{"id":6397,"date":"2006-01-20T15:04:38","date_gmt":"2006-01-20T20:04:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6397"},"modified":"2006-01-20T15:04:38","modified_gmt":"2006-01-20T20:04:38","slug":"equating-dissent-and-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/equating-dissent-and-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"Equating dissent and terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Depending on one’s perspective, the release of the latest video from Osama bin Laden could have been yet another embarrassment for the White House. The man the president vowed to get “dead or alive” is still alive, threatening the United States, and mocking our efforts. Security measures that were supposed to be in place years ago are still waiting<\/a> to be put in place. For some, the video is a reminder of a war on terror that’s been poorly executed for far too long.<\/p>\n

Or, perhaps you’re a conservative with a slightly different perspective.<\/p>\n

* MSNBC’s Chris Matthews<\/a> told his national television audience that the terrorist responsible for 9\/11 “sounds like an over the top Michael Moore here, if not a Michael Moore.”<\/p>\n

* The far-right New York Post editorial board<\/a> wrote, “Who writes [bin Laden’s] stuff — Howard Dean? John Murtha? Sure sounds like it.”<\/p>\n

* Fox News’ John Gibson<\/a> told his audience, “[bin Laden] is talking to America’s far left and saying, ‘You know what. We’re on the same side. So why don’t you work on that hardhead George W. Bush?’ Bin Laden told us Thursday that our far left has been working for him.”<\/p>\n

This<\/i> is what political discourse in post-9\/11 America has come to. These aren’t just far-right bloggers popping off on Free Republic; these are high-profile, well-paid, widely-seen ideologues who purport to be journalists. They have a meme — the left is weak — and a megaphone, and they’re not about to let facts get in the way of perfectly good demagoguery.<\/p>\n

For too much of the right, liberals aren’t wrong, we’re evil. We support treason. There aren’t different approaches to fighting a war against terrorism — there’s Bush’s way. And to stand against Bush’s agenda is to stand with al Qaeda. Period.<\/p>\n

Indeed, to suggest there’s a “debate” underway is foolish. We have one group of people who meekly rely on facts and evidence, and another which relies on slander. Political discourse this is not.<\/p>\n

I suspect the goal is to bully the left into submission. “If you’ll only agree to say we’re right,” the rights argues, “then we’ll stop calling you terrorist sympathizers. Unless there’s an election coming up, in which case we’ll have to say it anyway. Nothing personal.”<\/p>\n

Call it a hunch, but I don’t think we’re going away that easily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Depending on one’s perspective, the release of the latest video from Osama bin Laden could have been yet another embarrassment for the White House. The man the president vowed to get “dead or alive” is still alive, threatening the United States, and mocking our efforts. Security measures that were supposed to be in place years […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}