The current issue of Harper's has an outstanding piece by Kevin Baker on this "stabbed in the back" narrative....which is an old ploy by the right.  

Not available online, but well worth anyone's time.

First, more correspondents got blown up last week, and this time a couple died. So the media is tired of taking casualties reporting the "good news" while criticized for "ignoring the good news." The press gets killed, and the right whines?  There is a point where the press will go for payback.

Secondly, there are probably a lot of people in the military looking at Haditha as the "million dollar wound" that gets you rotated back home. Like having your 3 least favorite fingers shot off. So I would expect a lot of folks in the Army are ready to air all the dirty laundry to expedite withdrawl.

that there's not even one chickenhawk that finds this whole event disgusting?

As I sit and let my thoughts on these rantings you provided percolate, I just wanted to highlight this particular passage from Hahn, and all its dangerous implications:

"This condition is extremely dangerous in a self-governing country, for the public cannot make informed decisions if it is not so much informed as manipulated by political partisans."

Ooooooohhhhhhhhh.....do you see what I see here?  That sentence appalls me.  It frightens me.  That sentence is, at its core, a call for state control of the media.  "...public cannot make informed decisions...political partisans."  
Who, then (in the mind of Hahn), is capable of providing information to the public that is not manipulated by political partisans?  Why, the only prudent choice is...the Government!

The right wing scares me.  A lot.  

how about a new narrative that calls out the bush administration for omitting a Geneva prohibitions against "humiliating and degrading treatment" from the new Army Field Manual on interrogation.

after all, we've seen what happens when these types of practices are used: only the enlisted men get put away, while all the rumsfeld-apologist officers claim ignorance and call these soldiers 'bad apples.'  there may indeed be backstabbing going on, but lets be honest about who's doing it.

and Hillary and DiFi and John and how many Democrats who voted to authorize dip wad to use force against Saddam?

The tragedy is that the readers of that tripe accept it as fact, without availing themselves of the facts, echo chamber indeed.

And so how can you argue or reason with them, especially when the g-d media continues to kiss their ignorant asses?

When we regain control of this government, I hope Gitmo is still available, because these children are going to need some serious educatin'

Nobody mastered the art of blaming "stabbers in the back" better than the Nazis in the early 1920s. They created the whole concept and perfected. Right-wingers across the globe have looked to the early Nazis for guidance on how to blame war critics for a lost war.

As a long time observer of right wing irrationality, one thing I have observed is a curious tendency to saddle Democrats and liberals with their own failings.  This article is such a great example of that behavior, that I could not resist commenting on it.  This makes for a rather long post, for which I hope I will be forgiven.

"By now Americans should be used to this. Since the 1970's, Democrats -- both elected officials and 'journalists' -- have been loudly opposed to any use of military force during Republican administrations."

Not only is this not true about Democrats, who largely supported the first Iraq war and the invasion of Afghanistan, but it is true of Republicans, who, for example, fought every attempt by President Clinton to go after Al Quaeda.

"They have been more than willing to lie outrageously to discredit the country's elected leadership and the military."

And when exactly did this happen?  No examples, of course.  On the other hand, does anyone remember Whitewater, Vince Foster, Wag the Dog, the endless smears against Al Gore, the Swift Boaters- well, you could go on and on.

"They have repeatedly disclosed the country's military secrets in the press."

Again, when was this?  Unless you count information about Republican corruption and wrongdoing to be military secrets, that is.  On the other hand, we do have the current Republican administration destroying a major intelligence gathering operation concerning Iranian WMD's, to punish someone who dared to speak the truth about Bush, and outing a major covert agent in Al Quaeda to score electoral points.

"It is difficult to know why they do this. Some of it is undoubtedly simple political partisanship -- a desire to see a Republican president discredited,"

These would be the same Democrats who gave a free ride to Ronald Reagan, a man who in retrospect can be seen as nothing but a corporate shill, or the Democrats who will not even support a vote of censure against the war criminal Bush.  On the other hand, I suppose Republicans never tried dishonestly to discredit, say, Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton or Al Gore or John Kerry.

"Some of this behavior may stem from a deep-seated self-loathing -- a belief that the United States is fundamentally evil and corrupt"

The guiding article of faith of the Christian Right, I would have thought.

"However, in the United States, there exists a substantial cadre of far-left partisans who cloak their advocacy as "journalism." Such people are sufficiently numerous in the companies that provide the public's news that they severely restrict the ability of voters to receive information about military affairs that has not been processed and filtered by far-left partisans wearing reporter masks."

Fox News.  Need I say more?  I could, if you'd like.

