Bush, the Taliban and the leftwing blogosphere

When is it ok to let people starve to death? If you are a left wing nutcase, the answer is if President. Bush is the one offering the food. Recent related posts on Daily Kos and Democratic Underground undercut the claims that the left is a force of truth and is a force of compassion. The recommended diary appeared on Daily Kos, trying to slam Bush for providing food assistance to the starving Afghans who suffered from drought and the neglect of the Taliban. Many sources on the left, and even some on the right, stated that the aid was a gift to the Taliban, or was given in cash directly to them. The diarist quoted the Nation magazine spouting a huge untruth:

That's the message sent with the recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, the most virulent anti-American violators of human rights in the world today. The gift, announced last Thursday by Secretary of State
Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, makes the United States the main sponsor of the Taliban

George Orwell once stated that "political thought, especially on the left, is a sort of masturbation fantasy in which the world of fact hardly matters." A liberal media blog shot down these mistatements years ago. Spinsanity published rebuttals to these falsehoods from assorted hacks such as Robert Scheer and Michael Moore. Spinsanity pointed out the inconvenient truth that the aid was in the form of food and bypassed the Taliban.

Drawing on work by Bryan Carnell of Leftwatch, Brendan pointed out that the $43 million was not aid to the Taliban government. Instead, the money was a gift of wheat, food commodities, and food security programs distributed to the Afghan people by agencies of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Secretary of State Colin Powell specifically stated, in fact, that the aid "bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate
it."

The left mocks the right for being uneducated, easily led, and willing to suspend reality for the sake of its ideology. Yet many kossites believed this as can be seen in the comments. The comments expressed outrage, the cliched critiques of the media falling down on the job, too many conspiracy theories to list(including funding 9/11), and even the old one that the US was the main supplier to Iraq in the 1980's (the USSR and the French provided the vast majority of Saddam's military). Another poster, in a complaint about the mainstream media, indicts the lefty press in spreading this falsehood:

Unfortunately,this was written and known for year and no one wanted to listen, when it was brought up (the media or the gov't). But this was definitely on progressive, public and black radio back in 2001+. Especially WBAI, 99.5 FM in NYC. Anytime there's a war, or a
violent act, they get all the experts and info. Air America, was forced to have
many of Pacifica's (their natinal affiliation of public radio) guest, to spread
this unbelievable type news.

The liberal blogs hold themselves out as the last bastion of the truth and they can't get away with spreading lies because their people are too sophisticated, educated and righteous to let falsehoods stand. Yet this bit of arrogance has even begun to be challenged by the leftist bloggers themselves:

I used to think that the Left blogs (and it is something I try to be)were
dedicated to one thing though - accuracy. Maybe we did not report all the facts,
or all the polls or all of the story, but we tried to make sure we were accurate
about the statements, as opposed to opinions, we did make. Especially when writing about Democrats. After the most recent Democratic Primary, no one can claim that that is true anymore.

A few comments in the diary point out the facts about the aid, but they are widely ignored, or have responses that are even more disturbing than the original lies. One poster , as well as the original diarist, was upset that we fed starving people and that it might have freed up money for the Taliban to buy weapons.

Do you not see that when the U.S. and U.N. provided food for Afghanistan, the Taliban didn't have to spend their own $43 million? They
saved their own money and spent it on. . .not food.

If the world community decided to withhold aid to starving people in totalitarian regimes, as these compassionate liberals suggest, then it should be the policy of all right thinking people to let Zimbabweans starve to death because feeding them frees up money for Mugabe to be a thug. But as a couple other posters brought up, the Taliban wasn't bothering to feed their people in the first place.

A thread on Democratic Underground was started based upon this diary. Commentors here also took aim at the media with one poster saying he send this information along to MSNBC's Countdown. Others used this a proof of a right wing media machine suppressing the misdeeds of the Rethugs . So unless the media spreads false, left wing propaganda, it is considered right wing by the nutroots community.

In their quest to be outraged by the deeds of the Bush administration, the clowns should have considered this from the State Department:

Even before this latest commitment, the United States was by far the
largest provider of humanitarian assistance for Afghans. Last year, we provided
about $114 million in aid. With this new package, our humanitarian assistance to date this year will reach $124 million. This includes over 200,000 tons of wheat.

The previous year mentioned in the briefing was when President Clinton was in office. This makes the faux outrage of the left even more foolish.

Tale of Two Press Secretaries

Bush's press secretary, Tony Snow, passed away over the weekend from cancer. One blogger at Daily Kos left a nice diary explaining how Snow was a friend of his liberal preacher's. For the party that claims to hold a monopoly on compassion, kind words for the dead were too much for some of its members. The diary has a slew of comments that blamed Snow for all sorts of sins.

Similar items appeared at other blogs, including Democratic Underground. The original threads dealing with his death led to the moderators warning their members to behave. One topic was a kind tribute from someone I am not overly fond of, Keith Olbermann, but he did a great job of expressing his sorrow at Snow's passing. Other posters were not so kind, blaming Snow for the deaths of US soldiers and Iraqis. One asked the following:

I grieve for 4118 soldiers and a million Iraqis. Without Snow's lies, how
many of them might still be alive?

Kind of an interesting question, how responsibly are the mouthpieces for administrations for their actions. According to many at liberal sites, the spokesperson is quite responsible. Among the more vile statements I have read, more than one condemned Tony Snow to an eternity of hell. Since the left values equal justice, I wonder if we can expect widespread condemnation of the Press Secretary under LBJ during Vietnam. A war that was started based upon a non-existent attack in the Gulf of Tonkin. A war that caused the deaths of nearly 60,000 US soldiers. On the day of Snow's death, another diary was recommended which discussed that Press Secretary, Bill Moyers. Since these are politically sophisticated people, and they claim to value honesty over everything else, I expected the diary to bring up the parallels between Snow and Moyers, Bush and LBJ, and Vietnam and Iraq.

No such luck, the piece was to praise Moyers and those who commented upon the diary heaped all kinds of praise on him, calling him a "national treasure" and "a gem". The press secretary during the most disastrous American war was being praised by the same people who condemned Tony Snow on the day of his passing.

Obama's problem with the authorities

Once again, Jesse Jackson opened his big mouth and exposed how desperate he is to remain relevant. Jackson threatened to chop Obama's nuts off because Obama dared to say that Black fathers are important to their kids' lives and they need to be responsible. Over time, Jackson has become less and less important, but his greatest threat to his imagined image as the leading African American politician has been the quick rise of Barack Obama.

Jackson hasn't been the only former big dog to be eclipsed by Sen. Obama, former President Clinton's drop in standing among many liberals began with his tomfoolery during the primaries. In January, Obama referenced Reagan being a transformational figure in ways that Presidents such as Nixon and Clinton were not. Quite a few on the left, either idiotically or dishonestly, claimed the this was an endorsement of Reaganism rather than an historical comparison.

During the 2004 campaign, both Kerry and Dean failed to outshine President Clinton, but Obama has clearly moved past him in the hearts and minds of most Democrats. Bill Clinton lives for attention and the adulation of crowds, so seeing a one term Senator take over must sting. Jesse Jackson and Bill Clinton are relics of another era, while Obama is the politician of the moment and more than likely, of the future.