RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/01/bernie_compares_soleimani_to_a_russian_dissident.html

One of the things that became very obvious about the Left beginning with 9/11 is that Leftists consider anyone who hates America to be virtuous in some way. It’s irrelevant to them that some America-haters are, within their own countries, people who are legitimately fighting for freedom, while others are actively seeking to impose totalitarianism wherever they can. To a Leftist, America hating is the beginning and the end. Actors’ ideologies and motives are irrelevant.

This world view is how Leftists can come out with statments that are morally blind. Many of us remember that Michael Moore compared the 9/11 killers, who dreamed of a world subordinate to sharia’s brutalities, to America’s Minutemen, who dreamed of a world of small government, individual liberty, and religious freedom. 

We also see this moral blindness Bernie Sanders, one of the Democrat frontrunners. In an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN about Trump’s decision to terminate Soleimani, Bernie Sanders likened Soleimani, with the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hand, to a dissident in a totalitarian country fighting against his or her own repressive government:

. . . but this guy is, you know, was as bad as he was, an official of the Iranian government. And you unleash . . . then, if China does that, you know, if Russia does that. You know, Russia has been implicated under Putin with assassinating dissidents.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/aoc-takes-aim-at-party-leadership-for-tolerating-moderates-democrats-can-be-too-big-of-a-tent/

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) criticized the Democratic party for its tolerance of relative moderates, saying her own party has become “too big of a tent” in an interview published Monday.

“For so long, when I first got in, people were like, ‘Oh, are you going to basically be a tea party of the left?’ And what people don’t realize is that there is a tea party of the left, but it’s on the right edges, the most conservative parts of the Democratic Party,” Ocasio-Cortez told New York Magazine. “So the Democratic Party has a role to play in this problem, and it’s like we’re not allowed to talk about it.”

The freshman lawmaker also lashed out at party leadership for their intolerance of internal criticism, saying “we’re not allowed to talk about anything wrong the Democratic Party does.”

Ocasio-Cortez pointed to the reaction elicited by her 2018 election as proof that Democrats cater too often to conservative interests, and that the party’s progressive shift was helping Democrats learn “to stretch our wings a little bit on the left.”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/buttigiegs-war-and-the-shortest-way-home-11578355312

“Seriously? This failed small town mayor who trades off of essentially non-existent military experience has people who want him to be President?” D.P.S.

When Mayor Pete Buttigieg talks about his military service, his opponents fall silent, the media fall in love, and his political prospects soar. Veterans roll their eyes.

CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Mr. Buttigieg Sunday if President Trump “deserves some credit” for the strike that killed Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani. “No,” the candidate replied, “not until we know whether this was a good decision and how this decision was made.” He questioned whether “it was the right strategic move” and said his own judgment “is informed by the experience of having been on one of those planes headed into a war zone.”

But Mr. Buttigieg’s stint in the Navy isn’t as impressive as he makes it out to be. His 2019 memoir is called “Shortest Way Home,” an apt description of his military service. He entered the military through a little-used shortcut: direct commission in the reserves. The usual route to an officer’s commission includes four years at Annapolis or another military academy or months of intense training at Officer Candidate School. ROTC programs send prospective officers to far-flung summer training programs and require military drills during the academic year. Mr. Buttigieg skipped all that—no obstacle courses, no weapons training, no evaluation of his ability or willingness to lead. Paperwork, a health exam and a background check were all it took to make him a naval officer.

He writes that his reserve service “will always be one of the highlights of my life, but the price of admission was an ongoing flow of administrativia.” That’s not how it’s supposed to work. The paperwork isn’t the price of admission but the start of a long, grueling test.