GOP Conservative Targets: Smart Bright Savvy DEM Women

Actually, Targets

State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki (left) and Deputy Marie Harf

The article I am posting here makes me respect the media more so when they publish articles like the one below. Thus, a tip of the hat and huge kudos to Karen Finney who penned this article posted at Media Matters here. It is truly worth reading. Why? Because facts matter. Enjoy it in full at the link – here are the key parts to show facts over opinion that I wanted to emphasize:

What makes the right-wing media attacks against [Marie] Harf [following her appearance on TV discussing ways to combat terrorism and ISIS in her February 16 interview on Hardball] more egregious, despite the familiarity of the larger pattern, is that Harf is essentially saying the same thing a number of high-profile conservative men have also said previously. Yet those men weren't attacked – some were even praised. (Examples follow)

HARF drew the wrath of conservatives for commenting that: “We cannot kill our way out of this war.” For that she has been portrayed as a “…a damn naïve fool” by conservatives, who ignore her full comments, suggesting that she didn't also talk about the importance of military strikes as well as other tactics like these her further comments:

HARF: “We're killing a lot of them, and we're going to keep killing more of them. So are the Egyptians. So are the Jordanians. They're in this fight with us. But we cannot win this war by killing them. We cannot kill our way out of this war. We need, in the longer term - medium and longer term - to go after the root causes that leads people to join these groups.”

HARF CONTINUED WHEN ASKED IT’S NOT EASY: “You're right, there is no easy solution in the long term to preventing and combating violent extremism, but if we can help countries work at the root causes of this – what makes these 17-year-old kids pick up an AK-47 instead of trying to start a business? Maybe we can try to chip away at this problem, while at the same time going after the threat, taking on ISIL in Iraq, in Syria, and helping our partners around the world.”

However, Rush Limbaugh certainly didn't call Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the JCS ”little girl” or say that he sounded like a ”valley girl” when he basically said the same thing about the war in Afghanistan in 2008 testimony (here):

ADM MULLEN: “We can't kill our way to victory, and no armed force anywhere – no matter how good – can deliver these keys alone. It requires teamwork and cooperation.”

While Harf and Mullen were talking about different parts of the world at different times, both made a broader point that given the nature of terrorist threats and the strategies they employ – from the way they utilize social media, finance their operations, recruit and train from all over the world, and targeting those who are most vulnerable to their message – America must have a strategy that is multi-faceted and multi-national. That strategy includes not only air strikes but also social media, helping countries build democratic institutions, and stabilizing their economy with the means for people to make a living (paraphrased).

Former President George W. Bush voiced many of those same ideas, when he connected the role that poverty and a lack of democratic institutions play in creating instability and the spread of terrorism. In a 2002 speech to the UN International Conference on Financing for Development,

MR. BUSH SAID, IN PART: “Many here today have devoted their lives to the fight against global poverty, and you know the stakes. We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror. We fight against poverty because opportunity is a fundamental right to human dignity. We fight against poverty because faith requires it and conscience demands it. And we fight against poverty with a growing conviction that major progress is within our reach. We will challenge the poverty and hopelessness and lack of education and failed governments that too often allow conditions that terrorists can seize and try to turn to their advantage.”

THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION (big conservative group): In their October 2003 report, they
addressed the importance of democratic institutions and civil society in stabilizing regions that can become havens for terrorists, and the connection to U.S. security in the context of Africa, also one of the poorest, regions of the world, saying in part:

“While poverty and instability alone do not breed terrorists or weapons proliferators, African nations with weak civil societies and poor law enforcement and judicial systems are vulnerable to penetration and exploitation by transnational terrorist groups.”

HARF: Regarding our mid- to long-term strategy, she said it should address root causes that compel that 17-year old to pick up a gun and fight echoed remarks by none other than former Vice President  

DICK CHENEY: In his August 2002 speech to the VFW, he made the connection between the ways poverty and oppression in the Middle East contribute to (his words) saying: “Conditions that breed despair, hatred, and violence in young people and the hope of a changed outcome in the long term.”

Note that no one suggested that Cheney's glasses were the smartest thing about him, as the Federalist did about Ms. Harf.

The whole article is at the link – enjoy.

I conclude with this:  How do we spell hypocrisy and nastiness? Oh, that’s easy: “Angry, nasty conservatives.” Not all for sure, but a good many who are in key positions where the GOP-conservative base listens and follows as they lap it up. That’s the worst part.

Those who spew that kind of nastiness know precisely what they are saying and to whom they say for. That perhaps is the worse of the worst, if that’s even possible.