Opinion: Palin: Don’t ‘demonize’ our troops, Obama

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It has come to this: President Obama may not, in fact, support the troops.

First up, an excerpt from ex-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s Facebook post in response to Obama’s address to Congress Wednesday on healthcare reform:

Finally, President Obama delivered an offhand applause line tonight about the cost of the War on Terror. As we approach the anniversary of the September 11th attacks and honor those who died that day and those who have died since in the War on Terror, in order to secure our freedoms, we need to remember their sacrifices and not demonize them as having had too high a price tag.
Second up is Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, who I believe is only half-joking when he says Palin comes from ‘the University of Real America’:

Two of my favorite bloggers -- Jim Ceaser of the University of Virginia, and Sarah Palin of the University of Real America -- were particuarly [sic] struck by one line in President Obama’s speech last night. As was I.

This is it: ‘Now, add it all up and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years, less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars....”

What’s the implication? Apparently, that we shouldn’t have spent so much on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fair enough, perhaps, with respect to the war in Iraq, which Obama opposed. On the other hand, Obama has supported the war in Afghanistan. Indeed, he’s criticized the Bush administration for under-resourcing that effort. ...

For the president, in a formal address to Congress, to suggest even in passing that these struggles are merely distasteful burdens rather than worthwhile missions, is appalling. Sarah Palin is right: Obama’s “offhand applause line” was an insult to those who have fought and sacrificed, and to those who are now fighting and sacrificing, on our behalf.
The Plum Line’s Greg Sargent has already discussed the tackiness of Palin using 9/11 to launch a political attack on Obama (much of her post, by the way, pushed her renewed death-panel argument, which Times editorial writer Jon Healey neatly debunked). Also note that Palin offers her interpretation of what Obama meant without bothering to quote him. By that same token, Kristol all but brands our president unpatriotic using a conveniently truncated Obama’s remark as evidence. If editorializing were only so simple.

Here’s what Obama said, complete sentence and all:

Now, add it all up, and the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years -- less than we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and less than the tax cuts for the wealthiest few Americans that Congress passed at the beginning of the previous administration.
Here’s my reading, and it doesn’t involve a troop-hating president who has not ‘internalized the fact that he is now commander-in-chief,’ as Kristol says: The president was calling out as hypocrites Republicans who voted for President Bush’s expensive tax cuts and supported two expensive (and off-budget) wars, but who now use deficits and excessive government spending to argue against healthcare reform.

Obama could have further argued that extending healthcare coverage to all Americans is a more worthwhile endeavor than dispatching hundreds of thousands of American troops to another hemisphere to fight two wars. But Obama didn’t say that, and he certainly didn’t go far enough for Kristol and Palin to accuse a sitting American president of disrespecting the memory of those who died fighting wars on our behalf.

A disclaimer: I haven’t made up my mind on Obama’s proposed healthcare reform plan, especially in light of Medicare’s impending insolvency and Washington’s overall crushing debt burden. Infusing the debate with mindless death-panel claims and accusations that the president has a hard time supporting our troops only pushes me (and, I suppose, other fence-sitters) to the pro-reform camp, if only to see the likes of Kristol and Palin saunter home in defeat.

-- Paul Thornton

Top photo: AP Photo / Al Grillo; bottom photo: Alicia Wagner / Los Angeles Times