Dum Pendebat Filius

Is it still possible to tell a troll from a sincere comment, parody from reality? Is there anything so insane that some wingnut won’t go ahead and say it? Maybe, but you be the judge on this one.

Have a look at this post from The Poor Man. Was that comment for real? Could somebody actually have written something like that, and meant it? I’d like to say Of course not, no way, that’s just too out there, but the right-wingers are so extremely upset with Cindy Sheehan that they’ll say just about anything. The fact that one can’t be sure that that comment was a parody is genuinely creepy.

Why? What are they getting out of it?

Digby thinks it might be the harbinger of Talking Points Yet To Come:

I’ve been thinking for a while that we might be seeing the beginning of a new trend in American politics — the anti-military right. Rush is calling marines “pukes,” veterans are being called cowards and fakers, disabled vets are mocked for not having the right wounds or getting them in the right way, GOP hags are wearing cute little “purple heart” bandaids on their cheeks. People are selling busts of the president using his lack of combat experience as a selling point saying outright that physical courage is no longer particularly worthy of conservative approbation. Being a veteran buys you no credibility and no respect in today’s Real Murika.

This is how they transform Chickenhawkery into a badge of courage.

In the right-wing world, military service counts for nothing toward the reckoning of one’s personal merits, unless one holds the correct political views (i.e. unfailing lip service to, or a worldview even farther to the right than that of, the Bush administration), in which case one’s military service is laudable and redounds to one’s credit. Disapproval of the Iraq war is “cowardice” and “treason,” full stop, military experience notwithstanding. Even combat veterans of the current war can be smeared and attacked without compunction if they stray in public from wingnut orthodoxy, as the recent special election in Ohio showed us. To wish an end to the senseless killing is the ultimate sin, and a badge of cowardice; to lead cheers for the killing is “brave” and “heroic.”