Anyone Care to Guess What Conservatives Would Say IF...

[LoneLaugher]

These "would have" hypotheticals are really quite pointless. They're an exercise in partisanship, nothing more.

As C. S. Lewis pointed out as one of the "morals" of the Narnia books, we can never know what would have happened.

I think the point is clear. All this conservative harping has little, if anything, to do with Sgt Bergdahl. It's simply an attempt to USE the Sgt's status, regardless of what it is, to criticize Obama. So, if Bergdahl was never released by the Taliban because Obama had refused to release the 5 men imprisoned at Gitmo, despite what conservatives are saying about that approach being the better course of action, they would STILL pummel Obama with it by saying that an American POW should be brought home instead of being left to languish and possibly die in Afghanistan just to hold on to a few Taliban who wouldn't affect the outcome of the war one way or the other. Then conservatives would run around the country tying yellow ribbons to trees like Tony Orlando and Dawn.

It's true, and EVERYONE knows it's true.

There is little doubt they'd be bashing him 24/7/365. The point the Doctor was making was "so? tell us something we don't know." Now, that isn't your job of course and we all use the news of the day to get our feelings across.

Just to echo Doc's point (perhaps) I offer this;

Don't you hate it when conservatives tell you how liberals think? Obviously, if you're going to ask a liberal what she/he thinks, the last person you'd ask is a conservative who can't wrap their heads around equal pay for equal work or why contraception today reduces welfare tomorrow. I'm sure conservatives hate it when you (or I--I'm guilty as well in the past) tell them what they think. There is no doubt here that the conservatives would have bashed POTUS mercilessly. It is no longer a thought...it's a reflex. If he says it's partly cloudy, he'll be bashed for not saying it's partly sunny. It's a given like the sunrise.

But by embodying the "Conservatives feel this way..." you don't exactly elevate the argument or the forum. Again, this isn't your job of course and feel free to take any track you wish...it's the norm. I would hope, however, that my fellow liberals would recognize that we'll have a GOP/Conservative POTUS soon; do you want to really emmulate the BS we've seen for 6 years?

You are correct on many fronts. Especially regarding the fact that it is not his ( nor our ) job to elevate the forum. We all forget this from time to time.....and we are invariably disappointed.

 

[The Rabbi]

Now you're making yourself look positively foolish. The prisoner swap didn't knock the so-called VA scandal off the front page. It was the CONTROVERSY surrounding the swap that's done that, and the controversy is due to conservative bellyaching about it.

OK, so the administration did not attempt to make political hay out of this by, e.g. flying his parents to appear next to Obama. Are you going with that?
Unfortunately for TeamO when the facts started to come out the move didnt look so good and is becoming one more scandal in a very long list.

How old are you? EVERY administration engages in stagecraft and projecting a positive image in ALL things. No administration would be involved in the pending release of an American POW held prisoner for years without trying to get some good PR in the process. Nixon did it with the Vietnam POWS. Reagan did it with the Iran hostages. They ALL do it. Only a fool would think that President Obama would or should downplay it.

None of that changes the fact that it's conservatives who are turning this into a distraction with all the hand-wringing going on. You guys could have just let it pass, but you couldn't help yourself. And now you're mad that it's a distraction? Get over yourselves!

Did you just contradict yourself?
First you claimed the prisoner swap didnt knock the VA scandal off the front page. Now you claim they all do it. I agree all administrations want to get past bad news and manufacture good news when they can. They seldom do it in a way that blows up in their faces and makes them look like incompetent boobs.

 

[Mustang]

OK, so the administration did not attempt to make political hay out of this by, e.g. flying his parents to appear next to Obama. Are you going with that?
Unfortunately for TeamO when the facts started to come out the move didnt look so good and is becoming one more scandal in a very long list.

How old are you? EVERY administration engages in stagecraft and projecting a positive image in ALL things. No administration would be involved in the pending release of an American POW held prisoner for years without trying to get some good PR in the process. Nixon did it with the Vietnam POWS. Reagan did it with the Iran hostages. They ALL do it. Only a fool would think that President Obama would or should downplay it.

None of that changes the fact that it's conservatives who are turning this into a distraction with all the hand-wringing going on. You guys could have just let it pass, but you couldn't help yourself. And now you're mad that it's a distraction? Get over yourselves!

Did you just contradict yourself?
First you claimed the prisoner swap didnt knock the VA scandal off the front page. Now you claim they all do it. I agree all administrations want to get past bad news and manufacture good news when they can. They seldom do it in a way that blows up in their faces and makes them look like incompetent boobs.

I didn't contradict myself.

You seem to be claiming that Obama did something unique (and uniquely self-serving) in trying to draw attention to the POW return. I merely pointed out that EVERY administration engages is stagecraft. Hell, it was Reagan's adviser, Michael Deaver, who raised the practice to a virtual art form in terms of back drops and using imagery to promote the president. The point is that no administration is going to let a POW repatriation pass as if it's not important because it IS important.

With that said, another conservative complaint is that this was meant to be a distraction. And I contend that the return of Sgt Bergdahl would have been off the front page of the news FAR sooner if conservatives didn't make such a big stink about it. So, conservatives have managed to help create the distraction that they're blaming on Obama. I find that ironic. If you don't want it to be a distraction, then shut up about it already.

 

[edthecynic]

Here's what the Right have already said!

Horrible. Obama to Leave US POW to Rot in Afghanistan After Withdrawal | The Gateway Pundit

Horrible. Obama to Leave US POW to Rot in Afghanistan After Withdrawal
Posted by Jim Hoft on Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Sgt. Bowe Robert Bergdahl was captured by the Taliban in 2009 in Afghanistan.
Four months ago, his family in Idaho received a letter from their son through the Red Cross.
He was still alive. But sadly it looks like Barack Obama is going to leave US POW Sgt. Bowe Robert Bergdahl behind. Obama will leave Bergdahl to rot in Afghanistan after US forces bail out next year.

 

[Howey]

Knowing what we know about bowe? I would say serves him right.

Do we know any more than two months ago when republicans were begging for his release?