I’ll speak strongly in the next few paragraphs for effect. I’m not as angry as this will sound, but I know plenty of people who are.

(a) This apparent soldier isn’t lying: at worst, he’s giving his opinion about the correct way to interpret something that Obama actually said. At best, he’s calling out the One — the guy who claimed that we’re bitter and cling to God, guns, and bigotry — for his blindness to the truth of Iraq and his arrogance toward our servicemen.

(b) The Swift Boaters made a fairly strong case that John Kerry’s purple hearts were dishonest grandstanding; his videocamera, demonstrably false memories (or lies, as many will interpret them) about being in Cambodia at Christmastime, and vile Winter Soldier testimony proved that he is a cretin. Thus this man’s service — clearly real, what with the blown-off leg and all — is both more tangible and more clearly honorable than Kerry’s.

(c) Servicemen are generally intelligent and honorable, at least no less so than the general population. Impugning soldiers’ intelligence makes you look like a stupid jerk, not them. C.f. Kerry’s “You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

(Speaking personally now, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that Kerry really was trying to attack Bush rather than the troops. But even if you accept that, it shows that Kerry wasn’t very smart: Bush and Kerry were equally (un)successful at Yale, and if this really was a “botched joke” then he simply proved (again) that he’s prone to stupid gaffes, too, much like the person he misunderestimated in his run for President.)

Now, you can say that I’m wrong about all three of the above, but plenty of people believe that I’m right and you’re all a bunch of elitists and godless sodomite baby-killers. And for those people, this video is a lot more effective than all of your condescension.

You know another commercial that made me cry? Cindy Sheehan’s commercial. The first one, in black and white, where she talked about her dead son and wondered what he died for.

Sincee [sic]the video’s sole speaker can’t be criticized without making the criticizer look churlish at best, almost no Dems forwarded it, linked to it, talked about it.

It was really nice that nobody on the right criticized her at the time. Oh, wait, that’s not right, they did. Viciously. Constantly. With malice. Did you bother to study that commercial? Because maybe that one would be a better comparison than Obama girl.

Yes we can play the tugging at the heart strings game as well as the Republicans. And we should, when it counts. The right have no problem pulling out the emotional stops, neither should we.

Remember all the photos and video’s of the dead innocent babies killed in Iraq that were shown constantly on the news? It seemed like every day there was a new photo or video of a child whose leg was blown off in the street. Oh, right, that didn’t happen. Should we have made some videos like that? I think we should have, let’s tug on some heart strings against the war. Why not? We can use the exact same music and a vet with an amputated leg with a flag in the corner who talks about why this will stop happening under Obama.

I agree we can learn from the Republicans use of emotional videos to target people’s feelings of anger, pride, fear and hate as well as their love of the people who protected us from treats. Even when that treat WAS NOT the same as the real threat. The Republicans used the best and the worst impulses of Americans to get their war in Iraq. They have promoted war and John McCain in both honest and profoundly dishonest ways.

If it’s just about emotional appeals we could use old AT&T “Reach out and touch someone” videos to figure out how to hit people in the heart.

Finally, as much as I appreciate your self depreciation of “my people” as the “godless/ sodomite/ baby-killing wing of the Democratic party” please keep in mind that your humorous indulging in the right wing stereotype of the left simple reinforces their talking points. Some of us on the left ARE “plain speaking” who DO believe in God and don’t kill babies. What I do in the privacy of my own home is really none of your business.

I also don’t see the flag as hokey and I don’t appreciate you thinking that I would as a way of showing your solidarity with the left. The right doesn’t have exclusive ownership of the flag, no matter how often they pretend they do as then then proceed to misuse it and wrap themselves in it for fun, profit and war.

I get what you are doing with the comment, but it is really kind of obnoxious and not funny. I’m an proud American too. That flag is as much mine as it is a pro-war John McCain voter.

It’s beyond pitiful for him to continue to be used by the same evil bastards ultimately responsible for crippling him. He’s just another disposable soldier looking for some appreciation. Damn it, it’s heartbreaking … and it never stops, war after senseless war, victim after victim.

CHGOLIZ @131: I was married to a Marine, only recently retired.

We’ll have to agree to disagree on this issue.

We don’t have to disagree: facts are facts. If you and your husband have different information than I do, then I want to know. But then I also want to be very clear about your claim. Do you mean to say that:

* Marines are trained to think that our allies are good and our enemies are scum?

* There are not trained to win over those who might be sympathetic to our enemies by appealing to their core humanity?

* You said they “continues to receive”, as if there is no disconnect between the WWII training and now. You also said that your husband recently retired, which means he’s been in for at least 20 years. Is it your claim that this kind of training has always been present in some form or other during your husband’s career?

Thanks.

Takuan: If American soldiers are trained to respect Iraqis as human beings, why did they kill so many of them?

Because the mass of Iraqi soldiers were a tool in Saddam Hussein’s hands, and we cannot let our empathy for the individual soldier blind us to the fact that they will kill us, as ordered, if given the chance. The respect for Iraqis as human beings does manifest in the treatment of POWs. I know that the initial reaction will be to call out Abu Ghraib and torture; I am not an apologist for either, but (a) highlighting only those two items overshadows the generally helpful and humanitarian work done by Marines and soldiers over there, (b) the people responsible for the Abu Ghraib misconduct went to jail, and (c) as I understand it, special teams inflicted waterboarding and the like on the masterminds of Al Qaeda, which therefore does not affect the reactions of typical Marines or soldiers toward ordinary citizens. I’m not justifying waterboarding by saying this, merely pointing out that you can despise it while not tarring all American military staff with its brush.

