Arkin (?) Pulls Blog Response Off Front Page Of WaPo Blog Site

Still available for direct link -- but, for reasons unfathomable, no longer quite so prominent dislpayed.

Maybe because it contained defenses of his previous excesses such as these:

These men and women are not fighting for money with little regard for the nation. The situation might be much worse than that: Evidently, far too many in uniform believe that they are the one true nation. They hide behind the constitution and the flag and then spew an anti-Democrat, anti-liberal, anti-journalism, anti-dissent, and anti-citizen message that reflects a certain contempt for the American people.

* As the debate about the Iraq war demonstrates, war-making is a shared endeavor and the arrogant and intolerant few who think they are above the people seem to be those who are wearing the uniform.

A tipster (not sure if this is for attribution) echoes the point I made below:

Again, insofar as he’s arguing that one doesn’t need to be a soldier to have an opinion about the war...I think we all agree with him – that’s the anti-“chickenhawk” point we’ve been making for years now. But when he goes beyond that to impugn US soldiers, it is shocking.

Shocking enough that either he, or his bosses at the WaPo, have attempted to bury it.

As of yet, you can still read the whole hateful thing, though. Just need to know where to look.

Time for a crisis management team, I think.

I'm amused thinking at all the meetings and frantic emailing going on at the WaPo over this.

Not that WaPo has been a bad actor, generally, when it comes to the war. They've been, well, downright sensible most of the time, at least on their editorial pages.

But a little lesson for these guys -- hire someone who insists he's not a journalist but an activist as your "national security reporter" and this is is what you're going to get.

Would a self-declared conservative pro-war activist ever have been hired for such a position? Of course not.

But they keep thinking, again and again, that the liberals and lefties are basically "the good guys," the rational ones, the ones who can be trusted to keep their agendas and vicious hatreds out of their writings.

Just like they always seem to imagine that political violence is always right wing, despite a long string of folks -- Squeaky Fromme, Sirhan Sirhan, Lee Harvey Oswald, etc. -- who'd beg to disagree.

Update: My source tips--

Incidentally, it’s being picked up by some MSM folks. This is evolving beyond the Rightosphere.

Well, I'm not sure how they could avoid it, try though they might. However, their coverage will be of course very sympathetic to poor Bill Arkin, Peace-Warrior, and focus on the "hate" directed at him from the right.

All those mean emails saying he shoud FOAD. Why, he's practically on patrol in Fallujah. How does this brave man soldier on?

posted by Ace at 01:22 PM

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