Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Does Andrew Breitbart Hate America?

After hearing about the controversy over remarks made by, and the forced resignation of, Shirley Sherrod, I looked at the source of this video. I found a story that raised many questions for me, but, ultimately, I think, it speaks for itself.
The story is about an addition to Andrew Breitbart's massive media empire(tm) called Big Peace which is supposed to revolutionize our view of national security. Now, right off, I was suspicious that this was unamerican because, really, what American wants Big Peace (which I assume is a lot of peace)? And certain quotes from the article, that are in no way taken out of context and selected in no way to embarrass the author, I found further troubling claims.
To wit:
Most every problem in the world could somehow be traced back to the U.S.

My goodness, I thought, can Breitbart's site and its author, a Mr. Mike Flynn, blame America for every problem in the world?

And what about their view of St. Ronald Reagan? Describing the 1980s, he writes that people,
were openly worried about a “warmongering” US President who didn’t understand complex foreign policy and might just start a war for kicks.

Apparently, Mike Flynn believes that Reagan was not really popular. He writes,
it is impossible to appreciate the level of hatred and animosity that was directed at the 40th President during those years.

[I]t couldn’t be that the public agreed with Reagan; rather, they were “duped” by his rhetorical skills.

Does Flynn border on libel of America's Most Beloved President(tm)? Finally, he concludes that our new threat is from Islamic Fundamentalism, but it's not as bad as some previous threats.
To be sure, in some respects, the threat isn’t quite as existential as that of the Cold War. Thousands of nuclear warheads aimed at every city in America is an order of magnitude different than an Iran, no matter how bat-shit crazy, with a handful of nukes. But, in other respects, it is far more challenging. Because, not only do we allow this fundamentalism to thrive in the West, we make excuses for it.

At this point, Flynn clearly has gone beyond the pale in besmirching the blessed memory of St. Joseph McCarthy who proved the existence of communists in the US State Department, Hollywood, academia, and the American media. The American Left did not just make excuses for Communism, but actively worked to undermine America. I worry that Flynn and Breitbart's Big Peace might just have lost touch with reality.

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