible, reasoned process, not only faithfully executing his duties as commander-in-chief, but is as a result of his deliberativeness ensuring that he makes the best decision he knows how to make.
This, Madam half-Governor, is how a true patriot honors his troops, including your son. Don't you DARE question the devotion and gratefulness of a man who, unlike you, must wake up every morning knowing that his decisions in war will lead to the death of young American volunteers. Never will I allow you to question the genuineness of a leader who knows that with every order he issues, he will create fatherless sons, daughter-less mothers, widows, orphans, and more folded American flags. I never want to hear you or anyone in your tiny camp of Freedumb-loving teabagging super-patriots who have never nor ever will stand in the Oval Office or step foot inside the Situation Room, who will never once "acknowledge" (to use your bullshit condescending word) or respect this man as the sole "Decider" in all matters of American warfare, even so much as imply that this President or any president past or future does not live with the full weight of the grief of every American who has ever lost a loved one to war under his command. Watch the look on this man's face when he salutes a flag-draped coffin. Watch the sadness in his eyes when he lays a wreath on a grave. Witness him honor the fallen with a heavy heart and the feel the helpless frustration left by his own fruitless words and THEN tell me he doesn't "acknowledge" every American hero who served, has served, or ever will serve this country you bimbo moronic insufferable fuck.
Step into the rain: secondrain.blogspot.com
You sound so so angry!
ReplyDeleteAnd this is where I channel it.
ReplyDelete