ECHO CHAMBER

J.D. HAYWORTH


Well, the righties are at it again. I've done this song and dance before - according to them, we shouldn't speak out against the government because to do so only emboldens the terrorists. Well, apparently now it is Arizona Congressman J.D. Hayworth's turn to scold us for actually exercising our Constitutional right to criticize our government. Appearing on Neil Cavuto's Fox News program, which I'm sure you're all aware is a true paragon of media fairness, he criticized those who dare to speak out for fear that it helps those we fight against. He claims that "public discussion of the war has moved from thoughtful criticism to just political gotcha." He posits that our "[e]nemies utilize blogosphere to their own advantage" and that "[t]houghtful criticism is always welcome; political posturing and cheap shots are not."
I guess my big question that I'm wondering about is who is the end-all and be-all authority on what is "thoughtful criticism"? Is it Hayworth? Is he considering drafting some sort of legislation in order to monitor the blogosphere in an effort to regulate whether some blog has crossed the line into "public posturing and cheap shots"? If there is a particularly responsible blog that only engages in "thoughtful criticism", will they receive some sort of seal of approval from the monitoring body that they can put at the top of their page?
Those who have been reading my stuff for a while know that I've already taken no less a person than Dick Cheney to task from saying insane garbage like this. Hayworth is just giving us more of the same. And I will repeat now what I said then. The GOP position on criticizing this administration and this Congress basically boils down to, in order to protect America, we can no longer be Americans. By speaking out, we supposedly embolden our enemies, so in order avoid this, we cannot speak out and question our government. Of course, from an guy who penned an imigration/terrorism/security screed entitled, "Whatever It Takes", he would probably see no problem with this.