No, I won't stand for the dismissal of Joe Wilson on this site. In the current zeal to eradicate the Hillary Clinton campaign on this site, Joe Wilson's thoughtful endorsement of Hillary Clinton has been twisted into a bizarre psychological screed devoid of political analysis:
The yearning to return to one's Faithful and Forgiving Loved One will be overwhelming as our mind slowly returns to think of Her, haloed in soft amber light, waiting patiently but unbowed for us to return to sanity and the hearth.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
What the hell?
Joseph Wilson has endorsed Hillary Clinton. Deal with it. I'm reporting this directly in this diary, and posting some excerpts, and I'm not going to portray Joe Wilson - who has earned my deepest respect for being one of the few to take on the Bush administration at great personal and professional cost - as anything but a true American patriot.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Oh, who is Joe Wilson?
I have spent the past four years fighting a concerted character assassination campaign orchestrated by the George W. Bush White House.
Anyone remember the deliberate outing of Valerie Plame as the cruel punishment metered out for dissenters from the Bush foreign policy?
Joe Wilson recognizes a fellow combatant in the battle against a vicious right wing:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is one of the few who fully understood the stakes in that battle. Time and again, she reached out to my wife -- outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson -- and me to remind us that as painful as the attacks were, we simply could not allow ourselves to be driven from the public square by bullying. To do so would validate the radical right's thesis that the way to win debates is to demonize opponents, taking full advantage of the natural desire to avoid confrontation, even if it means yielding on substantive issues. Hillary knew this from experience, having spent the better part of the past 20 years fighting the Republican attack machine. She is a fighter.
And what about Senator Obama - who has made an entire campaign platform from a single speech - Joe Wilson has a unique vantage point here:
Senator Obama claims superior judgment on the war in Iraq based on one speech given as a state legislator representing the most liberal district in Illinois at an anti-war rally in Chicago, and in so doing impugns the integrity of those who were part of the debate on the national scene. In mischaracterizing the debate on the Authorization for the Use of Military Force as a declaration of war, he implicitly blames Democrats for George Bush's war of choice. Obama's negative attack line does not conform to the facts. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I should know. I was among the most prominent anti-war voices at the time -- and never heard about or from then Illinois State Senator Obama.
Joe reminds us that we are fighting - fighting - for the White House:
In order to effect practical change against a determined adversary, we do not need a would-be philosopher-king but a seasoned gladiator who understands the fight Democrats will face in the fall campaign and in governing.
Joe calls up Teddy Roosevelt, who understood the difference between combat and criticism:
Theodore Roosevelt once commented, "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly."
If he were around today, TR might be speaking of the woman in the arena. Hillary Clinton has been in that arena for a generation. She is one of the few to have defeated the attack machine that is today's Republican Party and to have emerged stronger. She is deeply knowledgeable about governing; she made herself into a power in the Senate; she is respected by our military; and she never flinches. She has never been intimidated, not by any Republican -- not even John McCain.
This is what we have been living:
The Bush-Cheney era, after all, has been punctuated by smear campaigns, character assassinations and ideological fervor.
Joe Wilson, one of the few heroes we have had during the dark years of the Bush regime, has endorsed the candidate who can fight back and win: Hillary Clinton. Disagree with him, if you will, but I will not stand for the manic revisionism on this site that has even taken aim at Joe Wilson. No.