Boxer has Rice for lunch - GOP press hysterical
It didn't take long for the GOP-backed press to start going crazy over the Democratically controlled Congress.Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice appeared before the Senate yesterday to answer questions about President Bush's troop surge of over 21,000 troops.
Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) wasted no time going after Rice:
"Who pays the price? I'm not going to pay a personal price," Boxer said. "My kids are too old, and my grandchild is too young."
To Rice, Boxer said, "You're not going to pay a particular price, as I understand it, with an immediate family."
Cue right-wing hysteria, beginning with the Rupert Murdoch-owned and operated New York Post, New York's conservative tabloid rag.
In this morning's paper, the Post took aim at Boxer:
Breathtaking.
Simply breathtaking.
We scarcely know where to begin.
The junior senator from California apparently believes that an accomplished, seasoned diplomat, a renowned scholar and an adviser to two presidents like Condoleezza Rice is not fully qualified to make policy at the highest levels of the American government because she is a single, childless woman.
It's hard to imagine the firestorm that similar comments would have ignited, coming from a Republican to a Democrat, or from a man to a woman, in the United States Senate. (Surely the Associated Press would have put the observation a bit higher than the 18th paragraph of a routine dispatch from Washington.)
But put that aside.
The vapidity - the sheer mindlessness [emphasis in original] - of Sen. Boxer's assertion makes it clear that the next two years are going to be a time of bitterness and rancor, marked by pettiness of spirit and political self-indulgence of a sort not seen in America for a very long time.
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When I got done laughing, I became a bit angry. This "right-wing outrage" smacks of what happened in the 2004 presidential campaign.
When Democratic Nominee John Kerry correctly pointed out that President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Republicans all support an amendment to the Constitution to ban gay marriage, Kerry referred to Cheney's gay daughter, Mary - a not so subtle shot at his opponents' hypocrisy.
Lots of phony outrage ensued, including Lynne Cheney proclaiming in front of a crowd of Republican sycophants, "This man [Kerry] is not a good man!" This from a woman, along with her husband, who proclaim themselves to be Christians. Umm Hmm.
Anyway, Senator Boxer did nothing more yesterday than state the obvious - that Rice has no personal sacrifice in this war, just as President Bush and Vice President Cheney don't have any sacrifices, either. Cheney's children are too old, and does anyone think the president's daughters, Jenna and Barbara, are going to serve in the military? RIGHT!
So, that's all Boxer was doing - again, pointing out that the decision makers about this war don't have any personal stake in this war, and that includes Condi Rice.
I would seriously doubt that Senator Boxer believes that "an accomplished, seasoned diplomat, a renowned scholar and an adviser to two presidents like Condoleezza Rice is not fully qualified to make policy at the highest levels of the American government because she is a single, childless woman."
I'd love to have seen the look on the editor(s) at the Post who penned this article. Do they really believe that Boxer believes that?
It's beyond ridiculous.
The American public is overwhelmingly against Bush's Troop Surge, and Boxer took Rice to task on this administration's decision.
Simple as that.
Murdoch is one of the biggest threats to our democracy - along with other media conglomerates.
I'll have more on Murdoch in a bit when I review Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, which I watched last night.
I've already steeled myself to the fact that there will be much more of this pseudo outrage over the next two years.
Get used to it.
Labels: Condoleeza Rice, media bias, New York Post, Rupert Murdoch, Troop Surge
posted by RJ at 11:22 AM
1 Comments:
Do you honestly think the administration has nothing personal at stake in this issue that more than anything else has defined the Bush presidency? It's true that they don't have personal stake in terms of family members being in Iraq fighting, but that's not the same thing as having no personal stake.
But regardless of that, the whole point is a red herring. Is it really true that someone in a position of leadership has no right to make decisions about something that won't affect them personally? Should we take our cases not to the Supreme Court but to people who don't know the law but instead will sympathize with us? Should we seek to appoint people to high positions not because of their qualifications about making good decisions that will benefit people but because they are emotionally tied up with those issues in a partial and biased way? Isn't that what we don't want?
Of course no one wants to see our troops die, and of course everyone would be happy if the war were over. It doesn't take having kids who are in the military to have such desires. The fact is that someone needs to make some important decisions now, and there are people in the positions that will be involved in making those decisions. You may not agree with those people's views, but they are in those positions, and whether they are going to make the right decisions is not tied to whether they have children of the right age. Whether Condi has children is simply irrelevant to whether she can think through which decisions might be good or bad.
There are moral issues at stake here. Whether the best consequences will be reached by refusing to clean up the mess we created or by doing our best to help minimize the damage is a moral issue that's irrelevant to whether the decision-makers have kids who will be involved in that. Whether the best way to minimize the damage involves bringing more troops in or not similarly has nothing to do with whether the people making the decisions have kids who are of a certain age.
It's not as if it would really be a good idea to make foreign policy decisions based on whether your kids might be sent off to war anyway. That's why Boxer's suggestion is a red herring designed to distract people emotionally from thinking about the real moral issues.
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