Taking advantage of the recent fanaticism displayed by the rightwing in the wake of the false debt ceiling crisis created by the GOP, CNN.com had yesterday on its front page an opinion piece by Gen. Russel L. Honoré titled "For lesson in shared sacrifice, send Congress to boot camp", openly advocating in essence a military dictatorship in the US. Ignoring the Republican responsibility for the debacle, Honoré plays the false equivalence game, blaming "Washington" and the "government" for what happened. He argues that this "disfunction" can only be fixed by a military takeover.
He writes that
our national elected leaders don't share a common purpose. They have failed to live up to their oaths of office, to protect and defend the Constitution and the United States of America
The solution?
It's time to get draconian. [....]I mean it's time to load our elected officials on troop planes and send them to Camp Shelby, Mississippi.
This is the logic used to justify themselves by military dictatorships around the world.
So today CNN.com posts a response by Col. Paul Yingling titled "Send Gen. Honoré to civics class". Yingling says that
Taken at face value, Gen. Honoré is advocating a coup d'etat.
But then he follows with this:
A more plausible explanation is that the general didn't mean what he said.
Ah, you see, when CNN posts a piece by a retired general openly and unequivocally calling for a military coup, well, the words don't mean what they plainly mean. And of course now that Yingling has responded, CNN is not in any case promoting the cause of military takeover of our civilian government. Nah, it's a legitimate "debate".
To summarize: The GOP precipitates a crisis to enact its fanatic agenda. CNN uses false equivalence to cover "both side" of the debate. Then CNN posts a piece by a general saying that fixing the government requires a military coup. CNN then posts a piece by another military man criticizing the general's words, though also saying that the general actually didn't mean what he clearly said.
Up next: Military coup or not?