Barack Obama Didn't Snub the "Troops"

Photo from source, NY Daily News

We've moved from the silly season to the stupid season.

Barack Obama has been on an extremely successful foreign tour, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, France and other places, I'm sure. And the press attention is irritating the conservative punditry and blogosphere. They've been desperate for something they could jump all over, and say "Aha! He hates America!" Or something.

They thought they found it. Obama had planned a visit to injured soldiers--called "troops" by the right. Yesterday, the trip was cancelled, and the Obama campaign explained that they believed the trip would look inappropriate, since he was on a campaign tour. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and the rest were salivating. They revved up their faux outrage, and tried to make it a story.

Today it was revealed that the Pentagon would not allow the campaign to make the stop--Obama could come alone, or nothing. He chose to phone the soldiers instead, and moved on. But that hasn't stopped the insanity. Hannity was still railing about it today, along with sycophant Dick Morris.

The thing is, Hannity, Limbaugh and all the rest are not upset about anything Obama did or didn't do for the "troops." They were delighted when they thought they had something, and they will continue to beat it to death even though it has been refuted. It's faux outrage, folks. And if you feel genuine outrage about it, might I kindly say you're stupid.

[Excerpt]

Army officials refute claim of Barack Obama snub in Afghanistan

The latest chain e-mail smear against Barack Obama: He "blew off" troops at an Afghan base to shoot hoops for a publicity photo.

The letter was apparently written by a Utah Army National Guard intelligence officer in a linguist unit at Bagram Airfield who claimed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was rude to G.I.s.

"As the soldiers where [sic] lined up to shake his hand he blew them off," wrote the Task Force Wasatch "battle captain."

But angry Army brass debunked the Obama-bashing soldier's allegations, which went viral Thursday over the Web and on military blogs such as Blackfive. . .

Read more at: NY Daily News

Note: I don't "hate the troops." I hate the term, "the troops" being over-used. A group of soldiers (or boy scouts or girl scouts, for that matter) are "troops." Individually they are soldiers--though I belive the Air Force members are "airmen," and Marines are. . .uh. . .Marines? I don't know, maybe we need a better word that means all of them, but "troops" ain't it. When I hear a right-wing blow hole talk about "troops" when they are talking about individual people--sometimes calling a single soldier a "troop", it irks me. 'Nuff said.