Todd Starnes never served; but he loves a man in uniform - especially those who are being persecuted by the nefarious forces of evil atheism which have now taken over the military and are attacking the Christianity of spirit filled, Jesus loving, homo hating Christian soldiers who are just trying to spread the good word. Last week, Starnes briefly put down his Crispy Cremes to write about how a nice, homo hating, Jesus loving soldier, Nathan Sommers, was disciplined for serving Jesus' own Chick fil-A at a party held in honor of his promotion and DOMA. And now, OMG, he claims that he was ordered to stop reading books by right wing authors including Starnes' pal, Sean Hannity. This "outrage" spread throughout the world of persecuted right wing Christians, so, not surprisingly Jesus' close pals on "The Five" used the opportunity to, once again, promote the bogus war on military Christians, bash Obama, and show their solidarity with good, Christian homophobia in yet another reality challenged Fox propaganda opinion piece.
Last week, the muy macho Eric Bolling, who claimed that the firing of an abusive basketball coach was a sign of the "wussification" of America, asserted that the discipline over the choice of reading material was just another sign of - wait for it - the "wussification of America." Bolling said that he spoke with Sommer's attorney who feels that - wait for it - "PC is taking over the military." Kimberly Guilfoyle felt that it was "disconcerting" and "outrageous" that President Obama (never waste an opportunity for a good Obama bashing) is "stripping" those in the military of "their freedoms." According to Bolling, Sommers' lawyer claimed that this has been happening since Obama "put his people in power in the military."
Andrea Tantaros continued the rant about political correctness with her comment that had it not been for "PC," army psychologist would have reported on Major Nidal Hasan and the massacre might not have happened. She claimed that Sommers is being discriminated against and repeated the tired canard about anti-Christian prejudice being the "last form of discrimination" (Oh, the irony, on a network that disparages Muslims on a regular basis!)
White supremacist supporter Brian Kilmeade advanced patented right wing, Fox "outrage" in his comment about how this is "outrageous" that the soldiers was being punished for reading great, conservative tomes. Bolling described it as "tyrannical." After Juan Williams mentioned the inflammatory nature of the books and the need for unit cohesion, Guilfoyle then made the inflammatory and totally unconnected claim that they would fight for his right to read the Koran. After alluding to inappropriate tweets sent by the soldier, Andrea Tantaros pontificated that in an effort to be tolerant "we end up being intolerant towards others."
There was no mention, on The Five, of the Chick fil-A promotion party about which Sommers proudly tweeted. Poor Sommers was told by an openly gay superior that other soldiers were offended by his tweets. The inappropriate tweet, mentioned by Tantaros, was this: “Lordy, Lordy, it’s faggot Tuesday. The lefty loons and Obamabots are out in full force."
They didn't mention Sommers bumper stickers such as these: "Political Dissent is NOT Racism,” “NOBAMA”. Sommers' The Five defenders are either unaware of or are willfully ignoring military rules which state that "public disparagement of anyone up the chain of command, the Commander-in-Chief in the White House obviously included, is conduct unbecoming a wearer of the uniform." According to a veteran and former military education instructor, the uniform code of military justice has its own standards which are different from the civilian world.
Starnes has recently reported that the military states that Sommers wasn't and isn't “facing retribution and punishment from the military for having anti-Obama bumper stickers on his car, reading books written by conservative authors like Mark Levin and David Limbaugh, and serving Chick-fil-A sandwiches at his promotion party" - a claim being disputed by Sommers' lawyer. In the same article, Starnes writes about Sommers alleged witnessing of gays misbehaving.
But given that Fox News is the go-to place for those who believe that they are being persecuted for their conservative and Christian beliefs, it's no surprise that Fox would embrace Sommers who says that "“It seems like with the repeal of 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell' that the Christians have been the ones who’ve had to go underground and in the closet for fear of retaliation and reprisals. Christians feel like they can’t be forthright with their faith." Sommers' belief, that gay soldiers are “attempting to dig up any negative information they could in order to silence me or ruin my career," plays nicely into the Fox/right wing fear of the "gay agenda." (Of course Sommers just got a promotion but whatever...) It's just not God who "hates fags." It appears that Fox News does too!
I wonder how the Five would’ve reacted if a soldier had publicly decried Dubya as a “cokehead” or made jokes about all of Jeff Gannon’s “visits” to the Dubya White House (where he’d check in but didn’t check out) or posted a blog about how “embarrassing” it was to see Dubya in the flight suit after forcing the ship to turn BACK out to sea so he could pull that stunt? Somehow, I’d bet the Five would be calling for that hypothetical soldier’s head on a platter and that he should face a court-martial for his “public disparagement of the Commander-in-Chief.”
Oh, wait a minute. While the Five didn’t necessarily do anything, I DO seem to recall a case of a white soldier, serving in the Clinton era, who made a big stink out of refusing to follow orders (something about a NATO mission or a UN peacekeeper force—I don’t recall the details at this time*) and the usual right-wing suspects were touting the guy as a “hero” for “standing up to illegal orders.” Again. It seems the CONS only appreciate illegal orders being followed and illegal actions being taken when it’s THEIR guys giving them and THEIR guys following the orders or taking the actions. (It may be a bit wrong to say but I almost wish some white soldier would be caught shooting at his fellow troops on a US military base and, during the ensuing investigation, it turns out the guy had all sorts of white supremacist and right-wing conservative teabagger propaganda among his personal effects. Somehow I doubt the Five or anyone at FoxNoise would be giving the story any coverage; at least, not until Alex Jones could devise a conspiracy theory that “proved” the guy was actually innocent and that all the evidence had been planted—even the guy’s internet footprints had been completely faked and the guy didn’t know how to turn on a computer. Even though there’s almost zero chance a modern soldier would be THAT computer illiterate, you can be sure the FoxNoise folkkks would lap it up and make sure that the “truth” got out.)
*I really don’t feel like hitting the Google to check on the details.