. . . in late-March, Minnesota native Cpl. Travis Bruce was killed in Iraq by a rocket-propelled grenade while standing watch on the roof of a Baghdad police station. The Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that Bruce had called his girlfriend the night before his death and said that he was stationed on the rooftop and increasing the height of the sandbag barricade. "He said they didn't have enough sandbags up there," she said softly.
Based on this account, Sen. [Mark] Dayton sent a letter to President Bush calling it immoral for our command not to provide our soldiers with absolutely everything they need to give them maximum protection: body armor, armored vehicles, sandbags.
Hinderaker [John Hinderaker, "Hindrocket" of Power Line blogfame] had heard enough. "First it was body armor, then armored vehicles," Hinderaker complained. "Now it's 'immoral' that our soldiers don't have enough sandbags. Am I missing something, or is this ludicrous on its face? I can understand a soldier in Iraq being short of armor. But sand?" He continues: "It is up to soldiers in the field to protect themselves. If they want more sandbags, they should get more sandbags, as Cpl. Bruce apparently did."
OK, I've officially had enough of the self-professed military-lovers of the right wing going on and on about how the Democrats want to decimate our armed forces and Democratic Senator Blah Blah thinks they should have to defend themselves with speeeuut bawwwlls! Here we have a soldier who wanted something as simple as freaking sandbags, and Hinderaker -- all for the purpose of shielding the Bush administration from any blame whatsoever for the Iraq occupation's manifold fuckups -- throws up his hands and says, "You want more sandbags, get 'em yourself." Next time a right-winger accuses me of not respecting the military, I'm not even going to debate him, I'm just going to plant my foot in his balls and say, "Guess you know what it feels like to not have enough body armor -- sucks, don't it?"
Oh, how I wish Ashton Kutcher would kidnap Hinderaker (and Limbaugh, and Hannity, and every freaking writer over at National Review for good measure) and send him to get Punk'd over in Baghdad. Ol' Ash could station Hinderaker on the roof of a Baghdad police station with nothing but an M-16 to protect himself, and when Hinderaker quiveringly asked for some sandbags or body armor, Ashton would shrug and say, "You're on your own, soldier!" Then we'd just sit back and wait for the inevitable dark, spreading stain on the front of Hinderaker's trousers. Punk'd! Punk'd and double-punk'd!!! Has anyone ever been so punk'd?!?
I've already expounded at length on my firm conviction that when conservatives talk about "respect for the military," what they really mean is "having a faithfully devoted hard-on for all manner of expensive and unnecessary military toys," and nothing having much to do with the actual day-to-day lives and well-being of our soldiers. Look, I realize that war is bad and soldiers are going to get killed no matter how much protection you give them, but the expendability with which the right wing views our soldiers is nothing less than outrageously shameful. Particularly when, as with Hinderaker, they're nothing more than white-collar desk-chair-indenters whose biggest contribution to America's freedom and security has been crapping themselves with smug indignation and shrieking "Fake! Fake! FAKE!!!!" every time a memo comes along that makes Republicans look bad.
And just remember, this was Time's "Blog of the Year," kiddies. Yeah, right-wingers rail away at the liberal horrors of the mainstream media with every ounce of energy they have, but when said MSM dumps a huge accolade on a trio of Alex P. Keaton wannabes who can't muster any more concern or respect for our troops than they'd have for the guy swabbing the men's room at Hardee's, they party like it's 1999. Awfully convenient how that works out sometimes.
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