People have limits. When I realized that General Petraeus was wearing a medal he did not earn in combat, I noticed that people really didn’t want to hear it. People actually do see The Emperor's New Clothes. They start to act freaky when you question people in uniform. And for some reason, people here felt compelled , to decry my attack on a blood-curdling liberal-hater who claims (or claimed, nothing from him lately) to be a Marine. But what, for example, today's vote on wiretapping suggests is that you cannot hide from these people. You must confront.

To the specifics, I think you'll find that this "Marine unit patch":

....or: "My Unhappy Duty As An American Patriot"

Because I am a patriotic American, however discouraged, people make fun of me. Because I really am shocked by things that a lot of you have started taking for granted.

Here’s an example:

What more can I give you people? I put in the effort and then I slip in a tasteful photographic study sometime in the late comments. What else can I do? It's about Lieutenant Peter Hegseth, a smarmy creep who runs one of the most influential Republican 527s right now. But sure, read one of the short ones about somebody liveblogging their cat. Okay, I would click that. But you know what I mean.

Hi  ,Mom

First, I’d like to thank Mr. Hegseth for his service to the nation as a soldier. He has a Bronze Star for meritorious service. Indeed. I wish he had left it at that. But yes I mean it and yes I'm sticking by it. He lied about who he was while in uniform and he has consistently misrepresented his military experience.

For those of you who are not yet familiar with the story that General Petraeus received the Bronze Star for Valor under questionable circumstances, try this diary or this one which is snarkier and has pictures.

Possibly they were in a state of "homosexual panic"
(see above). But when the folks at Redstate saw my note to CENTCOM, they freaked and even blocked my IP address. Seems they are losing the courage of their conviction that Petraeus is a military saint.

With an Ann Counter book coming out, there's an unfortunate task that needs doing. No Progressive lady here is going to do it. You've all got too much class and too much distaste for fundamentalism. I don't have that much class and my atheism protects me from the effects of brimstone. So, I'm taking a break from reminding people that General David Petraeus wears a combat medal he did not earn (because he was not in real combat) and getting my hyperbole on. Except it's only hyperbole because I'm an atheist and I couldn't possibly care less that by any consistent Scriptural definition Ann Coulter is a whore.

You may already have had the misfortune to have met the ultra-right-wing, militaristic group "Gathering of Eagles" or "Versammlung Von Aar". It was created to harrass anti-war demonstrators under the guise of "guarding our memorials and their grounds". Oh, please.

They are the modern American equivalent of Hitler's Sturmabteilung or "SA" or "brownshirts", using bikers and some veterans to intimidate dissent and make the Right appear strong. They may not have adopted the SA slogan: "Terror must be broken by terror". But they do make themselves clear: "Where there is no offense, there is no effect."

Here's what you can do when you see them: Photograph them, put the pictures on the Internet and report to the authorities probable violations of federal "Stolen Valor Act".

...or "Why You've Never Seen a Picture Of Someone Pinning a Bronze Star on General David Petraeus"

Phony soldiers are built because soldiers are very effective propagandists. You look at a soldier and you can't help but think of what it might feel like to have a large number of people shooting at you. Nobody wants to be in that place.

We have never been there. We don't want to go there. That soldier has been there and acted bravely. It gives them an enormous, inarguable credibility. And so political parties have always built up soldiers to make their points for them. And it's very irritating to to other side. It seems dishonest. It is dishonest. But there are two methods. You decide which one is better.

....or "Why I'm Doing This".

I'm sure you all have seen by now this wonderful smackdown of the terrific-looking, evil and crooked and vain Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn. A politician's vanity can be forgiven, this suit cannot.

Unbelivable.

The company is going away anyway. In fact it really is bankrupt already by any rational standard. On its present path, it will be a foreign company very soon and the number of jobs in the U.S. will be very few. GM's pension plan is reasonably safe - shareholders will have to pay worker pensions no matter what

HOWEVER

But I will be entitling all subsequent diaries on all subjects: "Breasts". It's not important that you know why. It's important that my psychiatrist knows why.

The accusation has been put to me: "You are 'Swiftboating' General David Petraeus." This is patently untrue, but I must now answer, because the waters will be muddied, spin will fill the air and John Kerry's name will inevitably be dragged in again. But despite - even because of - the endless controversy, the case of young Lieutenant John Forbes Kerry will simplify this question.

