Democracy Has Prevailed.

October 28, 2007

Jack Kelly Sunday

It's Sunday and so as true as the moon follows the sun across the sky, there's a column by Jack Kelly in today's P-G.

Not much in there except he calls 19% of Democrats traitors - I think. He's not the usual clear concise Kelly we've grown to know and love.

But he's spinning, nonetheless.

He begins with one famous American traitor, Benedict Arnold, and ends with a less famous one, Major General Charles Lee. On Arnold, J-Kel mentions the Battle of Saratoga (and Arnold's heroics there) and the 20,000 pounds sterling offered for a bribe, but never gets around to mentioning West Point or the date this all happened.

And as we know with Jack, it's all about what he says and what he doesn't say.

Next he gives us some details on Lee:

Once an officer in the British army, Lee was the second ranking general in the Continental Army after Washington. He was captured by the British in December 1776 after carelessly dallying at an inn. His captors offered him a choice. He could be sent to Britain to be hanged as a traitor, or he could turn his coat. Lee (understandably) chose collaboration.

Lee's task (after he had been exchanged for a British general captured in Rhode Island) was to keep Washington from attacking the British when they retreated from Philadelphia. The British had been weakened by the detachment of a large number of troops to guard the West Indies from the French, and were saddled with 3,000 loyalist refugees. They were very vulnerable.

Lee first argued against an attack on the British, and when Washington insisted on a scaled down one, demanded that he rather than Lafayette lead it. He kept the best units under his command from participating in the battle, and his confusing orders would have led to a rout had not Washington arrived on the scene in time to stem it. But a great opportunity was lost.

This was the battle of Monmouth, June 28, 1778. Lee is actually Court-Martial for failing to follow Washington's orders, by the way. He said the Revolutionary War could have been won in 1778 were it not for Lee's treason.

But what of Arnold's treason? He offered to switch sides for the 20,000 pounds sterling and a commission in the British Army. He was commander at West Point at the time and that fort was part of the deal. Had he succeeded and handed over West Point, the colonies could have been sliced in two.

The plot was discovered and Arnold escaped to the British side. He only recieved 6,000 pounds sterling, but did get the military commission. He died, in England, in 1801.

But this was late summer of 1780. Two years AFTER the battle of Monmouth. And a little more than a year before Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown.

So if Lee's treachery didn't happen, Arnold's probably wouldn't have either.

I'm just not sure what all this has to do with the war in Iraq. Here's how Jack frosts the cake at the end of his column on those two American traitors:
Those were complex times, as now, and those 19 percent of Democrats who said in a recent poll that the world would be better off if the United States loses in Iraq ought not to judge Arnold or Lee too harshly.
Is he saying that those 19% are traitors? I think so.

But let's take a closer look at the poll, shall we? It's described in this story from Fox "News."

Nearly one out of every five Democrats thinks the world will be better off if America loses the war in Iraq, according to the FOX News Opinion Dynamics Poll released Thursday.

The percentage of Democrats (19 percent) who believe that is nearly four times the number of Republicans (5 percent) who gave the same answer. Seven percent of independents said the world would be better off if the U.S. lost the war.

Again, with Jack Kelly it's what he doesn't say that's almost always as important as what he does say. The next paragraph of the article (and this one carefully ignored) says this:
Overall, 11 percent of Americans think the world would be "better off" if the U.S. lost the war, and 73 percent disagree.
Gee, I wonder why Jack didn't say that one-out-of-ten Americans think the world would be better off if "the U.S. lost the war."

Doesn't fit the larger point he's trying to make: being against the war is committing treason and Democrats are the ones committing treason, just like Arnold and Lee.

No mention, of course of the other results from that poll. 62% of Democrats (that's a little more than 3 times the 19% Jack mentioned) think that the world wouldn't be a better place if the US "lost" the war. Nor does he mention the 5% of Republicans who also think the world would be a better place if the US "lost" the war.

I put the word in quotation marks because I am unsure how different "losing" would look to what's going on now.

All-in-all, not one of Jack's better columns.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

John K. says: Talk about jumping on a band wagon. You lefties, to include that dirt bag Murtha, have finally realized that the Surge is working and we are winning. Now you want to jump in front of the parade and act like you never said how much you hated the troops. LOL LOL LOL Man what a bunch of hypocrites.

Anonymous said...

Again, John K proves he can't read.

Read the blog posting and then read his comment. How could someone who comprehends what he reads actually make it to the comment from the posting?

Anonymous said...

Thirty three brave American soldiers died this month, and the Ultimate Chickenhawk laughs about it. Sixteen Iraqis dead on Saturday and the Ultimate Chickenhawk laughs about it.

He's one sick puppy, all right. But fortunately for us, he's amusing about it.

Anonymous said...

John K. says: And one sailor got the Medal of Honor. Completely ignored by the lefties in here. LOL LOL sicko that you are.

Anonymous said...

I don't know. John Koward has gone so far off the reservation recently that he's not even amusing. I guess I can pull out some more recipes for things like toast with butter, orange slices, etc. My way of helping the less fortunate...

Anonymous said...

BTW, here is Koward's definition of how the surge is working and "we are winning":

But in one instance about two months ago, the American soldiers heard that the Wolf Brigade planned to help resettle more than 100 Shiite families in abandoned houses in the neighborhood. When platoon leader Lt. Brian Bifulco arrived on the scene, he noticed that "abandoned houses to them meant houses that had Sunnis in them."

"What we later found out is they weren't really moving anyone in, it was a cover for the INP to go in and evict what Sunni families were left there," recalled Bifulco, 23, a West Point graduate from Huntsville, Ala. "We showed up, and there were a bunch of Sunni families just wandering around the streets with their bags, taking up refuge in a couple Sunni mosques in the area."

Anonymous said...

Jack Kelly's like an aging athlete with a limited set of moves. He knows that they're not as effective as they used to be, but he's got nothing else, so it's more of the same.

Also, articles like this are the dead-enders' way of building the whole "stabbed in the back" meme that they'll be using for, oh, the next forty years. It's all they've got. And besides, when did the truth ever do anything for them except get in the way?

-Shawn

Anonymous said...

John K. says: How do I know we are winning in Iraq. Because we have run out of targets. And Bin Laden is calling on you who have already surrendered to keep encouraging others to surrender. When you are invested in defeat as much as the left is, victory sort of makes you folks look like fools. Especially you shitrock LMAO loser.

Anonymous said...

More winning, Koward style.

Anonymous said...

More verbal diarrhea from the Laughing Chickenhawk. Since the last time you posted here, Chicken, seven more soldiers died from wounds received in Iraq. Maybe if you know some of their names, it will make their deaths even more amusing for you:
-- SSG Jack D. Richards
-- SGT Gerald J. Cassidy
-- SGT John "Bill" Smith
-- SPC Raymond Salerno

Pretty damn funny, huh? Keep laughin' your ass off, Chicken, and Bush will keep you the coffins coming for you to laugh at.

BTW, do you think you could come up with better insults than "fool" and "loser?" That's not very creative. Why don't you call me something more in keeping with your conservative goon friends -- "traitor" would be good (it worked for your boys on Kerry, who, unlike you and your friends, served his country). Or you could accuse me of being the father of an illegitimate baby (it worked for your boys on McCain, who, unlike you and your friends, served his country).

Aside from that, a pretty good post by your standards. Keep giving me the ammunition, I'll keep shooting you with it.

Norma said...

I don't know who you are, or who Kelly is, but I just finished reading 1776, noting the treason of Arnold and Lee, and also the many parallels with today's war, the anti-war movement, and how much the Loyalists of the 18th century resemble so many of today's left.