A few nights ago, I told you about a family member of mine who had shared a purposefully misleading political graphic on Facebook, and how I responded. The piece, which incorrectly attributed $5 billion of the nation’s debt to the “Democratic majority,” was produced by an organization called Right Change, a fake grassroots entity bankrolled by the multi-millionaire Fred Eshelman. Well, today, I find myself responding to yet another relative. This time, the item in question, sent to me by way of email, is a video, produced by an organization called the Special Operations Political Committee (OPSEC). Ostensibly it’s an educational entity run by former members of America’s special forces who are concerned about Obama’s leadership on national security, but it’s difficult to say who is actually calling the shots, as groups like this presently don’t have to disclose their funding sources. (You’ll recall that the DISCLOSE Act, which would have made such information public, failed to pass a few weeks ago.)
The video is an excruciating 22 minutes long, but I’d encourage you to watch it. There are lots of shots of people, who we’re told are Navy SEALS, sitting in the shadows, and talking with electronically distorted voices about how they won’t feel safe until Obama is out of the White House. According to them, you see, Obama can’t be trusted to keep sensitive information private, and this could jeopardize critical operations, and cost them their lives. (They also, apparently, don’t like that Obama took credit for the fact that they killed Osama bin Laden.) And, if you’re the kind of person who has difficulty following narratives, there’s also some great, grainy, black and white footage of Obama turning his back on the American flag and walking away from it, which they show in slow motion. Here’s the video, followed by my letter to the family member who sent it to me, along with a note about how the mainstream liberal media was probably conspiring to suppress it.
I’m not surprised that you wouldn’t have seen it in the traditional media, because it was just released this morning. And, for what it’s worth, I’ve already seen it mentioned in a Reuters article, and on the Huffington Post. So, it is getting out there, just like the Swiftboat attacks on John Kerry got out there… in spite of the “liberal media conspiracy”. It seems pretty pathetic to me, but I guess the Romney campaign has to come after Obama on national security if they want to win. And, given that we finally killed Osama bin Laden under Obama’s administration, that’s not going to be an easy thing to do. So, they’ll say that Obama took credit for killing Osama when the credit belonged to SEAL Team 6, and that he’s putting people’s lives on the line, and that he doesn’t appreciate the value of our operatives oversees. I can understand why Romney’s people would try to pull this nonsense, as they have to find a way to turn one of his biggest positives (the fact that we got Osama bin Laden while he was Commander In Chief, after Bush had neglected to do so for over seven years) and turn it into a negative, but I would have thought that you’d know better than to accept it at face value.
And, I don’t mean to be confrontational when I say this, but I do find it odd that you’d send me this video, which is full of outrage over Obama taking too much credit for the killing of Osama bin Laden, when, I believe, you didn’t say a single word that time Bush landed on the deck of an aircraft carrier in a fighter jet, climbed out in a combat pilot’s jumpsuit, complete with codpiece, under a sign announcing “Mission Accomplished,” and told us all how he’d ended the war in Iraq. (That war, by the way, wasn’t over. It wouldn’t end until Obama came into office, several years later.) How is Obama informing the nation on television that we got bin Laden, even remotely as bad as having our President dress up like he’s just returned from a successful combat mission, and strut across the deck of a warship to anxiously awaiting television cameras? Watch the two scenes side by side, and tell me who’s more guilty of grandstanding.
One more thing… If you want to blame someone for not understanding and appreciating the importance of national security, again, I’d suggest that you look to Bush, who was handed a briefing document entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike within US,” 36 days prior to the 9/11 attacks on our country, and, by all accounts, chose not to act on it. If people in the intelligence field want to be upset with a President who doesn’t value the work of our assets oversees, I’d start there.
And, for all the talk of how Obama’s politically motivated “leaks” are hypothetically jeopardizing the lives of our men and women oversees, let’s not forget that foreign agents most likely really did die when Cheney, through his staff, outed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, in hopes of discrediting her husband, who, as you may recall, was the first government official to say that our justification for war in Iraq was bogus.
So, in short, yes, I agree with you that it’s terrible when politicians grandstand, misuse intelligence, and endanger the lives of our courageous men and women serving oversees. I just think that trying to pin any of that on Obama, is ridiculous. And, it stinks of desperation. But, it worked for Bush in the race against Kerry, and I can see why Karl Rove and others think that it makes sense to try it again.
And, here, if you didn’t watch the 22-minute video above, is a 1-minute version from the same “Dishonorable Disclosure” campaign.
And this may not be the end of such attacks against the President. It looks as though retired Navy SEAL Commander Ryan Zinke, has also launched a SEALS against the President group. His is called Special Operations for America. So, if you’re a billionaire, and you want to hire former members of the special forces to say that the President is unfit for service, you now have at least two options… Capitalism at work!
MARK: Where will you be moving to and what will you be doing there?