I think any Iraqi, if asked, would like their country back. Their oil too. But we know they won’t be asked.

Some want us the hell out. Others — I refer you again to Iraq the Model — consider George Bush a liberator, and want us to remain strong allies.

Halliburton isn’t stealing Iraqi oil and selling it. It’s being sold by Iraqis, and its use is part of the reconstruction effort.

Not only will the Iraqis be asked, but we have just updated the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) to include a drawdown of American troops.

The “are they better off now than 2002″ argument is simply wrong. Let’s say we could ask that question to all the dead or exiled (the estimates I’ve heard are all over the place, but we’re talking around 50,000 dead, and maybe up to a million exiled.)

Conservatives had no trouble supporting Saddam in 1988 when he was just as much a tyrant, they had no trouble supporting ANY tyrant/despot/dictator during the cold war as long as he was on our side.

It is no more dishonorable to pull the troops than it was to send them in in such small numbers (well under what the Pentagon said they needed), and as poorly equipped as Bush did. I think allowing Halliburton to rip off the taxpayers and provide the troops with contaminated drinking water (in a desert, no less) was far more dishonorable.

“Promoting democracy”– well WHAT does that mean? The majority of Iraqis want the US out (hell– the majority of Iraqis may even want a theocracy like Iran, how likely is it that our occupying force will allow them to vote on that?)

The reasoning on the right for keeping our troops in Iraq is just self-serving BS. I understand that this video appeals to those on the right, but what does that say about the right.

I suspect there are lots of vets who don’t justify their missing limbs with this kind of tortured logic.

But then again, the guy volunteered for it twice, first when he went off to fight a bad war, the second time when he allowed his consequent injury to be exploited in defence of a policy that promoted unjustified war of aggression. He is about as wrong as it is possible to be and obviously hasn’t learned anything worthwhile from his obviously appalling experiences.

Or do you think misguided sincerity should entitle him not to have to put up with personal sleights, even if he himself is milking his situation to promote a mistaken agenda?

The soldiers I feel far more sympathetic towards are the ones who fought in my generation’s bad war. Conscripts died and were maimed in Vietnam — compared to that, what does the guy have to complain about?

Lost in the debate here is a fundamental question: was this video “effective”? In the ultimate metric — the electoral college — it was not. The number of viewings is perhaps the most superficial metric: it gives no indication of whether viewers were influenced by the video, positively or negatively. So I am curious how Prof. Shirky determined that this particular video was effective.

Later, Prof. Shirky claims that this video hit the “trifecta” of mobilizing the base, swinging the undecided, and depressing the opposition. Yet the video itself (with its extended coda, complete with schmaltzy Lee Greenwood music), and the distribution patterns described by Prof. Shirky, suggest this video was primarily aimed at only the first of the three, mobilizing the Republican base. What evidence was there that this swung undecided voters? The fact that few Democrats had heard of, or responded to, this video suggests it failed miserably in the last part of that trifecta.

It’s possible that a recut version of this video that ended with the veteran silently walking away might have been more effective with swing voters: at the very least it wouldn’t have seemed so clumsily overbearing. Yet, it the end it still probably wouldn’t have mattered, since Iraq and foreign policy were all but forgotten in the election because of the economy. This video fought the last political war, and lost.

This gent is a wounded warrior and is deserving of respect for his loss. But, he volunteered for service, and combat promises both glory and destruction. His opinion is no more or less supported by his lost limb.

I can feel for this man’s maiming but still disagree with him. He’s wrong about the war, period. To say only those who have been there can understand it and have an opinion about it is similar to saying only those who have been derivatives traders can have an opinion about the market. They may know stuff the average Joe doesn’t but we all deal with the fallout. When the fallout sucks, we all get hit – those who are up close may get hit worse than others but they wanted to be there.

Mr. Obama is correct, the war was a mistake. If America is such a purpose-driven nation, why aren’t we in North Korea or Eritrea? We choose our fights where there is a clear-cut national interest and Iraq 2003 just wasn’t it. It’s our mess now so we have to handle it but we really didn’t have to be there. The human tragedy is terrible but there is no point in throwing more lives and treasure into a bottomless pit. Have a parade, declare victory, argue about it at family gatherings but please, let’s just call it a win and go home.

Additionally, the timing of this was way off. During 2006 this would’ve worked in several local elections for the house and senate(not targeting the president of course, but the local opposition), however the specter of September 11th has since begun fading with great intensity since 2005 and both sides tend to ignore veterans they disagree with(the right going so far as to berate the very men they claimed to support). And if Obama handles the duties of his office with an air of grace and competence(no terror attacks, economic cratering slows down) a serious presidential opponent for the GOP won’t show up until 2016.

This election wasn’t an analogue for 2004, it was one for 2000. As a result I’d expect the field for 2012 to be full of surprisingly unimpressive ideologues who’ll go as far to the right as their spine will allow. If history is due to repeat itself the smarter moderates in the party will wait it out to allow neocons and culture warriors alike to run the party as they see fit for the cycle and then step in when they fail. It’s what Nixon did in ’64 by making no effort to recapture the nomination that year, and instead let Barry Goldwater and the libertarian faction of the GOP run amok and eventually fall flat on their faces.