Paul Hodes thinks he’s on to something, but I’m having a hard time believing him.  His concern seems to be that the White House and the Pentagon has or is recruiting Generals to talk up the success in Iraq, and that this kind of propaganda should not be allowed.  Rep Hodes is concerned that allowing this kind of behavior might mislead the people into thinking things that were not entirely accurate and has passed an amendment to make his point.

From his floor speech

“In a free and democratic society, our government should never use the public airwaves to propagandize our citizens,” Congressman Hodes said in a floor statement. “Congress cannot allow an Administration to manipulate the public with false propaganda on matters of war and our national security.” 

“This amendment will ensure that no money authorized in this act will be used for a propaganda program, and require a report to Congress by both the Defense Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office on whether previous restrictions on propaganda have been violated.  It’s time for the American people to finally know the truth.”

Mr Hodes must never listen to NPR. (ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, CNBC….”C” where I’m going here?)

So none of this should be confused with the gamesmanship of the  Democrats or their echo chambers in the Media—none of which could possibly have “mislead” the American people about the state of the war.  Harry Reid and the Democrats declaring the surge a failure—before, during, and even after it showed remarkable success was not propaganda at all.  Actually it was outright lying.   And as media coverage dwindled with the decrease in American casualties, the only voices to be heard were Democrats calling for immediate withdrawal, crying “The war is lost.”  So what if we were actually winning now.  Lying does not concern Mr. Hodes because he is a Democrat.  Messages about the Iraq war—particularly ones that might lead people to something other than his idea of the truth, shall not be tolerated. 

So now what really concerns me, is that when someone who so clearly has an opposing agenda, steps up to silence any speech which runs contrary to their own, –even under the best of intentions–it starts to smell a lot like tyranny.  And neither Mr Hodes nor his handlers, nor the media, are any friend of the Iraq war and no one is passing bills to shut them up.  That would violate free speech.

So establishing Hodes positions seems relevant here. We have this snippet from Hodes own Web site–

Giving more time for the same strategy is going to yield the same results… We need a new strategy for the war in Iraq that provides a sequence of events to allow our troops to redeploy out, so that the Iraqis will step up 

 

He says the current strategy is going to yield the same results like that’s bad, but the current strategy is working. So winning is bad?  We don’t want to win?  Is that what your selling?  Won’t winning actually accomplish all the goals, including getting the troops home.   Mr. Hodes, does “the sequence of events you envision” even include victory, or does it simply have to pander to the Anti-war left?

Hodes clearly wants us to ignore the precipitous drop in casualties—to a number lower than the monthly murder rate of most major American cities; ignore the very real political progress; ignore the improved deployment of Iraqis battalions, the improved infrastructure , and even ignore the “stepping up” the Iraqis have already done, along with ignoring the increasing stability (that we can’t seem to get the MSM to report–probably because its propaganda) because it is not in line with his preffered “sequence of events?”   Because if there is any question about what Hodes want’s his voting record is quite clear; he wants surrender, retreat, and abandonment, not because he is a principaled representative, but because he has been told to think this way by his Democrat party leaders, who are beholden to special interest.  Money for influence, isn’t that what you are concerned about Mr. Hodes?

All while paying lip service to the troops…

Our brave service members are continuing to shoulder Iraq’s burden..

Mr. Hodes also proudly proclaims that he went to Iraq and that this strengthened his resolve to bring the troops home.  What, bad room service at the Green Zone accomodations? After his visit he concludes that..

..a political solution, not a military one, is the only solution in Iraq.   (His emphases not mine)

..which can only mean that he learned nothing he hadn’t already decided before he went there.  You see congressman the Arabs see retreat as a weakness and a reason to continue their fight.   They have even announced this to us on many occasions.  It has been explained in detail by Bin Laden himself, and now that we are winning, all you can see is more reason to fail?  Why can’t you just admit that you want what Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi want (98% of the time)…failure for George Bush and his war, no matter what the cost to them or us.

Hardcore war opponents outside the Senate believe that President Bush can be tagged with losing the war by any means necessary. Legislatively, they prefer that Congress simply do nothing. They wanted Congress to withhold the supplemental defense appropriations bill earlier this year — which was enacted over their objections — and they want the Senate to abandon the current defense authorization bill.

Major Democrat leaders have made it their mission to embarrass Bush, by porking up War funding, reintroducing retreat schedules, anything they can muster to ensure failure, so that the Democrats can claim a victory—even if it costs millions of lives somewhere down the road.

We have Hodes Voting record, always against straight up funding, always for retreat, always for porking up the bill with non-emergency goodies at taxpayer expense…

So now, on top of all of that, we have the Hodes “amendment” and some ensuing investigation ‘designed’ to stifle speech from the Pentagon that might be misconstrued as propaganda.  It just can’t be a coincidence that the speech he wants to silence comes from one of the few places left in Washington where we might actually hear something from someone who is not interested in retreat and failure.

It might be more of a service to America if you actually evaluated what was said against actual evidence, and then simply made a public statement demonstrating any disconnect between the actual words and the actual facts, rather than starting another witch-hunt.  I challenge you to make the attempt.  If your proof is so compelling, step up to the microphone and denounce the propaganda, word for word, with actual proof, and then let the people decide.  That’s what we do in a democracy. 

Your parlimentary hijinks to stifle speech of any kind is offensive, particularly when it is speech you neither agree with, nor feel inclined to tolerate.  With so much noise coming from your side, with so little coming from any other,  when someone who so clearly has an opposing agenda, steps up to silence any speech which runs contrary to their own, it reeks of tyranny.