Missouri Veteran Says Loesch "Doesn't Understand the Ethos of the American Soldier"

Bungalow Bill, a Missouri conservative blogger from the Springfield area, was not impressed with Dana Loesch's comments that she was giving the marines who urinated on dead Afghans "1 million cool points" and would "drop trou and do it herself." Here's what he had to say:

Ms. Loesch, as a former member of the United States military, I remember a painting on the walls of my training facility. The painting had a caption under it that said the American servicemen doesn't love war, but when called upon, they are ready to fight and they do fight respecting humanity. Throughout history, our military has always treated its own first who were injured on the battle field and then our allies. The humane nature of our soldiers than search battlefields for our enemy and we offer them lifesaving humane medical treatments. It is not in our nature to go pissing on the dead. Nor would we tolerate it Ms. Loesch if our enemies pissed on our dead.

Ms. Loesch obviously doesn't understand the ethos of the American solider, and what these men did was disrespect a long heritage of outstanding service in decades of tradition. These Marines don't deserve a million cool points Dana.

They are an embarrassment to their uniform considering the ethos of the uniform and the tradition of the uniform. I am afraid that too many liberals are discounting the value of life with their abortion desires, and I am afraid that too many neocons like Loesch are discounting the value of life with their promotion of wars. What happens to society when life is no longer of value, well, we can look at history for that. Many dictators recorded in history have performed many despicable acts because they discounted the value of a life based on ethnicity, religion, or other criteria.

He even goes on to compare her to Keith Olbermann.

h/t P.J.

Irony Alert! Loesch Subtracts "Cool Points" From Conservative Think Tank That Disinvited Her

Dana Loesch said she wanted to give "a million cool points" to the marines who urinated on dead bodies in Afghanistan and said she would "drop trou" and do it herself. Because of these offensive comments, the conservative think tank Illinois Policy Institute disinvited her from a luncheon she had promoted for weeks.

And so, in response, Loesch decided to "subtract cool points" from the Institute for "siding" with the "fascistic ways" of George Soros." Listen


Some serious people we're dealing with here.

To hear more of Loesch's thoughts on the Illinois Policy Institute, you can listen here:


h/t again to @nicolegennette

RT News Slams CNN Over Loesch Fiasco

"If you think that paying people like Dana Loesch and giving her airtime to spread her vile commentary give you some shred of credibility, I don't know what else to do but laugh. Or maybe cry. I don't know. Over all, I kinda just feel sorry for you. The only thing that would give the mainstream media any credibility in this day and age would be returning to covering actual news. For example: the war in Afghanistan."

Enjoy:


(BTW, it's a small thing, but I do have to criticize RT News for the fact that their original coverage of this story did not credit me with first reporting on it. Huffington Post also covered the story as if they had discovered the footage themselves)

CNN Political Analyst Questions Loesch's Integrity Because of Remarks

Tommy Christopher at Mediaite grabed some footage of CNN political analyst Goldie Taylor on Don Lemon's program describing why urinating on corpses is wrong and calling out Dana Loesch for praising the people who did it. Taylor is a former marine and said the following about the incident:

Taylor told Lemon that the tape wasn’t representative of the Marine Corps that she belonged to, and that “When I look at that, and look at what four marines did to defame my Marine Corps, I’m disgusted.”

She went on to say that the four Marines should be court-martialed.

Then she said what she thought of Loesch's comments:

Lemon asked Taylor about people who defended these Marines’ actions. I’ve heard it,” Taylor said. “And I’ve heard it on this air, frankly. That is disgusting in and of itself, not as satire not as a joke but to say you would ‘drop trou’ and do the same thing, I question someone’s integrity who would say something like that. I want to know if they understand what our young men and women are up against every day. I don’t want to demonize the men and women who serve our country. I honor them, and served alongside them, and am proud of them. But when something like this happens, we have to stand up and call it for the behavior that it is.”

Taylor, by the way, is not alone. Multiple CNN employees criticized Loesch's comments and questioned why she was at the network. For example:

"I can't imagine someone really thinking that, it is so outrageous," said one CNN reporter who requested anonymity. "I think she is trying to garner attention to herself, and that is sad. If that is what she truly believes, she has issues. If you look at that video, I don't care who you are, your stomach should turn."

And:

Another regular CNN journalist added: "I am of the school of thought, 'Why aren't we putting people who are knowledgeable on the air?' I'll just say 'Ewww.' I think it's in poor taste."

And:

"What's interesting is how the kid gloves are applied to outlandish comments made by the likes of Erick Erickson or Dana Loesch and how it has a negative impact on the CNN brand," said the contributor, who also requested anonymity. "There really is no pushback or no real conversation that says, 'Look, you make these kinds of comments or you write these kinds of wild, crazy stuff, that's just not what we're about.' It simply doesn't happen. I think there is fear of saying anything to them because they are Tea Party folks, and there has been a clear effort on the part of our political team to court that whole Tea Party thought process, if you will."

"The danger is always the negative impact on your whole political coverage," the contributor added. "Because clearly you want there to be a point of view, but there is a difference between a point of view and being so far off the rails it defies logic."

Yup, Loesch is embarrassing the employees at CNN who actually have respect for the truth and honest debate.

