Springsteen meets Romney, both lose!

        A popular Far Rightist  (FR) chain e-mail making the rounds these days is built around what seems to be the current model for  backhanding President Obama  by impugning his patriotism.

It goes like this: the e-mail shows impeccably maintained and impressive US military cemeteries in several European nations with a heading "Our European Arrogance" in alphabetical order and then, after scrolling all the photos ends  with:

                            "Apologize to no one.

Remind those of our sacrifice and don't confuse arrogance with leadership. The count is 104,366 dead, brave Americans.

And we have to watch an American elected leader who

Apologizes to Europe and the  Middle East that our country is "arrogant"!

HOW MANY FRENCH, DUTCH, ITALIANS, BELGIANS AND BRITS ARE BURIED ON OUR SOIL... AFTER DEFENDING US AGAINST OUR ENEMIES? 

 WE DON'T ASK FOR PRAISE...BUT WE HAVE ABSOULUTELY (sic) NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE! " (ed note: using all caps shows that not only are you politically illiterate, but also syntactically challenged)

 Americans, forward it! Non-patriotic, delete it!

Most of the protected don't understand it.

DO THINK ABOUT THIS.  THANK YOU.  " 

     Well, I thought about it and.....As usual, this demonstrates absolutely no sense of proportion or history. Let's begin with the French soldiers who died in the American War for Independence. Unlike American  soldiers in Europe, who were actually entering WWII because Germany declared war on the US immediately after Pearl Harbor, , French troops from 1776-1783 bled and died in a war that had little consequence for them. In fact, it was Rochambeau's French army and Comte de Grasse's French Fleet which was primarily  responsible for Cornwallis' defeat at Yorktown.

     In total, The casualties resulting from French land and naval actions after France signed the treaty of alliance with the United States in 1778 amounted to  well over 7,000 dead and over 8,000 wounded in battle or permanently incapacitated by illness. Where is the French military cemetery in America?  How do we in America honor the sacrifice of the estimated 7000 dead French soldiers and unknown number of French seaman of the war?  In fact, comparing  all American ETO casualties in WWII with  French casualties during the American Revolution as percentages of the populations of the countries at the time, 3.4 times as many French died defending our attempts at freedom  as Americans died in all of Europe!   There is no military cemetery in America commemorating any of this.   Don't waste time looking.

      Of course, when France (today) disagrees with foreign policy as dictated by the USA, we call them arrogant, we rename fried potatoes Freedom Fries, etc. We do this all in the name of some  sort of  hyper  patriotism, usually most vociferously thrust in our face by those who have served little if at all. Ted Nugent, admitted draft dodger,  would understand perfectly, so would Dick Cheyney and Karl Rove,  but it truly troubles me that many who forward this mental junk mail just don't see through the sham.

     Of course the French are arrogant and touchy, so would anyone  be who is constantly reminded of a "debt" which they cannot repay. The United States, on the other hand, has been equally or more arrogant in expecting all of Europe and some of the Middle East  to slave their foreign policies to ours in pursuance of our goals, not necessarily theirs.  We have, for almost 70 years, used some their soils as forward bases, initially as a bulwark against Communism, dead now of  its own economic inadequacy, and now as, I suppose, one of the perks of  being the superpower that we are. 

     There has been sufficient snotty chauvinism and xenophobic rhetoric on both sides. The difference seems to be that we in America glory in remembering and reminding Europeans about the events of 70 years ago while most Europeans, on whose soil WWII was fought and on whose war torn soil more than 25 million civilians died , have striven to forget it and move on.  It seems to me that the more the world situation deteriorates  with terrorism and its accompanying  uncertainties, the more we invoke our inner Springsteen and revert to singing of  "Glory Days."  Today's political hacks and sycophants seem almost to be  desperately clinging to the image of, as Tom Brokaw aptly dubbed it, "The Greatest Generation," whose exploits are not reproducible in the modern world.  

     In this angst ridden, pseudo-patriotic fog "filled with sound and fury, and signifying nothing" (thanks, Shakespeare),  of course the FR (remember them?) target the sitting President, and truth told, if he apologized (which, for the record he didn't), some of it (apology) might have been appropriate. 

     Here for the record is the Mitt Romney quote which has inspired this latest drivel aimed at President Obama":    "Several times, Obama "has apologized for what he deems to be American arrogance, dismissiveness, and derision; for dictating solutions, for acting unilaterally ...  ."

     Without going into detail, Politifact, the premier conservative fact checker evaluated Romney's comments as "False,"  and added: "If you think American presidents should never admit to any sort of error at any time, you might find yourself in philosophical agreement with Romney's criticisms. We set out to discover whether Obama really had apologized in his speeches, and what he was apologizing for. But in our review of his words, we came up short. Yes, there is criticism in some of his speeches, but it's typically leavened by praise for the United States and its ideals, and often he mentions other countries and how they have erred as well. There's not a  sincere apology in the bunch. And so we rate Romney's statement False."  As a side note they also discussed several Bush full on apologies that FR's make no mention of, including one to Saudi King Abdullah , one in Senegal regarding slavery, also commented upon were several Clinton apologies.

Apparently only President Obama is held to the standard  Romney cites, and that's not truly surprising.  

      John Murphy,  communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, studies presidential rhetoric and political language. He said Obama is using conciliatory language for diplomatic purposes, not apologizing. "Romney's criticisms of Obama are part of a conservative tradition that emphasizes steadfastness in foreign policy, particularly in the wake of the Vietnam War." There's long been a strain of conservative rhetoric that argues that what matters most for the United States in the world is our will," Murphy said. "The difficulty with that was shown in the second Bush administration, when will power is not quite enough. In Iraq, for example, you have to have a battle plan that makes sense and understand the situation you're going into'' and have enough resources to do that."  apparently, Romney still hasn't noticed that the game, the players and the field have all changed drastically since 9/11.  

     So, yet again, in the finest Faux News and Far Rightist tradition of  "making shit up," we have another slap at the President, having little no basis in fact which is really rooted in far deeper and uglier biases. Of course there is solace to be found, and that is that these imbeciles are ridiculously easy to call out and their hatred and political poison so easy to debunk.