February 8, 2006

Liar

Wow, Brit Hume tells a big fat lie in the very first sentence of today's Grapevine. Is that some sort of record?

The Washington Post, which had no qualms about publishing a cartoon attacking the U.S. military which drew a rare letter of protest from the joint chiefs — has declined to run the controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

While it's true that a recent cartoon of Tom Toles drew a letter of protest from the Joint Chiefs Of Staff, it's simply a lie to claim, as Hume does here, that the cartoon in question constituted an attack on the military. The cartoon (which I reprint below) was very obviously a criticism of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his insensitivity to the suffering and travails of our troops overseas:


Toles drew his cartoon in response to Donald Rumsfeld's statement that, far from being stretched too thin by commitments in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, U.S. troops are in fact "battle hardened." Given these facts, for Hume to disingenuously claim that the cartoon is an attack on "the U.S. military" betrays his loyalty to the Republican party above any feigned loyalty to the truth.