Chickenhawk Beck Shows Off His Military Know-How As He Obsesses About Possible War Tax On The Wealthy
Reported by Ellen - November 25, 2009 -
Chickenhawk Glenn Beck seethed yesterday (11/24/09) over President Obama’s care and caution over sending more troops into war. Not only was Obama too slow, for Beck's taste, to put more troops in harm’s way, Beck accused Obama of using the troops to play the “redistribution of wealth game with war.” How? Well, it seems that Democrats are considering a war tax on the wealthy. Beck made a big show of support for our troops – after all, this is the man who loves his country so much he’d cry for it – and while his voice caught once or twice just thinking about how much he loves our troops, Beck also made it clear that didn't mean he wanted to pay anything extra. Then, just to show how down he is with our men and women in uniform, he attacked 37-year Marine Corps vet John Murtha for a comment he made about them in 2006. With video.
“86 days on giving our troops some help,” Beck spat about President Obama. Repeating a theme you hear almost every hour on Fox, Beck complained that Obama was not listening to his general “that Barack Obama, himself, selected.” I’m sure that Beck must have overruled one of his employees that he, himself, selected at some point, just as I’m sure that if Obama did go along with his general on a decision Beck didn’t like, that he’d blame Obama as “Commander-in-Chief” and saying that the buck stopped with him.
“I’m not a military man,” Beck said, despite spending most of his nearly 20-minute monologue issuing orders about how to run the war and second-guessing the Commander-in-Chief. For Beck, sending more troops into harm’s way just can’t come quickly enough. Only in Beck’s world (or Sean Hannity’s or the other Fox News chickenhawks’) would rushing troops pell-mell into war be presented as prudent and deliberate care denigrated as reckless.
But while military escalation may be a no-brainer to Beck, paying for it is another story. Before long, he was shouting about the possibility of Democrats levying “a war tax on the wealthy. Oh, the chickenhawk sounded so sincere as he shouted that troops, not health care, should be our country’s first priority. He pontificated, “Hey… what other things might be a bigger priority than making sure that those who you have asked to fight and die in our name are given every imaginable resource to keep them alive and well?... Progressivism has finally now reached our troops as they are now being used as a tool for the redistribution of wealth in the form of a war tax on the rich."
Instead, Beck was using our troops as a tool for hate mongering for profit and tax avoidance.
“Does the bagger at Ralph’s grocery store… not enjoy the same security and freedom as the rich do? Are the poor farmers exempt from their patriotic duty… paying taxes? Did only the rich die on 9/11? Are there poorer airports that we don’t need to protect? If there is one thing that the universe should qualify as a shared sacrifice, I believe it would be war,” troop-loving Beck said.
In other words, there’s little Beck would not do for our troops – except serve with them and pony up any extra funds for them.
Beck admonished liberals, “You are not sharing sacrifice already if you are a uber liberal… You’ve kicked (the ROTC) out of San Francisco. What sacrifice are you willing to share? Shave your armpits, sign up for a tour of duty and share the sacrifice!”
When Beck spoke of sharing the sacrifice, he seemed to mean that he’d share in the sacrifice of other people doing the serving – that, and sacrificing his money. He said, “Some of us have family members currently serving in very dangerous parts of the world. Have you ever even heard of shared sacrifice? …Washington only seems concerned with sharing the wealth, not the sacrifice.”
“(Democrats’) domestic agenda is much more important than the people fightin’ and dyin’ overseas,” Beck said. “Where are our priorities? How can the president sit around and twiddle his thumbs… and takes a semester to make a decision on our troops that are currently risking their lives.”
Then Beck dropped this little line that hinted at his contempt for poor people and minorities: “I don’t see Americans dying in the streets as they’re waiting in lines at the hospital because they’ve been shot in Detroit. They get into a hospital.”
Beck continued, “You know where I do see them dying? Afghanistan. I saw four American soldiers who died in a bombing in Kabul this week. I saw 59 soldiers who died last month…” Beck went on and listed other soldiers “he saw” die. But what he really meant is that he saw it on the news. Because Beck has been on a book tour and, as far as I can tell, has never visited Afghanistan or any other war zone.
“Nobody died because they didn’t have health care,” Beck said.
Actually, a 2002 study indicated that 18,000 Americans die a year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care. That’s 49.3 a day. But standing up for those people isn’t quite so telegenic and, of course, it might cost Beck some more money.
“I made a promise to myself before we went to war, right after September 11th. I made it on the air. Either we fight to win or we get our men and women the hell out of wherever we are,” Beck said, apparently confusing himself with someone with a real command. “… I will continue to fight to give them every bit of help our men and women of our military deserve… (Our troops) deserve the very best,”
Yes, the very best so long as it doesn’t cost Beck too much.
“We’ve seen in America presidents try to micromanage wars before,” Commander Beck cautioned. “Mr. President, send them in with guns ablazing or send them home.”
Next, Beck offered his insights into what our troops need. “Our troops need their president to lead. They need to know that America has their back. They need hope. They need change… It doesn’t help when your Commander-in-Chief is more worried about what caused the actions of the Fort Hood dirtbag terrorist, rather than calling him what he is, a terrorist.”
Then in a brilliant melding of all his self-interests, Beck added, “It also doesn’t help that our soldiers see Washington using them as just another way to tax the rich and give to the poor.”
Beck leaned into the camera. With his sincere face and his heartfelt voice he let us know he's an important figure in this war. “I have family in the military,” he said. “I’ve had to promise my sisters, their mothers, that the government would never, ever put them in harm’s way without a) a very good reason and without backing them all the way.”
Beck’s voice caught, as though he were tearing up, as he said, “I can no longer make that promise with this administration.”
Then, having displayed his fantasy bona fides, Beck went on to attack a real military veteran, John Murtha, who served 37 years in the Marine Corps. “We also have a member of Congress, John Murtha… one of the most corrupt members of Congress… He accused the marines of cold-blooded murder in Iraq. Do you remember that?”
Yes, I do remember that and that’s quite a distortion of Murtha’s meaning. As I posted when chickenhawk Sean Hannity made the same distortion, Murtha was discussing a Pentagon report on an incident in Haditha, Iraq, about which he said, “Our troops overreacted because of the pressure on them and they killed innocent civilians in cold blood.” Murtha was making a point about the tragic consequences of the toll of war on our soldiers, not smearing them.
“The Marines were cleared. John Murtha, what did he do? He didn’t even apologize,” Armchair General Beck harangued. “Until people like John Murtha are fired from Congress… I cannot in good conscience encourage my nephew to re-enlist.”
You can send Beck your comments about his military insights at [email protected].
