Wow, it's not often you see someone morph from George McGovern to Curtis LeMay in a matter of weeks.
Credit for this curious distinction goes to Ed Schultz, token working-class stiff at MSNBC who also pontificates on a daily podcast. In one of his postings last week, Schultz responded to the execution of journalist James Foley by a psychopath in the cult of medieval savages known as ISIS. (Audio after the jump)
ISIS has taken it to a new level, the terrorist group, well funded, well organized, taking over banks, taking over a dam, grabbing resources, well armed. In retaliation of the airstrikes they have beheaded an American journalist, James Foley, who was kidnapped in November of 2012 in Syria. The video put on YouTube, out in the desert, they cut his head off. We should cut their g******ed head off. That's how I feel about it. Do I think we should put troops on the ground? No. We should have round-the-clock airstrikes against this terrorist group. That has to be the reaction. If this doesn't inflame the hearts and the passion of the American people, I don't know what will.
We don't have to fight the war or this conflict the way ISIS wants us to. We can fight it on our own terms and we can absolutely wipe them out with consistent, minute by minute airstrikes and innocent people are going to die! It's unfortunate. An innocent American had his head cut off. There has to be a strong, swift response, total retaliation, until this ISIS group is wiped out. This should erase any doubt any American has about the seriousness of this situation. Maliki was the wrong guy. He helped prop up ISIS with his exclusive government and now radicals have come in and they have put the United States in an untenable position. But if this country is going to allow Americans to have their heads cut off around the world, then what is our morality check?
Never thought I'd see the day that What Would Dick Cheney Do? would be asked by one of the biggest Cheney haters in media. Far too much to expect Schultz to realize that Maliki isn't the only "wrong guy" in this scenario.
"What is our morality check?" Your guess is as good as mine as to what the heck that means. Perhaps Schultz has some idea though I doubt it. Initially Schultz says "we should have round-the-clock airstrikes" against ISIS, but no boots on the ground. Still, our response must be "swift" and "total retaliation" -- just after Schultz said our response must be limited. Schultz's views on this, helpfully condensed -- whatever.
Quite the contrast with what Schultz said less than three weeks ago. Here's how Schultz answered a viewer's question Aug. 7 on "The Ed Show" --
Tonight in our "Ask Ed Live" segment our first question is from Edward, wants to know, "what is your opinion about the situation in Iraq?" Uh, hey Ed, I'm all for humanitarian aid at some level to start with and maybe even a heckuva lot more. But I am not for international intervention here. You go over there and start a shooting match, what's our intell on the ground, who are we going to be hitting, how do we know we're siding up with the right people, and one thing's going to lead to another. So I say no military intervention at all at this point, but humanitarian aid certainly has to be considered and I would be for that.
But that was so mid-summer. Seems to me that "round-the-clock airstrikes" sure have the potential of one thing leading to another, to paraphrase Schultz on Aug. 7. But whatever happens in Iraq from this point on, Schultz will surely fall back on the threadbare excuse from the left -- It's All Bush's Fault.
