Malkin On McCain Statement: ‘A Patronizing, Infantilizing, and Insulting View Of All American Troops’
Malkin On McCain Statement: ‘A Patronizing, Infantilizing, and Insulting View Of All American Troops’
Last month, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) said, “We ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized, and should never been waged, and on which we have now spent $400 billion, and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.” Obama immediately apologized for any offense his use of the word “wasted” may have caused. “I would absolutely apologize if any (military families) felt that in some ways it had diminished the enormous courage and sacrifice that they’d shown,” he said.
The quick apology did not stop conservative blogger Michelle Malkin from attacking Obama repeatedly over his comments. Malkin claimed Obama had a “patronizing, infantilizing, and insulting view of all American troops as dupes/victims who have squandered their lives.”
Last night on the Late Show with David Letterman, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) made a remark very similar to Obama’s. “Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be,” McCain said about Bush’s failed policies in Iraq. “We’ve wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives, over there.”
Watch it:
We’ll be waiting for Malkin’s response.
Transcript:
I think know what you’re getting at, and that is, should we have gone in in the first place? There was massive intelligence failures and books have been written about the mismanagement of the war and I would recommend Fiasco or Cobra 2 or one of these other books. But we are where we are now. We are where we are now. And rather than review all the problems we had, if we withdraw early which every expert I know says it will descend into chaos, sectarian violence and even genocide, so that’s why when I say this may be our last chance to succeed because Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be. We’ve wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives, over there.
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27 Responses to “Malkin On McCain Statement: ‘A Patronizing, Infantilizing, and Insulting View Of All American Troops’”
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Why argue semantics? The whole debacle has been nothing but a waste of lives, money, reputation, civil rights, military readiness, stability, and on and on.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:51 pmWon’t happen. Malkin will either a) ignore, or b) justify.
Remember - one set of rules for Republicans, a whole different set for Dems/libs.
March 1st, 2007 at 12:53 pmDon’t hold your breath. Michele Malkin is the queen of hyprocracy. I just sent her an e-mail telling her what I think about her hypocracy.
Obama was right and I think he should not have apologized. We have wasted american lives and american money on a cause that was lost before it began. And, we are still pouring money and lives into the hellhole that is Iraq and the Democrats seem to have lost their very brief will to fight for our people and our future.
I weep at night for what our country has become.
March 1st, 2007 at 1:10 pmYou will be waiting a LONG time.
I really hate how some pundits (on both sides) attack one-word slip-ups. I mean, it’s one thing if somebody, say, used the “N” word when discussing black people — that’s HUGELY inappropriate and there is really no excuse or any way to dismiss that.
But when you argue over the word “wasted” when talking about deaths of soldiers, it can easily ring both ways, so how can you be SO sure it’s an attack on soldiers? I mean, it is very appropriate to say that it is a “waste” when a young person dies because all of their future contributions can no longer be realized. On the flip side, “wasting your life” can also mean you didn’t amount to anything.
This is all just silliness. Neither McCain NOR Obama meant it in a negative “hate the troops” way. It is EXTREMELY obvious from the context.
Thanks, TP, for pointing out Malkin’s hypocracy. I hope we can all take this as a lesson and limit attacks to policy more often than just semantics…
March 1st, 2007 at 1:18 pmnot unless someone pays her to.
March 1st, 2007 at 1:18 pmThe “spin” is determined by whom it is said - that’s what creates veracity in the minds of reichwingnuts. If Obama says “wasted”, it’s a sin; if McInsane says “wasted”, then it’s okay. What hypocrites!
March 1st, 2007 at 1:30 pmWe’ve wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives, over there. — Flip-Flop McCain
Yet you want to send more into that meatgrinder called Iraq. Hypocrite.
March 1st, 2007 at 1:31 pmI thought John McCain was dead, already. Maybe George meant McCain’s career was dead. That’s it…
March 1st, 2007 at 1:57 pmDon’t hold your breath on this one. Malkin won’t say anything becuase McCain has a “R” behind his name.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:01 pmDon’t hold your breath.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:10 pmMalkin will never speak out against the “Saint.” Never.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:16 pm[…] Here’s the statement […]
March 1st, 2007 at 2:23 pmHey thinkprogress: i see what you’re trying to do with the headline there but Malkin never said that. Doesn’t make you look all that good on this.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:27 pmCorrection: Malkin never said that about McCain that is.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:29 pmdude,
You need to read more than the headline. This site is for folks that read more than headlines. The headline is explained in the text of the post.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:36 pmso far all she has done is bitch about him not going to the Conservative Political Action Conference, that and the fact that he “announced something” on letterman and not faux
March 1st, 2007 at 2:38 pmThe, um… logic (for lack of a better term) escapes me. If someone says that soldiers lives have been wasted because they were sent into a misguided war and then ineptly managed, how is that an insult to the soldiers? Every life lost in this Iraq debacle, every lost limb, every injury has been a tragic and pointless waste. That is not a reflection on the bravery or dedication of our troops. It is an indictment of the moronic policies of the right wing cabal. Withdraw now.
