It wasn't enough for the Left when the "mainstream" media made it a point to include the daily US soldier body count from Iraq in every news report in every medium. It wasn't enough when they unapologetically added the number of those killed in accidents in Iraq -- which, frankly, could have happened almost anywhere -- to those killed in combat, just to inflate the American body count further. It wasn't enough for the Left that, for the last half of 2003, the media talking heads almost gleefully announced a second daily Iraq soldier body count, with the tagline, "since President Bush declared major combat over on May first." Support for the liberation of Iraq from dictator Saddam Hussein remained strong, despite the best efforts of the Left to instill an anti-war attitude into every viewer.
Dissatisfied at the refusal of the unwashed masses to go along with their determination to undermine support for the President and the war in Iraq, the Left began attacking him for not attending the funerals of dead soldiers, despite the fact that such events have been rare occurences in our history. President Johnson, who presided over the Vietnam War around which the Left has based their opposition to all things military since, only attended two military funerals despite the fact that 58,169 service members died. Bill Clinton, beloved of the Left, did not attend any funerals for the military except for the sailors killed in the al-Qaeda attack on the USS Stark. Not even the 18 Army Rangers who died in Mogadishu in 1993 merited a Presidential funeral attendance.
When that didn't drum up the anti-war sentiment the Left wanted, they began attempting to politicise the military itself. Falling back on standard Democrat class warfare tactics, the anti-war Left, led by Charlie Rangel (D-NY), began -- isn't irony incredible? -- actually calling for a draft, claiming that an all-volunteer military was "unfair" to minorities and the poor. As tragic as it was, the recent death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan quickly squashed the Left's claim that people only enter the military due to economic hardship or other disadvantage. Tillman, a rising football star, turned down a $3.6 million contract with the Arizona Cardinals out of sheer patriotism after 9/11, becoming an Army Ranger instead.
Back to the dead, then. The Left has been attacking President Bush for not allowing photos of soldiers' coffins to be taken, implying that he was attempting to hide something. What he might be hiding, no one can say, since the death toll (as I pointed out earlier) has been announced several dozen times daily since the first day of combat in Iraq. The problem with that particular line of attack is that the Pentagon's rule against photographing the coffins of war dead has been in place since 1991, and was not invented by President Bush to keep anything "secret." The Left runs on sheer emotionalism, however, and many believed viewers would "feel" more objectionable towards the war if they could only see some coffins, since merely announcing numbers wasn't causing anti-war sentiment to rise. Finally, the Left got what it wanted -- a photographer broke the long-standing rule and shot several pictures of flag-draped caskets. Unfortunately for the Left, the remains were being treated with all the honor and respect they deserve, instead of being stacked like cordwood or cargo. "I let the parents know their children weren't thrown around like a piece of cargo, that they instead were treated with the utmost respect and dignity," said the woman who was fired for taking the pictures. Guess the Left just can't catch a break. The "coffin photo controversy" was quickly (pardon the pun) buried.
Ted Koppel must be growing impatient with the persistent "failure" of mainstream America to feel the anti-war sentiment the Leftist elites want them to. How can they undermine support for President Bush in the fall election if most Americans stubbornly refuse to personally blame him for each and every American death in Iraq? Well, Ted's got what he thinks is the answer. Tonight's "Nightline" will be almost exclusively devoted to reading the names of every American man and woman killed in Iraq, while pictures of the dead are shown and wistful music, no doubt, tugs at the heartstrings. "Just look at these people. Look at their names. And look at their ages. Consider what they've done for you. Honor them," says Koppel by way of defense, claiming that this is not a political statement. If you believe that, then give me your name. I've got some Florida swamplan... uh, prime real estate to sell you.
If it's simply an honor roll of America's war dead, as Koppel and other Leftists claim, then where are the names of those who have died in Afghanistan?
