Conservative elitist turned liberal elitist Arianna Huffington writes a
truly offensive "My compassion is bigger and better than your compassion" column for The Huffington Post, in which she takes new WH press secretary Tony Snow to task for not grieving showily enough over military deaths in Iraq, and by extension knocks Fox News for the same apparent violation.
Some lowlights:
....[Snow's] reaction to the U.S. death toll in Iraq hitting 2,500 was "It's a number."
His response to the kidnapping of Pfc. Kristian Manchaca and Pfc. Thomas Tucker was to grumble about the media "focusing on them" instead of the fact "that since Zarqawi was killed, hundreds of bad guys have been rounded up."
...It's becoming clearer by the day: you can take the man out of Fox News, but you can't take the Fox News out of the man....
...First, to help him remember that 2,500 dead is not just a number, he should stop by the summer-long vigil Military Families Speak Out will be holding outside the Cannon House Office Building in D.C. Starting Thursday, the Families will be displaying pairs of boots for every U.S. soldier killed since last Thursday, when Congress voted to "stay the course" in Iraq (the Families will also display pairs of shoes to represent the Iraqis who have died since then).
Then to help him put the focus being given to the kidnapped American soldier in perspective, he can make two phone calls: one to Daniel Pearl's widow, Mariane, and one to Nick Berg's dad. In between, he can pick up John McCain's book, Faith of My Fathers, and read over the parts about McCain's tenure as a POW.
Finally, I'll do my part by giving Snow a special preview of some scenes from John Cusack's latest film, Grace Is Gone -- a deeply personal look at a family man whose soldier wife is killed in Iraq. I know Tony is busy, so maybe I'll just send him the scene where Cusack's character, Stanley, a former soldier, tells his daughters that their mother won't be coming home. ...Oh, she'll do her part, huh? She'll reach deep into her lefty movie star buddy connections and host a fictional screening of fictional grief so we'll appreciate her deeply fictional understanding of the sacrifices made in war? Somebody get me a barf bag--when Hollywood elitists become caricatures of their already cartoonish selves, it'll turn your stomach like nothing else.
Earth to Arianna: your real beef is showing, and it's not your supposed indignation about, and your supposed limitless depth of concern for, the deaths of American servicemen and women. No, your real problem is that you don't like Republicans, so you don't like Tony Snow, and that like any good elitist, you don't think much of spinless free speech either, so you don't like Fox News. Now, it's a free country, thanks to those who've died for it, so you're at liberty to write any revolting piece of claptrap about how your grief is better than anyone else's grief over the most ultimate of sacrifices, dying for one's country.
But if you have any interest in remaining a pundit that people take semi-seriously on occasion, and if you have any interest in evolving as a human being, do yourself and the rest of the country a favor. Quit appropriating grief that you couldn't possibly understand, unless you've personally experienced it, for political purposes and to score personal points against news organizations that have the guts to objectively report the news, not mold the news to the tastes of the ruling elite, of which you are, indisputably, the empress. And really, unless you have a spouse or a child in Iraq we don't know about, you've really stepped in it this time. You hate Fox News, free country. You think Tony Snow's a heartless expletive deleted, free country. But don't you dare use grief you could never possibly fathom as a tool to buff your absolutely fabulous cocktail-party media-elite chit-chat, anti-Bush, anti-FNC bona fides to a high gloss. It truly makes me sick and I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one.
