Being Fiskally Conservative

Gary Gross takes on Satirist and Democrat Senate Candidate Al Franken for his op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Al sez "It's been a banner week for ridiculous" and I cannot but agree.

Why does Mr. Franken think it’s ridiculous spending a day debating something as important as MoveOn.org’s defamation of a commanding general in wartime?

Because:

• The advertisement was in no way defamatory. It isn't defaming if the criticism is true, and in this case, it is demonstrably true;
  
• It's wartime, and topic "a" is an advertisement in the New York Times, not the war, not the troops, not stridently working on a practical political compromise (to whit, how can we expect the Maliki government to reach a grand compromise if we can't?));
  
• The continued reliance by the radical right wing of the republican party on hashing and rehashing a partisan grassroots level organization advertisement is wearing thin, to the point of becoming a hostile act, possibly even treasonous (we are at War!).
  
• Spending time debating this is an absurd waste of resources, and it would be laughable were 160,000 of our troops not in harm's way.

Why should Mr. Franken get away with not speaking out against a radical fringe organization after they’ve accused Gen. Petraeus of lying?

Al isn't getting away with anything. His op-ed was in response to an advertisement run by Norm Colman a day or two after the Senate voted to condemn Move On, attacking him because he was not joining in the condemnation (for those of you keeping score at home, this is Franken not getting away with it). However, MoveOn is not a radical fringe organization, nor did they not fully substantiate all of the claims in the ad. You've linked to the page on their web site, as I do above, with their fully-attributed and documented claim. Go back and look at it again... the evidence is pretty overwhelming.

Your next fisk is the best part, though, because you shoot yourself in the foot saying "Would Franken stay silent if a Republican called Hillary a liar? Of [course -ed.]he wouldn’t stay silent nor would anyone expect him to." Setting up the classic straw man analysis requires parallel examples in the analogy. The better phrasing of this argument would have been "if a republican called Admiral Fallon a liar," in reference to Fallon's statement that Petraeus was an "ass-kissing chickenshit." But what is delicious, to borrow your term, is that you chose a highly political example because either you agree that Petraeus is a political figure, as anyone who undertakes water-carrying for the White House would be, or it just naturally came out due to subconscious thoughts or feelings that only a good therapist and several years on the couch could uncover. I don't think it's the latter.

But being intellectually honest, you have to look at Al Franken's stand on the issues, particularly Iraq before you say he "hasn’t shown even a slight interest in defeating the jihadists or in securing the Middle East." Just because he doesn't agree with you doesn't mean his stand is ill-conceived or he has not given serious consideration to his position. Not knowing what you're talking about betrays your partisan position as superior to all else. Gary Gross is as guilty of mouthing anti-democratic talking points as he accuses Franken of likewise.

Skewing the Numbers

So, CalCon links to a rightwingnut "news" source under the guise of a Gallup report, which itself does not include a link to the Gallup poll, but instead offers it's "reporter" for interviews? And this is Proof that the public thinks that Petraeus didn't mislead the Congress and American people about the situation in Iraq.

Now that's what I call a stretch.

First, and setting aside the quotation of another rightwingnut as a evidence of anything, this particular wingnut gives away their bias by simply suggesting that they would give an interview, or at least the last time I checked the Columbia School of Journalism didn't offer that as a course. Reporters do the interviewing, as when you cross that line, you become a defacto pundit.

Second, Randy didn't link directly to the report because the report says nothing about why Petraeus favorable ratings went up, but rather, simply reports that they did. Co-incidentally, the "unknown" percentage decreased at the same time, while the "unfavorable" rating remained constant. What this tells you is that as people became aware of who he is, they had a "favorable" impression.

And, a favorable impression does not necessarily translate into a belief that he is right on the war.

The people may look at him more favorably and view him as a good spokesman for the war, he has not done much to change the public's opinion on the war.

But only if we're looking at the matter from an objective point of view.

After reading the comments on this post, it came to me that there is just too incredibly vast a difference between liberals and conservatives. From the Top 10 Differences Between Progressives and Conservatives list:

Number 9
• Progressives believe in facts.
• Conservatives believe that anything that does not explicitly favor them is biased against them.

For example, this post claiming that Petraeus' favorable ratings increasing means that the public believes him, that the war is going just great and we should stay for another 10 to 50 years. And the presnit is going to ask for $200 Billion for the continuing war effort next week, making 2008 the most expensive year yet.

Don't worry; the weak and worthless Democrats in the Congress will fall all over themselves to give Bush every last dime, because the neocons and republicans have somehow managed to make funding the troops the same as supporting the troops and vice-versa. Nevermind that the liberal founding fathers set up the system specifically giving Congress the purse strings to check the president's power. Or, at least that was their stated goal.

The bottom line, as clearly evidenced on this blog over and over:

And, the Number 1 Modern Difference Between Progressives and Conservatives
• Progressives believe that “we are all in it together.”
• Conservatives believe that “you are on your own.”

Am I wrong?