Moderate, but reliably lefty

Joe The Moderate Voice Gandelman:

It’s so touching to read this and see on this video how appreciative a Republican Congressman was for a member of the military who did his duty in protecting the politician’s security and LIFE. (I’ll just bet he has a “SUPPORT THE TROOPS” bumper sticker on his car…)

Be grateful to see your tax dollars at work. (Not in the case of the politico. In the case of the young, diligent U.S. soldier.)

UPDATE: It turns out that the soldier was a contracted security guard.

But that makes NO difference…

Really? Let us count the ways in which it makes a difference:

1. If it didn’t make any difference, why have your post slug read its-so-nice-to-see-how-a-politician-respects-our-troops? The “Our Troops” part would seem to emphasize that the individual in question was, in fact, a U.S. Soldier.

2. “…how appreciative a Republican Congressman was for a member of the military” Hmmm, seems to me the Republican (name that party!) Congressman’s appreciation for members of our military can’t be divined from this incident, right?

3. “(I’ll just bet he has a “SUPPORT THE TROOPS” bumper sticker on his car…)” Ah, the first thrust of the “He doesn’t support the troops! But Republicans say we should support the troops! He’s a hypocrite!” attack. Delicious.

4. “Be grateful to see your tax dollars at work. (Not in the case of the politico. In the case of the young, diligent U.S. soldier.)” I’d submit that the uproar over this incident would be far, far more justified if the individual in question had in fact been a “young, diligent U.S. Soldier”. Especially when the thrust of your post is to lambaste a Republican for Not Supporting the Troops, which is really what this one is all about.

5. “UPDATE: It turns out that the soldier was a contracted security guard.” He can be both? A soldier AND a contracted security guard? Gotta throw that “soldier” in there one more time, even in the update, eh?

So to recap, yes, Congressman McHenry is a wonderful specimen of Politicanus Idiotus Arrogancius, but he’s hardly guilty of Not Supporting the Troops. Joe just joined company, yet again, with ThinkProgress, Oliver Willis, Jane Hamsher, AmericaBlog, and Atrios. Moderate sites, those.

Let’s see what Joe had to say about Congressman Murtha referring to U.S. Marines as “Cold-blooded murderers”:

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And here’s what Joe had to say about Markos Moulitsas’ feelings (”Screw Them“) about contractors murdered in Iraq:

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Yeah. Seems The Moderate Voice’s outrage is rather selective. As Maguire says, moderate, but reliably lefty.

Update: OK, Then: “ThinkProgress has now updated its post to note their apparent error regarding the security guard. But there is still no acknowledgement that the video they have posted was selectively edited to remove the self-deprecating context. BTW, for those not clicking the links, Amanda’s two sources for this story were: (1) McHenry’s opponent; and (2) a website quoting the press release from McHenry’s opponent.”

Update II: McHenry apologizes:

A North Carolina congressman has apologized for calling a contract employee in Baghdad a “two-bit security guard.”

Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., used that term when talking about a visit to Iraq where he was denied access to a gymnasium. “It was a poor choice of words to describe a foreign contractor,” McHenry said in a statement.

Murtha and Moulitsas, on the other hand, have not and will not apologize for their statements. The moral of the story here, which shouldn’t have to be outlined to a veteran journalist like The Moderate Voice, is that if you’re going to run with content from lefty blogs, you might want to verify it first.

Final Update: Doc Weasel has thoughts as well.

Links: Linked by Protein Wisdom, Kingdom of Idiots, and Hog On Ice — Thanks, guys.