Speaking of Manufactured Outrage (UPDATED)

Seemingly unaware of the previous post, Peter Daou sends me this from his column:

I'm devoting much of today's report to Karl Rove's vile comments denigrating half of the American public. My office overlooks Ground Zero, and I'm looking at the gaping footprint as I write this. My wife and I were in New York that day, on our way to the WTC for a morning meeting. A chance phone call dragged on a few minutes too long and most likely saved our lives. I lost friends in the towers, and when I walk past the site, as I do almost every evening, the pain is as real as it was on September 11th, 2001.

I spent my youth in Beirut during the height of Lebanon's civil war, and I fought the Syrian presence in Lebanon long before the "Cedar Revolution." I watched young boys give their lives and mothers cradle their dying children in blood-soaked arms. I've seen more bloodshed, war, and violence, and shot more guns than most of the 101st Fighting Keyboardists combined. I wouldn't presume to question the strength or dignity of a stranger, and I pity those who blithely push the right=strong, left=weak rhetoric. It says far more about their inadequacies than it does about the target of their scorn. Today, Karl Rove took that rhetoric to a new, filthy low.

(I’ll leave our email exchange private.)

Here are Karl Rove's "vile" remarks.

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers,"

After seeing Michelle Malkin’s links, I know that this is the newest means of 'hitting back,' as if we’re on a playground. Durbin=Rove. Dueling blogswarms. As if Rove’s remarks have the same chance of getting our soldiers killed by our collective enemies as Durbin’s remarks do. I can't wait until they use Rove's words in an Al Jazeera headline! :::rolls eyes:::

Because that was what the Durbin outrage was about, Peter, not about some hurt feelings on the conservatives’ part. Nor was it made-up, as you contended in the Chicago Tribune piece.

When your comrades and your elected officials pull their heads out of their collective rectums, they’ll realize that we’re trying to save their lives too.

Here’s hoping that happens soon. I’ll pray for them. And you.

UPDATE: Blackfive and I are on the same page.

UPDATE: I posted the whole Daou column.

UPDATE: The playground war continues.

New York Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record) said Rove "took something that is virtually sacred to New Yorkers" — the tragedy of the Sept. 11 attacks — "and politicized it for political, opportunistic purposes."

"Karl Rove is not just another political operative," added New York's other Democratic senator,
Hillary Rodham Clinton. "He sits in the White House, a few doors down from the president." [SNIP]

Schumer and Clinton joined the four Democratic senators from Connecticut and New Jersey in a letter to Rove requesting that he immediately retract his comments. "To try to score partisan, political points at the expense of the 3,000 victims and their families was unacceptable and opportunistic," they wrote. [SNIP]

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., went to the Senate floor with Sen. Tim Johnson (news, bio, voting record), D-S.D., whose son served in Iraq. Until America becomes safe, Kerry said, "don't dare question the patriotism of Americans who offer a better direction."

Soldiers get their lives endangered but no one is supposed to say jack. Liberals get their feelings hurt and scream bloody murder.

It's enough to make you a bit cynical.