March 1st, 2007 at 2:51 pmDEMAND AN APOLOGY!!
March 1st, 2007 at 3:04 pm[…] Thursday he meant to use the word ’sacrificed’ instead of ‘wasted’ when discussing U.S. fatalities in the Iraq war during a Wednesday appearance on the ‘Late Show With David […]
March 1st, 2007 at 3:43 pmNo comment as I hate both Malkin and McCain. Let them rot in their own juices.
March 1st, 2007 at 3:50 pmHe just apologized:
http://hotair.com/ archives/ 2007/ 03/ 01/ mccain-apologizes-for-saying-troops-lives-were-wasted/
March 1st, 2007 at 3:51 pmZetaTalk: Human Condition
Note: written July 5, 1995
The human condition, on Earth at this time, is deliberately one of confusion. We will examine several situations that may help to clarify the issues at play.
First, humans desire security. The human condition is insecure. From birth, or particularly at birth, the human is acutely aware of its insecure position. Nude, tiny, unable to navigate, utterly dependent on others. The human infant wants to dominate those it is dependent upon. It is natural for the human to want to dominate its environment. The human wants to control the climate, the seasons. Homes are structured to provide summer warmth year round. Food is grown or at least provided as though harvest season were year round. Storms have no effect, nor do catastrophes have effect. There is social security, the umbrella of government aid. Floods and hurricanes are but another reason to open the government coffers. All this is evidence that the human wants to dominate its environment.
Second, the desire to dominate goes outside of inanimate factors. The human wants to dominate the other humans in its vicinity. Starting with the infant’s desire to dominate its mother, all her attention, and on to the stage of public opinion, the human desires to be the focus of attention. The infant wants its cry to bring immediate attention. The adult want its comments to bring rapt attention from others in the conversation group. No difference. Those who can command attention will get their needs met - so goes the logic. The infant displaced by a younger sibling is insecure, as it is no longer the focus of attention.
Third, love comes into play. Love, or empathy, is something felt at an early age. Empathy is not an emotion reserved for the intelligent, sentient being alone. Love and empathy are felt by all forms of life, even plant life, to some degree. It is a factor of life. It is intrinsic to life. Love and empathy pull the human into a conflict situation with its desire for security, to be the center of attention. Decisions are made to share the spotlight, to share resources. These decisions vary greatly, among humans. Some humans consider others on the same plane as the self. Other humans rarely, if ever, consider others, and never on the same plane as the self.
March 1st, 2007 at 7:34 pmMichelle…?
**crickets chirping**
March 1st, 2007 at 7:53 pmMichelle Malkin just has to acknowlege this post as her own and then the problem is solved: http://nomarginforerror.files.wordpress.com/2007/03/michellemalkin.jpg
March 1st, 2007 at 8:15 pmSoon after the illegal invasion started, two lives of Marines WERE WASTED by the lack of training of their reserve commander, AND BY DONALD RUMSFELD’S massive underdeployment.
Sent to provide a flanking cover that Rumsfeld considered unnecessary (leading to a 300 mile long column with NO lateral tank support, a condition that military scholars have called the greatest strategic error in decades — not knowing what was to follow), the two Marines were ordered to cross an irrigation channel.
Ordered, that is, to cross without the mandatory guide line, without the mandatory safety line, and — in contravention of standing military orders — in FULL BATTLEDRESS WITH WEAPONS AND PACKS.
They sank like a stone within a few steps, and the unit spent the rest of the day searching for their bodies downstream (in a warzone).
Have troops been WASTED? You goddamn skippy. And we know who to blame — it’s Don Rumsfeld, drug executive and military transformation artist, who transformed a great number of our best soldiers into goldfish food, wall paint, and future handicapped street vagrants. Oohrah!
Rumsfeld MUST be held accountable for his considerable number of lies and infamy. McCain is a COWARD for trying to rechew his food after vomiting the FACTS all over David Letterman.
March 1st, 2007 at 9:28 pmI feel that these lives were indeed wasted. They were killed in a war that we had no business waging. And I oppose the war in Iraq.
March 2nd, 2007 at 6:45 am[…] Obama and John McCain even admitted this, if only for a brief moment. Obama told an Iowa audience early last year that “we ended up launching a war that should have […]
March 26th, 2008 at 9:14 am