The fact that they completely ignored this January 26, 2009 report on left-wing extremists was my second clue.
But, facts be damned, this is a made-for-prime-time, right-wing talking point, neatly manufactured and packaged by the conservative echo chamber to reinforce the stereotype that Democrats/liberals hate the troops, Obama is gutting the military, and ZOMG we’re all gonna diiiiiiieeeee!!!!!!!11!!1!
So why the hell DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is apologizing, when no apology was necessary, is beyond me. Have you people not been paying attention for the past eight years? At all? No?
Here is the predictable pattern of these things: Drudge, Malkin, Reynolds et. al. get in high dudgeon over some imagined slight, Rush and the Fox-heads flog it mercilessly, Democrat apologizes, and it’s all filed away in the collective unconscious as another case of liberals behaving badly. So what have we learned, people?
Here are the facts of the story, which Napolitano or one of her underlings could easily have trotted out. From the memory hole, 2006:
A decade after the Pentagon declared a zero-tolerance policy for racist hate groups, recruiting shortfalls caused by the war in Iraq have allowed "large numbers of neo-Nazis and skinhead extremists" to infiltrate the military, according to a watchdog organization.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks racist and right-wing militia groups, estimated that the numbers could run into the thousands, citing interviews with Defense Department investigators and reports and postings on racist Web sites and magazines.
Give the Bush Administration credit for doing the requisite follow-up with its own report--begun last year!--to determine what impact this may have on domestic security.
Does it mean all veterans are racists or white supremacists? No. Does it mean serving your country in the military makes you susceptible to hate group indoctrination? No.
Does it mean anyone even said any of those things?
No.
It’s all just manufactured, more Kabuki theater for the gasbags to chew over, and people in the Administration and Democratic Party in general need to quit apologizing for the right-wing’s insistence on getting their facts wrong and spinning lies.
What’s that famous quote from Adlai Stevenson? “I’ll stop telling the truth about Republicans when they stop telling lies about Democrats”? Something like that.
Anyway, it’s time everyone got a clue. Stop empowering the lies and the lying liars who tell them, Democrats.
