Reply #17: Kos also singles out Kerry as ONLY Dem to condemn Boehner [View All]

The silence over "Small price"
by kos

Thu Sep 13, 2007 at 12:01:01 PM PDT

Where are the Democrats on Boehner's callous remarks about 4,000 dead being a "small price" to pay for this war?

As Kos notes today, not a single big news org (aside from CNN, which initially reported the remark) or pundit has murmured a word about it.

The reason for this disparity, however, doesn't reside just within the media. Recall what happened last fall with Kerry's botched troop joke. In less than a day, virtually every Republican in public life was condemning the remark in every conceivable forum. And Kerry's gaffe was obviously a screwed up gag, whereas there's very good reason to believe that Boehner meant his remark in exactly the way it came across. A very similar Republican message eruption happened with the MoveOn ad blasting General Petraeus the other day. In both cases, the media responded in kind.

By contrast, only a single Dem -- John Kerry -- has stepped forward to condemn Boehner. We hear various Democrats are weighing right now whether to try to make an issue of his comment. But thus far, there's virtual silence. This is astonishing -- particularly because Boehner's remark captures rather nicely what's going on with the war debate. Boehner, like the White House and most Republicans, is willing to sink an untold number of American lives into the pursuit of the fantasy of a stable Middle East and into the illusion that civilization as we know it will come to an end if we don't defeat the ever omnipotent Al Qaeda.