Goldberg and Guthrie

I - unlike my co-blogger- don't usually post long posts from other blogs on here, but Kos has posted something that I think is important, and awesome. As Kos says, there is a recruiting crisis in this country - for some crazy reason, young men and women don't want to join the army. Recruiters are resorting to questionable tactics and even threats - click on the link for the details. But this is the part I love:

Before Bush's War, there was no need for such tactics. War supporting politicians could lend a hand by urging people to join up, but they won't. Can't have a call for sacrifice.
Religious Right preachers could use their pulpits to urge their flocks to fight their "just war", but they won't. No parent wants their preacher telling them to send their kid to the grave.

The 101st Fighting Keyboardists could urge their readers to enlist, and then follow suit themselves. But they won't. The un-American cowards make a mockery of our anthem's "home of the brave" line as they hide behind tough talk.

TV blowhards could use their cable channel platform to urge their listeners to head to the nearest recruitment office and put their words in action, but they won't. "Supporting the troops" means nothing more than empty words...

Nearly one in five recruiters have been investigated in the past year alone for recruitment improprieties. All because no one wants to fight Bush's senseless war. And those who still defend it against all reason are the last to put either their words into tangible action, or urge their followers to do so.

There is a recruiting crisis in this country. Our troops in the Gulf need reinforcements. Yet those who claim to support them the most refuse to lend a hand. Such cowardice has no place in this country. I think we all know who the "surrender monkeys" really are.

I am not saying that supporters of the war are hypocrites because they won't enlist themselves. I am saying that people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Jonah Goldberg, Jerry Falwell, etc. etc. are hypocrites when they refuse to use the platforms at their disposal to aide the recruiting effort. But they never will. Their livelihood depends on creating daily outrage - and the enemy is always the liberals, the Democrats, the mainstream media.

Sean Hannity has to make his listeners feel as if, somehow, the mere act of listening to his show is an act of subversion - if he actually asked them to make a real sacrifice, they would become uncomfortable and stop listening - and his show isn't really designed to change anything, it's designed to make people comfortable. It's much easier to call Ted Kennedy a traitor than it is to ask people to actually sacrifice something. These people don't even think we should pay fucking taxes to fight this war.