Arguing with a leftist

Earlier in the week, President Obama badly flubbed when speaking with military troops about a pair of Medal of Honor recipients, one living and one killed in battle. His appalling flub revealed his inattention to the details of being Commander-in-Chief at a time when we are engaged in three wars, one he inserted American troops into by fiat. He claims to have the troops’ backs, but in confusing two of the handful of MOH recipients awarded the Medal during Obama’s presidency, he showed that he doesn’t even know the names of the best of the best; how can he be watching the backs of the rest of them?

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Well, this flub didn’t sit well with a leftist, who took to the comments here not to defend President Obama or explain or rationalize his statement, but to attack two Republicans who had nothing to do with Obama’s mistake. Here is leftist commenter CandyO’s first comment:

Most of the Teabaggers here who criticize Obama for making an occasional gaffe look the other way whenever Sarah Palin or Michele Bachmann do so, which is just about every time they open their silly mouths.

CandyO probably thought this comment would anger Tea Party supporters and Palin and Bachmann supporters or force bloggers here to go on the defensive, while deflecting the conversation away from Obama’s mistake. That’s a standard leftist tactic — when you score a direct hit on them or theirs, they don’t go into defense, but instead launch an attack on someone else. Because a leftist’s hero is never wrong, except when they stray from the leftist line of thinking.

No one here fell for it, so CandyO guessed that Obama’s flub must have been reported by Fox, and must therefore be wrong on that basis alone:

I’ve wondered when conservatives will learn not to believe everything Faux News tells them to believe.

Problem: Fox (obviously another favorite leftist agitator target) didn’t report Obama’s mistake, at least not first. I saw it on Blackfive, who reported it based on eyewitness accounts. The attack on Fox was an attack on the messenger, and he wrong messenger at that. So I replied to CandyO that this didn’t come from Fox, and CandyO tried again to attack Palin and Bachmann, neither of whom had anything to do with Obama’s gaffe:

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Palin and Bachmann don’t make “average slips of the tongue,” they consistently spew misinformation and outright lies.

And I replied with a teasing trap:

Like partying like it’s 1773?

That’s a reference to Palin tweeting to Tea Partiers not to commence partying yet “like it’s 1773,” which enraged liberals from the Dopey Kos on down, who ripped into the ignorant Palin, who turned out to be right: The Boston Tea Party was in 1773.

CandyO didn’t take that bait, at least not directly, but did slam the innocent Palin and Bachmann, again:

Making a gaffe about the name of a MOH recipient is nowhere near as bad as not knowing simple facts about the history of this country. Elementary schoolchildren aren’t taught the names of every MOH recipient, but they are taught about Paul Revere, and know that he DIDN’T ring bells or fire shots during his historic ride, despite what Palin claimed. Nor did the Founding Fathers end slavery, as Bachmann stated.

These women are truly stupid. Those who worship them are even more stupid.

Palin turned out to be right about that too, but never mind: She’s Sarah Palin, so in a leftist’s mind she can’t possibly be right about anything — even when the facts say she is. But remember, this discussion was supposed to be about Obama’s gaffe, and leftist CandyO just kept attacking two women who had nothing to do with his gaffe at all. I finished off the discussion with this:

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So your reply to an obvious and terrible gaffe by Obama is slam a couple of women who had nothing to do with it? How sexist of you!

And that’s the last we heard of CandyO, at least in that post. Using the left’s own language and tactics against them does tend shut them up.

So what’s the point of bringing all this up? Well, first, note the total lack of interest in the facts in CandyO’s approach. Obama’s inexcusable gaffe was his alone, and he even apologized for it today, but CandyO only showed up here to try to enrage and divide and distract one of the few sites reporting it. CandyO was not interested, at all, in what actually happened. CandyO was only interested in changing the subject to ground more favorable, hence the attack on Palin and Bachmann, and when that didn’t work, the attack on Fox, and when that didn’t work, the do-over on Palin and Bachmann.

CandyO’s interest was typical of how the left operates. Most leftist are a bit less obvious, but the basic tactics are the same across the issues. They try this childish “I know you are but what am I?” on everything that they perceive as damaging to their side, while trying by sleight of hand to distract from what they’re really up to. They cloak their issue stances as something other than what they actually want, reaching for massive upheaval to create permanent change in their favor through small, seemingly incremental changes that they cast as merely “fair” and “reasonable.” Just as there is no honesty in CandyO’s seemingly bizarre attack on two innocent women who didn’t wave wands to confuse Obama’s mind, there is no honesty in the way leftists approach larger issues.

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Here’s an example plucked from the headlines. SecState Clinton, who along with President Obama spent the Bush years undermining the war in Iraq, tried badgering Congress into supporting the non-war in Libya by asking them “Whose side are you on?” Clinton surely knows her record and that of the president when he was in the Senate. His campaign caught fire on the left largely because he was the anti-war candidate. He undermined the Iraq war at every turn, most notably by opposing the troop surge that was key to winning that war. But if you’re a leftist as Clinton is, there is no shame in being so obviously dishonest and belligerent. Words are just means to an end, in this case, the end being whatever it is that Obama wants the outcome to be in Libya. He hasn’t consulted Congress, and the Libya operation makes less military sense while costing more with each passing day, all of which naturally cause Congress to question the war. Rather than answer, the leftist administration deflects and attacks: “Whose side are you on?”

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