Democracy Has Prevailed.

June 12, 2006

Ruth Ann Dailey A Follow-up

I guess I don't need to do much research to do this follow-up.

Buried deep in the comments section of this morning's posting, someone who wishes to remain anonymous (though I am guessing it's not our famous "anonymous" troll, Braden) did a little research in a very short period of time and found quite a few examples of bloggers "on the left" who weren't actually silent about the death of al-Zarqawi. Remember what Ruth Ann Dailey said:
If silence often speaks louder than words, then for one day last week the silence on the American left was deafening.[emphasis added]
Remember that word: silence. She said that the left was silent. Not that it was on the wrong side of the issue or that it wasn't being supportive enough to the troops. She said the left was silent:
But the silence on left-wing opinion pages and blogs was nearly complete.
And nearly complete.

Let me tell you, it's always a treat to be able to do something like this.

Let me start with anonymous' research. Here's the first link 9:55am on 6/8/6. Here's what it said:
Was never quite sure why we didn't go after him when we had the chance.

Anyway, I'm supposed to give the obligatory "YAY USA!" cheer here, but while it's good to get the bad guys I don't really think it's going to improve much. Hopefully I'm wrong.
The link points to another blog that eventually gets us to a MSNBC article (from March 2004) that says that Bush could have killed al-Zarqawi before the war but didn't. One of the reasons?
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
Oh.

Here's the next link. It's from the dailykos. That was the blog where Ruth Ann said there was just ONE blogger (Bill in Portland, I believe) who blogged on al-Zarqawi's death. Georgia10 (who's an expert on the NSA domestic spying case, by the way) posted this Thursday at about 4:58 PDT (which I assume is about 8am local time).

Here's another from the dailykos. It's Georgia10 again. That's twice Ruth Ann missed this particular writer.
Understandably, there is a lot of media coverage on Zarqawi today. In all the hours and hours of coverage, has anyone mentioned that the President could have killed Zarqawi before the Iraq War but chose not to? Or that he was caught and then released to kill again by an incompetent Iraqi government?
The first link goes to the an Australian paper that described how al-Zarqawi was allowed to escape by the Bush administration. The second link goes to a CNN article that describes how the Iraqis caught and then released al-Zarqawi.

Ruth Ann could have argued that the left was being disrespectful, but she said the left was silent.

Funny, doesn't look like it.

Here's a link to the Washington Monthly. The second link offered by "anonymous" confirms the first.

Here's something from firedoglake.

And so on. There's obviously much more. The left was obviously not silent. Ruth Ann was obviously quite wrong. Will she be correcting the record any time soon? Obviously, I'd be wrong if I thought so.

I'll give anonymous some blog space to end things here (thanks anonymous!):
1. Exactly how much research did Ruth Ann Dailey do prior to submitting her piece?
Um, very little. But that's par for the course for rightwing pundits and trolls everywhere.
2. How carefully did the editors at P-G look at Ms Dailey's "facts" prior to publishing it?
I'll let that rhetorical question filter through the internets. You can decide for yourselves.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

dayvoe:

it sounds to me as if you are almost pissed that al-Zarqawi was killed. As I predicted, the liberal left is bitching about it. Speaking of "missings," I find it curious that you fail to mention how the Clinton administration let the big daddy of them all go...Bin Laden. No comment? Of course not.

Anonymous said...

it sounds to me as if you are almost pissed that al-Zarqawi was killed. As I predicted, the liberal left is bitching about it.

Yeah. We're bitching about the fact that Dubya could have taken out Zarqawi three years ago but decided not to because it would have weakened his bogus case for going to war against Iraq. As to the death of Zarqawi himself--every progressive blog that has commented on it has basically said the same thing, "Good riddance".

Speaking of "missings," I find it curious that you fail to mention how the Clinton administration let the big daddy of them all go...Bin Laden. No comment? Of course not.

You are as careless with your facts as Ruth Ann Dailey. The whole "Clinton could have gotten Bin Laden" myth was debunked years ago. See here for starters.

Anonymous said...

anonymous...please, save your links for some whacko nutjob who takes the huffington post seriously.

funny, you say "dubya" could of gotten al zarqawi years ago when Clinton could of gotten the ultimate mastermind of 9/11 during his administration, then you make excuses for him by pointing me to the huffington post...a site who has about as much credibility as you demonstrate liberal tolerance. Enough said.

Anonymous said...

"Progressive" blog = liberal, marxist blog. Anytime I hear the word "progressive" when it comes to liberals and Democrats, you can be rest assured that they are a group who hates this country, hates what it was founded upon, and hates capitalism.

Speaking of "illegitimate" wars:

I guess taking out a evil, ruthless dictator who killed countless numbers of his very own people, tortured parents in front of their children, as well as harboring terrorists makes it all illegitimate, huh? On top of that, I guess having three elections in 1 year as well as a newly installed administration doesn’t count as an achievement either.

Dayvoe said...

Ladies and gentlemen;

No need to worry. Our troll is back and he's spouting the typical braindead conservative garbage - it doesn't deserve a response.

Notice how our troll looks to equate "progressive" with "a group who hates this country, hates what it was founded upon, and hates capitalism" with no evidence other than his own ignorant prejudices.

He's talking straight out his asshole for some time now and he's got nothing tangible to base all that crap on.

Typical conservative rhetorical garbage. It's not even interesting.

And, of course, our troll looks like a complete idiot whenever he attempts this argument.

A complete idiot - no need to respond.

Anonymous said...

Dayvoe:

Curious...you say, "it doesn't deserve a response.." and yet you took the time in order to justify you intolerance. Speaking of prejudices, you might want to take a long, hard look in the mirror...considering you associate everything on the right with being prejudice, hateful, as well as classifying it as "typical conservative rhetorical garbage."

You had nothing to say in response to my previous comment with the exception of shooting your mouth off in typical liberal, "so called tolerant" hateful behavior.

Dude, seriously...you're a hypocrite and you know it. It's proven by the absolute hateful response you just gave. What is a matter? Nothing intelligent to say?

Not worth responding to, and yet you do? Man, you are totally messed up in the head. Get in touch with reality, son.

Dayvoe said...

Ah - our brave troll responds.

Ladies and gentlemen - more proof that he is, unfortunately, stuck at the wrong end of a rhetorical cul de sac. And I don't think he can figure a way out.

If you happen to take the time to investigate what he's written in these comments throughout this blog, you'll notice an definite lack of variation in his collective responses.

When faced with someone who disagrees with his particularly jaundiced point of view, he inevitably shouts "intolerance!" to remind us, I gather, that we should be automatically agreeing with him in order to show the proper level of "diversity of opinion" that only he thinks should be here.

And if the disagreement continues, as it always will, he shouts "hypocrisy!" for the exact same reason.

And if you should happen to pin him down on something - he merely changes the subject.

It's not a reasoned debate by any means. But a reasoned debate is not what he wants. He wants an outburst so he can then claim something that validates his insanely narrow worldview - that liberals are all the same and that we hate everything.

It's a typical brain-dead right-wing response. There's not much intelligence behind it so there's not much reason to respond to it.

Don't get me wrong, there are certainly thoughtful, nuanced, intelligent conservatives around (and to be sure we'd welcome their input in this forum) but our troll is neither thoughtful nor nuanced nor intelligent.

So, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it. If you want to tussle with the troll, feel free. Now you know what you sort of "argument" you'll get if/when you do it.