Why Apologize For Honesty?
by Pamela LeaveyDateline Correspondent Josh Mankiewicz asked on the Inside Dateline Blog why Barack Obama and John McCain should apologize for honesty?
Barack Obama and John McCain have several things in common. They’re both U.S. senators, they’re both running for president, and now they’ve both had to apologize for saying the same thing.
What they both said was that the lives of the more than 3,100 U.S. troops lost in the Iraq war were wasted.
Both had to quickly pull back and say that’s not really what they meant.
Well, it’s pretty clear to me that that is exactly what they meant. But saying that soldiers’ lives have been wasted is hard for some people to hear.
It turns out that political correctness knows no party or ideology. Both politicians now say they should have used the word “sacrifice.”
It’s really unbelievable. Even when you’re running for president you are not allowed to say what you really think.
Robert Freedland made a similar point here on The Democratic Daily a few days ago in his post: The Wasting of American Common Sense! Robert said:
It does not demean Americans who have died to say that their lives were wasted. It demeans them and all of us to continue a lie because we do not have the courage to face the truth.
The death of Americans in unnecessary wars is not made more meaningful by playing games of rhetoric. The mothers and fathers of soldiers who have lost their loved ones are not made whole by continuing a lie. If their lives have been lost and that loss brings us to realize our mistakes then their lives will not have been in vain.
But if we fail to realize the real waste of a generation of young and brave and patriotic Americans, then we shall have failed those very same young people. If we hide under illusions of rhetoric and the comfort of denial, we haven’t helped anyone anywhere.
As Senator Kerry himself once famously said, ‘How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?’ In other words, how do we sit by and do nothing when American lives are being wasted? When we can’t even say it?
Josh Mankiewicz notes that it’s “amazing, both of these guys like to claim that they’re a different sort of politician—that they believe in straight talk, that they’re not part of the Washington spin cycle.
Here’s what they should apologize for: that after four years, with the nation clearly hugely conflicted over the war, our leaders can’t even discuss it honestly.
Isn’t it time that politicians stopped apologizing for Bush’s failures and Bush’s mistakes and Bush’s lies? Isn’t it time the “Washington spin cycle” ran it’s course and we could have honest dialogue about what’s really happening in Iraq and why we are there. Politically correct means telling the truth, even when that truth may not be what some Americans want to hear. We’ve had enough of the lies and too many good men have been forced to apologize for another man’s mistakes.
Filed under: Bush Admin, Democrats, Election '08, Foreign Policy, In The News, Iraq, John Kerry, Politics, Republicans | Get Permalink or trackback |
[...] eral things in common. They’re both US senators, they’re both … Original post by Pamela Leavey This entry was posted on Wednesday, Decembe [...]
The big difference is that Obama and McCain got fair shakes from the media, meaning got passes while Kerry left out a pronoun and was villified by some Democrats and the GOP.
Indie
I don’t think either McCain or Obama would have apologized if they got “fair shakes” from the media. They were pressured into it because the media twisted it. Plain and simple. Just like they always do. And just like with JK, some in the media actually have the guts to speak up and say they shouldn’t apologize. The first post linked to is from an NBC reporter.
The whole political/media system has become so corrupted and dominating over every day life that it is starting to devour everyone and everything that crosses it. Just like the French Revolution, which gobbled up Robespierre and its other instigators.
No single person can stand up to it, least of all the shallow, characterless nothings that play the part of “leaders” on both sides of the phony aisle.
McCain is perhaps the greasiest character within memory, at least since Gingrich, and the fact that any Republicans can stomach him shows how morally corrupt they’ve become.
The Dems don’t offer much in response. All of these people are creations of the media and must grovel before it. It has become a soul-less machine that grounds up anything in its path.
Kierkegaard offered keen insight into this situation over 150 years ago:
“The public has a dog for its amusement. That dog is the Media. If there is someone better than the public, someone who distinguishes himself, the public sets the dog on him and all the amusement begins. This biting dog tears up his coat-tails, and takes all sort of vulgar liberties with his leg—until the public bores of it all and calls the dog off. That is how the public levels.”
Of course, we don’t even need exceptional people any more to fall victim to this.