Wanker of the Week: E. Thomas McClanahan

Mr. MBG, this ones for you...

The cloying fly in the editorial ointment at the Kansas City Star struck again last Sunday. But then, at our house, we say “If it’s Sunday it must be McClanahan!” Then we start making fun of him. (He just makes it so easy!)

The Democratic Party is full of defeatists, you see, because we have the ability to perceive reality.

When the WMD’s became histories first proven negative, victory in Iraq became unachievable. When the lies that launched the war became obvious to all save McClanahan, reasonable people realized that as objectives had ever been clearly defined, they couldn’t be realized.

He is quite chuffed at the lack of enthusiasm for the fight among those with something to lose – like life, limb or loved one. Hell, he’s still pissed off that we didn’t sacrifice a few thousand more in southeast Asia.

He simply refuses to get it. Iraq is embroiled in a multi-faceted sectarian civil war, and we don’t get to win it.

I opted not to reproduce a snippet of last Sunday’s column, but really, every McClanahan column of late is a variation on the same theme. He is quite obsessed, to the point of pathology, it would seem, with the notion that all Democrats are quite simply traitors and cowards. If he isn't yammering about that, he's pissed off because he dislikes the architecture in the midtown revitalization that has made my property values soar. He's frankly a pedantic fuck no matter the topic.

I am not going to waste bandwidth to repeat his idiotic ramblings, but feel free to click here if you want to wade into the festering swamp for a sample of McClanahan’s fevered "mind" at “work.”

I will, however, give you some background on E. Thomas.

He is a chickenhawk of the first order. He went to Viet Nam – but he never saw the brush except when he flew over it. His pasty white ass was sitting in an air-conditioned office sending missives about “defeatocrats” back home even then. He is perhaps the original keyboard commando; and frankly a pathetic, contemptible and sad little man.

McClanahan is so ginned up for the fight, and thinks the troops can get by just fine without a year off between year-long deployments, he should find out first hand, and not from an air conditioned office this war. McClatchy should send him to Anbar to embed with some Marines immediately.

For a year. Then send his ass back in seven months to do it again.

Until he puts his own skin in the game to report from the front, I simply can not take a single word he writes about war seriously, including “and” “the” and “of”.

It all depends who is on the receiving end what you call it, doesn't it?

Don’t get me wrong – I am elated that the crisis with the British Sailors and Marines who were taken captive is over, and that they have been released and are back in England enjoying the embrace of their families this Easter season.

I am extremely relieved that aWol has had a reason to start bombing taken away. Jesus am I glad for that bit!

However – I am a bit put off by the drumbeat that is starting to emanate from the far corners of the noise machine.

It seems a lot of people are up in arms, and charges of mistreatment seem to be emerging.

Which makes me curious about something – why is it mistreatment to make an Englishman think he might be executed by a firing squad, but it’s okay for a brown person to be waterboarded and made to think he will drown?

Why is psychological chicanery mistreatment when those on the receiving end are westerners, but prolonged exposure to temperature extremes, stress positions and “rough treatment” are vital tools for national security when the people being stressed are the dreaded “other”?

Perhaps charges of mistreatment are justified - except it's a thin soup of a charge, because the Brits threw their lot in with us, and the U.S. is a state that sanctions torture and indefinite imprisonment. So even if the charges are justified, there is no standing when cases are compared. Way to go, Rumsfailed, Cheney, aWol et al.

No, I’m not a terrorist sympathizer.

I’m a human being with a conscience, a penchant for fair play, and valid questions I would like answered.