One criticism of Tommy Christopher's piece for Mediaite; he repeated the suggestion pushed by right-wing media that Bill Maher's comments on Friday were substantively the same as Loesch's. Actually, Maher opened his comments by saying that he was sure that no one condoned the actions. He later said that if the people urinated on were the Taliban, and if they had done horrible things like honor rapes, then he's "not that upset" about it. In sharp contrast, Loesch not only condoned the behavior without any caveats, she openly cheered for it, and said she would "drop trou and do it herself." (not to mention the fact that Maher is a comedian and Loesch is a "political analyst," and there are a lot of things that comedians can get away with that political analysts couldn't, though in this case what Loesch said is clearly *far more* extreme).

So you might disagree with Maher's comments, but they weren't even close to what Loesch said, and it's time to put that particular right-wing meme to rest.

Update: Tommy Christopher says he was drawing a different comparison than the one I focused on. Fair enough, although I still think his post is written in a way that feeds into the right-wing meme that "Maher said the exact same thing." And an earlier Mediaite post by Josh Feldman, linked to by Christopher, seems to explicitly make that claim:

Maher appears to be echoing similar sentiments to Dana Loesch, who earlier today said she didn’t understand why the video was so controversial, adding “I’d drop trou and do it too.”

Dana Loesch Disinvited From Conservative Event For Disgraceful Comments

For this past week, Dana Loesch had been hyping an event in O'Fallon, Illinois titled "Women, Liberty, and America's Future," hosted by the Illinois Policy Institute, Smart Girl Politics, and the Independent Women's Forum. Loesch was supposed to be the main speaker at the event. Here's the description from their event invitation:

Join the Illinois Policy Institute, the Independent Women's Forum and Smart Girl Politics for a breakfast featuring Dana Loesch, Editor-in-Chief of Big Journalism. She will be leading a discussion on women, liberty, and America's future. Dana will address how liberty principles offer attractive policy solutions to the big challenges facing women today. Both men and women are welcome!

However, on Friday night, Loesch abruptly announced that she wouldn't be attending:

Andrew Breitbart, being interviewed on FTR radio, said that Loesch was disinvited to the event because of the disgraceful comments she made where she applauded marines urinating on dead bodies and said she would "drop trou" and "do it too." Here's the audio from Breitbart, who starts by whining that "almost nobody in the conservative movement" came to his defense when he was booted from ABC election night coverage and then explains the situation with Loesch:


The Illinois Policy Institute is a conservative think tank that describes it's philosophy, in part, as follows:

The Illinois Policy Institute is dedicated to promoting the principles of liberty in all levels of government. While the word liberty can be interpreted in many ways and applied to many different arenas we focus specifically on economic liberty and free market principles.

If even they think Loesch's comments crossed the line, then what in the world is up with CNN?

Hilarious! Breitbart Editor Whiffs on Politico Conspiracy Theory

Too funny. Breitbart editor Jim Nolte wrote up a conspiracy theory about Politico on Big Journalism. It said the following:

The playbook is simple. Leftist outlets like Politico look for (or in this case, receive a tip from a leftist blogger notoriously obsessed with silencing Dana) any little thing a conservative says that can be amplified into the news-cycle as unacceptable or outrageous. Then, this ginned up tempest in a teapot, is used as a wedge between the conservative and the outlet that dares allow that conservative’s voice to be heard.

Oooh, so scandalous. The "tip from a leftist blogger" link goes to this tweet:


Except for this slight problem: my tweet was sent *after* Politico had already posted the story. In fact, I was responding because the reporter had encouraged Loesch to contact her if she wanted to respond and I know she has a history of making things up. Nothing about Dylan Byer's post was changed after I tweeted him (other than his update from a CNN spokesperson).

What an amazing surprise that the defense from a Breitbart editor would turn into a hysterical, easily-debunked conspiracy theory.

Loesch Cheers Soldiers Who Urinated On Corpses, Says She Would "Drop Trou" And Do It Herself

The public image of the United States has been damaged after video surfaced showing U.S. soldiers urinating on dead bodies in Afghanistan. Military officials have all condemned the actions.

From CNN:

"I have seen the footage, and I find the behavior depicted in it utterly deplorable," U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a statement. "I condemn it in the strongest possible terms."

Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James Amos said in a statement the behavior is "wholly inconsistent with the high standards of conduct and warrior ethos that we have demonstrated throughout our history."

Lt. Gen. Adrian Bradshaw, deputy commander of ISAF, called the actions on the video "disgusting."

"Any acts which treat the dead, enemy or friendly, with disrespect are utterly unacceptable and do not represent the standards we expect of coalition forces," Bradshaw said in a video statement. He said he was speaking on behalf of Allen, who is out of the country.

"It is difficult to say what long-term impacts this might have, and I would hesitate to get into speculation, but obviously any sort of footage, any sort of activity of this kind that is grossly against all the moral values that the coalition forces are standing for are very much working against our cause and against everything that we are standing for and that we are here for," said Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, a NATO ISAF spokesman.

CNN "political analyst" Dana Loesch, on the other hand, apparently doesn't care if these actions were directly working against the mission of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan; instead, she cheered for it in order to fuel the unhinged Muslim hatred that has become a staple of modern day right-wing media. On her show, she gave the marines in question "one million cool points" and said that she would "drop trou" and "do it too." She ended by saying: "Do I have a problem with that as a citizen of the United States? No, I don't."



h/t @nicolegennette for noticing.