The Omaha World-Herald has done it again. In a "Furthermore" editorial this past week, the Editor chastised Barack Obama for his response to Dubya's speech in the Israeli Knesset wherein the President equated negotiating with hostile entities to appeasement.
The Editor reasoned that it's unseemly to let domestic political disputes play out on the world stage. The traditional American axiom is "politics stops at the water's edge," though the Editor didn't say that so concisely.
By the Editor's own reasoning, the blame really should be laid at the feet of the President. After all, he's the one whose overseas revelation of his utter incomprehension of history started the verbal brouhaha in the first place.
But the World-Herald will never pass up the opportunity to take a swipe at someone with whose politics it disagrees, the facts and truth be damned.
What distresses me the most about the President's reliance on straw man logic and the World-Herald's support of same is that so many people accept it without question. These are the same people who, during the Vietnam War, quoted "America--love it or leave it" without realizing that the quote in its entirety required patriots to work to change America when America's policies were wrong. Intelligently questioning the actions of those in power is the essence of patriotism, and should be done as rigorously to those with whom we agree as much as to those with whom we disagree.
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