"The process of correcting the political imbalance in the institutions of mass communication has begun, but it is not so far along that the public could not today be stampeded into adopting far-left policies by the partisans who still control much of what the public is told about events."

Of course, the Republicans would never use the press to stampede Americans into, say, supporting an illegal war, or sacrificing their retirement income to pay for tax cuts for the rich, or approving giveaways to the world's richest corporations or approving torture or anything like that....

Goebbels (sorry about the Nazi injection here) is said to have perfected the technique of accusing his enemies of every evil deed he was about to commit, on the theory that, when they attacked him the entire thing would be reduced to a sort of "he said-she said" argument in which neither side seemed to have the high ground.  Is this the motivation for the above kind of Republican duplicity, or does it stem from something much deeper and less rational?  I have observed this kind of behavior since Nixon's time, and I am afraid I still don't have the answer.

It's just who they are.  

Great post.  It is exactly because it's who they are that I don't get too worked up when I see the dolchstoßlegende heating up.  Paperwhite and others have predicted it and chronicled it for months.  

Here's what gets me worked up: Where is the Dem leadership on this?  Why are they allowing this kind of eliminationist rhetoric to continue?  Why are the people who have the power to make their outrage public silent?  It's because they're still laboring under the misapprehension that some kind of comity exists between the parties.  It's the same kind of denial (thriving throughout America and blogtopia) that is allowing election after election to be stolen and the mechanisms behind that process to be further entrenched.

Powerful people of good will in both parties walk around thinking that it can't happen here.  Powerful people not of good will know that it has been happening since 2000.

This strategy essentially says this:

Republicans, even when in charge of every part of government, are not able to govern.

Since the 1970's, Democrats -- both elected officials and 'journalists' -- have been loudly opposed to any use of military force during Republican administrations.

Pot, meet kettle.

How quickly Republicans forget their "Wag the Dog" accusations against Clinton and their bellowing against intervening in Kosovo and complaining that Clinton had no exit plan.

We're allied with Iraq, not at war with Iraq.  We're AT war with the terrorists.

They could have taken this line of attack straight from Herman Goering's playbook:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

Reading the comments I posted on the RedState thread, and the response I got.  I am Liberal Chris over there.  Particularly amusing is Moe Lane's threat to "take this to the next level."  What is this guy nine years old?

http://www.redstate.com/story/2006/6/4/1 2723/54687

After all, he called them pseudo-fascists [PDF].

Yes, Rush, a gang bang.  A giant gang bang.  Don't you love it?  I can tell you do.  I hear that throaty verve in your voice.

What are you going to do when you're old, and the drugs won't let you get it up anymore?

Send them to war, Rush, send them to War.

Imagine the power to seduce those warm, tender youngmen into imagining the joy they will have pointing their strong young gunbarrels at the steamy, dark flesh of erotiraqis.  

Youngmen, go over to massage the darkflesh iraqis with the discharge from your hard, strong tools.  Pile up the corpses, pile them up in their blood and juices, in steamy supple piles of manly food. Watch them fall, falling at your feet, their tenderlips twitching in fervent supplication before your manrod.  Will they kiss it?  Haha, just try and watch how I explode in your face.  Let me scatter the room with your braincum, as you fall back in awe of my surges of patriotic gore.

Now, youngman, fall on those piles of corpses.  Embrase the warm, pliant meat.  Thrust yourself   into the fleshly feast.  Bury your face in their excresence, paint your face with their blood, cover your uniform with tokens of their remains--fingers, ears, cocks.  Now you are a man, now you are truly the fulfillment of the true male's eternal role, to feed, to feed your people,  and not be fed upon. Come home with your honors enwrapping you, and we will enrap you with the supreme token of your accomplished youngmanhood, the flag of your tribe.

Your elders approve.  Another generation of providers and procreators.

Hail to the Chief.    

Who the heck are the "far left" partisans Hahn keeps referring to?  What makes them "far left" besides daring to criticize dear leader?  I've heard O'Lielly using this phrase a lot lately too.  I guess "liberal" has lost its flavor; now it's the new and improved, extra-liberal "far left" that's the new boogyman.

Why does Limbaugh talk about gang rape like it's a bad thing?

This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation. We're going to really hammer the American left and the drive-by Media because they had a good time? You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?

...for my posts in the aforementioned thread.  (I am/was RTFirefly there.)

They seem to have a hard time dealing with other points of view.

There is a point where the press will go for payback.

Ha ha ha ha ha, hilarious. However, on the planet I live on, the press has proved itself capable of swallowing enough sh*t to drown Manhattan and still come back tugging its forelock and begging for more.