Chuckie's come across a column that disses Pat Tillman, the former football star killed in the Army in Afghanistan, the subject of my previous post. And Chuckie don't like it.
For once I have to agree with ole Chuckie - at least on not liking it.
Now the column to which he objects is from a college newspaper, the Daily Collegian of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst: Pat Tillman is not a hero: He got what was coming to him 04/28/04.
This April 29 editorial from the paper suggests that they got a lot of negative feedback on the piece.
Now, my own reaction is that Gonzalez' view was insulting to Tillman's memory, and that his perspective fails to recognize the real heroism involved in Tillman's sacrifice.
The piece became an instant favorite among the Freeper crowd, earning a mention on Matt Drudge's Weblog, with this entry which rather bizarrely features a photo of 1988 Democratic Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis.
But it's worth looking more closely at just how Chuckie, wannabe Nashville Guru of Patriotic Correctness, honors Pat Tillman in this article.
And that's easy to do. Here is the entirety of Chuckie's praise for Tillman himself: "Pat Tillman is a hero who gave his life for something he believes in." Nothing wrong with that description. But it's about as general as you could get. Compare that to the tribute from Rick's Place quoted in my previous post, which says something specific about Tillman and the fact that he was giving up stardom and wealth to volunteer for the Army at all.
No, Chuckie's rant is devoted to trashing this Rene Gonzalez guy for criticizing Tillman. Chuckie makes sure he tells us in the second sentence that the guy is Puerto Rican. In case we missed that, he reminds us of it again in the third sentence.
Then he conducts a one-sided dialogue with Gonzalez, which begins by calling him an "arrogant, detestable little snit." He goes on to trash Gonzalez as a coward and a contemptible academic and goes on to say he's insulting every American soldier who ever fought.
Now, when it comes to political polemics, I'm one of the "sticks and stones may break my bones/But names will never hurt me" school. Up to a point. I don't take very kindly to threats or character assassination. But I also think people do need to show some sense of personal responsibility for what they say. And in this case, we have Chuckie, a nationally-known singing star - though something of a, I guess "nostalgia act" would be the polite euphemism - joining in what is apparently a chorus of Freeper types denouncing this grad student who before this was probably not known much beyond his own circle of acquaintances.
And he's not actually responding to what the guy said, but rather spewing invective at him as being a Puerto Rican who has insulted every patriotic symbol that Chuckie could think off to toss in. What if some fool looking for trouble jumps the guy and beats him senseless? Chuckie's rant sure seems to suggest that would be a legitimate response. (Drudge helpfully posts the guy's picture.)
Before we leave Chuckie's latest masterpiece, I'll just call attention to the fact that Chuckie is clearly more interested in trashing someone he calls an example of "academic arrogance and liberal superiority" than he was in praising Pat Tillman. His piece actually doesn't show any knowledge of Tillman other than the fact that he died in war.
So, how bad is what Gonzalez said? Well, part of the idea of the Freepers in highlighting an article like this is to bait war critics into defending some kooky idea, and I'm not inclined to oblige. So you can read the article yourself.
But I will say this much. Gonzalez dismisses the idea of Tillman's heroism in ways that are unfair and wrong-headed. His criticism of Tillman is based on the premise that Tillman was motivated by some Rambo fantasy of himself, and that doesn't seem to fit the picture of Tillman that the obituary reports on him suggest. You wouldn't be a professional athlete if you didn’t like the applause of the fans. But Tillman deliberately kept his enlistment in the Army two years ago low-key, refusing to give interviews about it.
Gonzalez uses Tillman as a symbol of American arrogance in foreign policy; it seems to be an exceptionally poor choice to make that point. And I didn't find anything in his column that was particularly "liberal" or even "academic arrogance." Academic carelessness would be more like it.
But you won't get that from Chuckie's column. Instead, in one short column, Chuckie the country musician and Regnery Publishing political hack spews out more blowhard macho rhetoric than Pat Tillman ever seems to have done in his published statements.
And it's not as though Chuckie isn't willing to trash veterans for his own political agenda. I commented in Chuckie Watch 39 about Chuckie's description of Vietnam veteran John Kerry as a "traitor":
Do you really believe that your support among veterans is as strong as you claim? The reason I ask is that my email indicates otherwise, in fact some of the 'Nam vets feel downright vitriolic towards you and consider you a traitor to the military because of your post Vietnam endeavors. (my emphasis)
For an insult against an American war hero that was less severe than the one Chuckie uses with self-righteous ease against Kerry, Chuckie calls Rene Gonzalez an "arrogant, detestable little snit."
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