PJ Video: YearlyKos Military Panel Meltdown
Sat, Aug 4, 2007 at 11:49:11 am PDT
Pajamas Media has video by Andrew Marcus from YearlyKos, showing the full confrontation we reported yesterday, and more—interviews with both the soldier and moderator John Soltz: Pajamas Media: Soldier Censored at Kos Convention.
UPDATE at 8/4/07 12:27:01 pm:
The front page posters at Daily Kos are all doing their best to completely ignore this, but since it’s on Drudge Report now, that’s going to be a bit difficult.
First diary post I’ve found on the incident: Daily Kos: What happened to this soldier?!?!?
(UPDATE: The diary linked above has been deleted.)
UPDATE at 8/4/07 1:43:41 pm:
I’m sure he regrets writing about it yesterday; today Ezra Klein lashes out at bloggers covering the story: TAPPED Archive | The American Prospect.
SUPPORTING THE TROOPS. It’s fascinating to watch how gleefully the Right has picked up on my retelling of yesterday’s shouting match between a uniformed soldier and Jon Soltz, the head of Vote Vets. To be sure, I found the exchange disturbing — that’s why I wrote about it. But then, I didn’t spend the last few weeks not only shouting down, but harassing, intimidating, investigating, slurring, discrediting, and attacking a soldier currently stationed in Iraq because he wrote a New Republic column I didn’t like.
SO let’s be clear here: No one at the Kos panel searched out the questioner’s wedding registry, no one at the Kos panel dug up his old poetry to embarrass him, no one at the Kos panel speculated on what a terrible soldier he is and how much he must have slowed his unit down, no one at the Kos panel unearthed his MySpace page, no one at the Kos panel said “he’d better watch his ass.”
And yet, merely a week after the Right did all that to Private Beauchamp — whose story has been proven true in virtually all respects, with the singular error misremembering the location of one of the stories — they have the audacity to accuse members of YearlyKos of proving insufficiently supportive of the troops. And they’re doing so over an argument that was not between a room of people, or a conference of people, and a soldier, but between — and limited to — two soldiers.
Remarkable.
—Ezra Klein
On the Scott Beauchamp incident, perhaps Ezra Klein isn’t aware that the Public Affairs Officer for Gen. Petraeus has stated:
An investigation of the allegations were conducted by the command and found to be false. In fact, members of Thomas’ platoon and company were all interviewed and no one could substantiate his claims.
Or maybe he is aware, and just figured he could get away with ignoring it. Or maybe he’s just brimming over with so much respect for the military that he doesn’t believe it.
On the matter of “gleefulness,” I feel no glee about this. On the contrary, I think what happened at that panel discussion was a disgrace, and if you read what I’ve written you won’t find a whole lot of “glee” in it.
It’s a standard “progressive” tactic when trying to divert attention from a potentially serious problem: ascribe the worst kinds of motives and emotions to those who pointed it out.