Therefore: What is "Swiftboating" and what is not? A Simple Explanation:

This morning on Fox, General Petraeus starts his offensive here in America. The Republican party who told us John Kerry wasn't quite heroic enough - although he won a Bronze Star with V for Valor for a daring combat rescue and the even higher Silver Valor Star for heroism as a real, fighting soldier - will now tell us that Bronze Stars with V for Valor are "no big deal" and it's okay Petraeus wears one just to be like cool like the other guys.

And it doesn't hurt the snowjob, either, ya know?

Petraeus has never discharged his weapon against enemy forces, never rescued anyone physically in combat and faced what little flying metal he did face surrounded by soldiers and journalists. That trifle only because he failed to direct his troops properly. Republicans say Kerry didn't pick enough metal out of his arm. Petraeus never even got any on his flak jacket. But they both got the same medal somehow. Here's the short version:

Update [2007-9-22 18:3:49 by dlawbailey]: I'm sort of amazed. Apparently my little quest has become news. Well, a news-like tidbit. It's been mentioned in Howie Kurtz's column and, as a responder indicates, on Andrew Sullivan's blog, albeit VERY briefly both places. Nevertheless, I'm going to take a moment before returning to the regularly-scheduled political acrimony to say this both amuses and frightens me. I'm not a military person. No axe to grind here, other than standard politics. A week ago a small item caught my attention and I just thought "Huh?". I asked the question. And then people told me to stop asking the question: literally. MyDD censored a post almost identical to one I posted here and threw me off. And I got really irritated. And when I looked into General Petraeus's medal a little more, I found I was suddenly looking at the Emperor's New Clothes. It's very strange and disturbing. Somebody else - one of you - would have found this. But how crazy is it that between all the "oppo research" folks at the Dems, reasearchers for politcal non-profits and the press corps, nobody looked at this and at least ran the question up the flagpole? It took me 45 fucking minutes at the public library. That's it. There have been articles on "medal inflation" in Iraq, why not look at Petraeus? How have we gotten to a place?

This diary is long because I feel responsible to be complete and give readers enough text to see the contradictions in these two accounts of the same incident - one by a Pulitzer-Prize newsman, the other by the Army. Once again, I do not know David Petraeus and harbor no personal malice against him. I wish he was just a soldier and I could simply thank him for his service.

General David Petraeus is descrbed in his bios as having been "under fire" in the battle for Najaf. This is the only story I know of which includes such an incident. The first version is by Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Rick Atkinson from his book In The Company of Soldiers. Mr Atkinson was pretty much in the David Petraeus business, but at least he's rational.

The second account is by an outfit called the "Operation Iraqi Freedom - Study Group" out of Fort Leavenworth. I do owe them one apology. In this recommended diary (my first big one) I did suggest that the OIF-SG got even the number of generals at the incident wrong. They did actually get the number of generals right. As to the rest.......

I'm taking a break today from beating up the General with my own reasearch, now that the Tom Clancy homosexual-romance community over at "Blackfive" is looking into the question I emailed them about some days ago. Strangely, the  fellows over there had, somehow, not thought to ask it themselves.  

Because I think we may have found the answer - and a fun one - in a wonderfully humorous piece in Vanity Fair magazine by Jim Windolf entitled "Lazy-Ass Nation".

Examining General Petraeus's medals, his official bios and then comparing three reports of events on 3/30/2003 in Najaf, Iraq - two by prize-winning embedded journalists and one understood to be by Army personnel (which document this diarist will produce to a responsible party at any time) - this diarist cannot conclude other than that General David Petraeus wore a medal for combat valor in his testimony before Congress that was a sham, propaganda and a dishonor to his troops and nation.

Update [2007-9-19 13:44:53 by dlawbailey]: General Eisenhower, who also entered command not having seen combat was not awarded - and did not let himself be awarded - a medal for combat valor. Thanks to responders.

[Update](or they will ban you, WTF again)

Oh no, this just can't be. This CAN'T be why Petraeus got his medal for Valor. This can't be why he got the Bronze Valor Star while so many others actually died for it. The Repugs CAN'T have dummied him up with SUCH an obvious lie, right? It seems impossible.

I may be the first to ask and insist in this detail in the diaries I just linked to, but this question is growing across the Internet. It will become unavoidable. It's part of a scandal that is so incredibly offensive to military people they don't talk about it to outsiders, I think.

Did the Repugs think they were going to get away with something like that? I blogged on this a little while ago, but this is starting to get on my nerves.

The public is being led or allowed to believe that David Petraeus has a long combat record, and this gives him credibility as a hero. General Petraeus first entered combat in 2003 while commanding the 101st Airborne as a 2-Star general.

And he got a medal - a very special one - and there is no story I can find as to why he got it.