Where I Come to Mark Kirk’s Aid

October 18, 2009 | Filed Under Afghanistan, Anti-Americanism, Chicago, Congress, Cook County, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Foreign Policy, GOP, Illinois, Islam, Islamofascism, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Military, Republicans, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, State Government, Terrorism, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston |

-By Warner Todd Huston

I am not a Mark Kirk fan. For me he is and always has been far too “moderate” on social issues and his now (maybe) retracted Cap and Tax vote sticks in my craw pretty badly. But Steve Benen of the Washington Monthly blog Political Animal unfairly and illicitly slammed Kirk on something he said in an interview with The News Gazette of Danville, Illinois.

Benen was ticked at Kirk’s answer about the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy of the U.S. Military. In an effort to show all his LGBT, or BLGT, or BLT fans… whatever they call themselves this week… Benen jumped on Kirk’s claim that DADT works well and that “keeping that all out of the workplace makes common sense.”

But, Benen’s pandering to the fringe, militant gay lobby isn’t my concern here. Benen’s other jab at Kirk was as follows:

By the way, in the same interview, Kirk endorsed sending tens of thousands of additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan because Illinois is home to “the tallest building in North America.”

This verges on a lie from Benen. The way Benen phrases Kirk’s reply it is as if Kirk linked the war in Afghanistan to Illinois having a tall building as if that was the whole of the point Kirk was making. But Kirk’s point was obviously not as quixotic and simple-minded as Benen portrays it.

Here is what Kirk actually said:

He supports Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who has recommended increasing U.S. troop strength in Afghanistan.

“We have no failure option in Afghanistan,” he said. “I think we have a unique concern representing Illinois, because we have the tallest building in North America. Our job is to make sure that everyone working in the Sears, Willis Tower comes home safely every night.”

In the long term, he said, the United States must support Afghan police and army units until they are well-established, a process he said would take “three to four years.”

Only an idiot (perhaps one like Benen) could miss the point Kirk was trying to make. I agree that he did not make it well, but it is painfully obvious that Kirk was saying that keeping the pressure up in Afghanistan will help prevent the Sears Tower (Now the Willis Tower) from coming down in a World-Trade-Tower-like heap at the hands of the terrorists, terrorists that would be made busy over there and not here.

Benen’s ignorant spin against Kirk is a political hatchet job plain and simple.

But, this is the sort of left-wing crap we should expect by a card carrying member of the Old Media.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, TheRealityCheck.org, RedState.com, Human Events Magazine, AmericanDailyReview.com, and the New Media Journal, among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events and is currently the co-host of “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Conservatism” heard on BlogTalkRadio. Warner is also the editor of the Cook County Page for RedCounty.com.

He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of PubliusForum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston

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