Lt. Col. Ralph Peters joined The Kelly File tonight for a Fox News round of hate mongering against Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the recovery effort, the Obama administration and, it would seem, the notion that Bergdahl is innocent of desertion or any other crime until proven guilty. In fact, Peters seemed to think we should skip any official investigation and go straight for shooting, hanging or some kind of sentence of hard labor.

It began with host Megyn Kelly spinning the comments of State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf. Harf insisted to a reporter that opinions and statements by Bergdahl’s squadmates are not proof he deserted and that the State Department is waiting for the results of a full investigation. But Kelly spun that as an “unwillingness to at least give the servicemen who served with Bowe Bergdahl their due.”

Peters replied by suggesting some kind of cover up is going on:

Well Megyn what you just saw and heard was Benghazi 2.0. A political flunky in the State Department insisting that she knows better what happened on the ground than the soldiers in the front line or the people in a firefight.

Actually, that’s not at all what Harf said, as the video had just shown. But Peters went on to claim that Harf had called the soldiers “liars” and Kelly did not correct the falsehood.

Peters’s voice dripped with contempt as he continued:

This is an example of a very deep cultural divide between Team Obama that knows nothing about military and cares less about those who actually serve. …They think that desertion is kind of like skipping class. You know, you’re hung over Monday mornings, you don’t want to get up and go to Gender 101. It is the second gravest sin in the military catechism, right behind turning your weapon on your brother soldiers. I cannot begin to communicate how deeply the military feels about deserters.

And one last point, please. I am sick of hearing people, even on Fox, instant experts, who never served in the military, saying, “Well, we always went after our deserters and our troops and bring ‘em home, even if they’re deserters.

Megyn, throughout much of our history we did go after deserters and when we got them we shot them or hanged them. Or if we were in a good mood, we would brand them with a “D” on their cheeks or forehead. When we became enlightened in the 20^th century, we still shot some, but we always sent them to prison at hard labor. So this is not a minor offense. Desertion is very, very grave and team Obama just doesn’t get it.

As News Hounds’ Priscilla has noted, Fox is deliberately promoting a “Bergdahl is a deserter” meme without regard for any official investigation.

Watch Peters' toss out the notion of "innocent until proven guilty in a court of law" below, via Media Matters.

UPDATE: You may recall that in 2009, when Bergdahl was captured, Peters argued that the Taliban "can save us a lot of legal hassles and legal bills" if they just killed him.