Ignoring the critical croakers

Recently in The Wall Street Journal, Peggy Noonan wrote, The biggest threat to America now, apart from Iraqi regulars and irregulars, is not a person but a phenomenon. It is the twisting or abusing of facts to underscore a point of view one wishes to see disseminated. I mean propaganda.

The antiwar left did not pick up its marbles and go home when the war began. They just went home and waited for something bad to happen that they could exploit.

Noonan went on to mention Rich Galen, another columnist who was commenting about the strange way many in the media reported on the early stages of the war to liberate Iraq.

Galen came across a cable news broadcast which said only about 34 percent of Americans at that time thought the war was going well. Galen was shocked by that, so he looked up a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll. It did indeed say that 34 percent of us thought the war was going very well. The poll also said 51 percent believed the war was going moderately well. That seems to me a full 85 percent of us had a favorable attitude toward the conduct of the war.

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Eighty-five percent is certainly a higher figure of approval that the 34 percent - and it was not reported. The propaganda lie is 34 percent.

John L. Perry tells the story of a good ol boy who lived near a pond. He heard so many frogs croaking that he answered an ad to furnish frog skins for watchbands. He contracted to send off a thousand skins a week.

The first week he sent in a dozen skins. The second week, four. The third week, one.

When the watchband manufacturer asked for the rest of the frog skins, he answered: I guess I overestimated the croaking.

In an open letter to President George W. Bush, Perry said, Pay the croakers no heed, Mr. President. And remember what Winston Churchill said about opinion polls, when the very existence of the British democracy hung in the balance: "Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup poll, always feeling ones pulse and taking ones temperature.

I am glad Bush has ignored the Hollywood croakers who attack the leadership of the United States, calling our president and his advisors, stupid, idiots and morons.

These stars of stage, screen and television have pedagogical credentials ranging from Cher (a ninth-grade education) to Barbara Streisand and Sean Penn (high school graduates) to Martin Sheen (failed his college entrance exam) to Michael Moore (dropped out of college after his freshman year). Their inside sources (the liberal media) give them - in their own shallow minds - the audacity to label as morons men and women with decades of service (in public venues and in the military), and who have scores of earned degrees - from undergraduate through Ph.D.

Not content with those attacks, some of them profess they are ashamed to be Americans.

In Spain, before the war in Iraq began, Jessica Lange, an actress who dropped out of college in the middle of her freshman year, expressed her embarrassment at her home country.

In Moscow, Tanya Abrams, a student on a U.S. taxpayer-funded fellowship to the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, was quoted by The Moscow Times as saying, Im embarrassed to be an American.

And the Dixie Chicks raised a firestorm when one of the trio told a British audience that she was ashamed Bush is from Texas.

I wish I could introduce these women to Lance Corp. Jose Gutierrez, 22, and Corp. Jose Angel Garibay, 23. The stories of these two young U.S. Marines were reported April 5 in The Wall Street Journal.

Unfortunately, those two Marines were among the first members of Americas military to die in the war to liberate Iraq. Neither of them were American citizens, but both were proud to fight on behalf of this nation.

Gutierrez said, From what Ive seen, Saddam has to be confronted. Its my job. Its also my duty.

Shortly before his death, Garibay wrote a letter to a former high school teacher explaining why he was willing to go to war: I want to defend the country I plan to become a citizen of.

Both Marines have been awarded citizenship posthumously.

These women said they were embarrassed. We are embarrassed by their croaking - especially in the presence of Jose Gutierrez and Jose Angel Garibay.

(David Sisler is a Martinez resident.)