Posted on 02/20/2006 7:16:32 PM PST by pjsbro
In Minnesota we are in the middle of a story that has dropped from view in the media, but it is a story that should attain national prominence. The Democratic Party has undertaken a campaign to suppress two advertisements giving voice to the sentiments of Iraq war veterans and Gold Star Families who support the war.
Brian Melendez is the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic Party. This past Thursday Melendez called a press conference and condemned the first of the two advertisements -- the one featuring the veterans -- as "un-American, untruthful and a lie."
The two advertisements can be viewed here. The first of the two ads is devoted to the Iraq war veterans; the second to the Gold Star Families, featuring Merrilee Carlson of St. Paul. Mrs. Carlson's son Michael was killed in Iraq last year; the Wall Street Journal published Michael's "credo" this past Memorial Day.
In Minnesota the mask has fallen from the Democratic Party. It has condemned the message of Lt. Col. Bob Stephenson and the other veterans supporting the mission in Iraq as "un-American." Yet it has gone beyond its outrageous condemnation of the ads. It has actually sought to suppress the message of the featured war veterans and Gold Star Families, emailing Party members and urging them to contact television stations demanding "the removal of the ads."
What do Democrats elsewhere think of their Party's campaign condemning the servicemen and Gold Star Families in the ads as "un-American"? Does Brian Melendez speak for them?
Minneapolis Star Tribune columnist Nick Coleman has now devoted two hysterical columns to condemnations of the advertisements. Coleman's first column made a basic error of fact as a result of its reliance on a far-left Web site and cited the testimony of a Kerry delegate to the 2004 Democratic convention as a "nonpartisan" source. (John fisked the column here.)
Coleman's second column fastened on "the Delores Kesterson issue" -- attacking the Gold Star Families ad for presenting the stepmother of Erik Kesterson in lieu of his mother. For this bizarre point Coleman relied without attribution on his friend "Hesiod"at Daily Kos. Coleman overlooked fellow St. Paulite Merilee Carlson -- the genuine biological mother of Michael Carlson -- in this rant.
Lt. Col. Stephenson is the co-chair of Minnesota Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission. Col. Stephenson is featured in the first of the two advertisements in issue. On Saturday John interviewed Col. Stephenson on the Northern Alliance Radio Network. You can listen to the interview here.
The Democratic Party has officially pronounced that Col. Stephenson and his ads are "un-American." That such a thing could happen is almost beyond belief -- a Marine officer with more than ten years of active duty labeled "un-American" for supporting America's foreign policy -- but it is nevertheless true. And attention must be paid.
JOHN adds: To my knowledge, not a single Democratic office-holder, in Minnesota or elsewhere, has disassociated himself from the Minnesota Democratic Party's position that it is "un-American" to support our government's policies in Iraq, and that expressions of such support should be banned from the airways.
emailed to rush
I'm speechless.
/update via Powerline:
Folks, check it out. "Compleat" means, among other things:
"Being an outstanding example of a kind; quintessential: "Here was the compleat modern misfit: the very air appeared to poison him; his every step looked treacherous and hard won" (Stephen Schiff).
Sad to see that the Bolsheviks have taken over the Democrat Farm Labor Party. The party was more populist, rather than elitist, for many moons. Probably the last of the holdouts.
The Democrats has for most of the last century contained elements that more properly belonged to the Communist Party. Communists are just another form of fascist, and now the DFL party is showing those colors.
Suppression of conflicting views, has always been a hallmark of communist, racist, and other totalitarian ideologies. Even the recent attempt by the Jihadie Muslims can be seen in this light. The current radical Jihad movement has grown out of the Muslim Brotherhood, which grew up in parallel with and with the support of the Nazis and Italian fascists.
Sad, just sad.
The amazing thing is not a peep in the msm about this....
I'm just stunned by this, and the reaction you cite is 50% of it. Stunned.
Minnesota politics heads up: soon coming to a voting district near you.
I saw it on the news.
National or local? I am sure local so you must be in Minn or close by
nope...Arizona.
so it was a local news outlet that carried it?
Why the surprise?
Of course the Democrats are upset about these ads. The ads make it look like GWB made the right decision.
Surprised that few, if any, media outlets picked this up
Nick Coleman is one of the sleaziest columnists in American journalism ... and that's saying a lot. But, what do you expect from the "Red Star."
Not familiar with his work, but I sense the Star-Tribune makes the NYT and WaPo look conservative by comparison ....
Nothing shocks me about the demorats anymore.
The Democrats are wistfully recalling Russia's early exit from World War I and thinking about how the Czar's government collapsed shortly after. I can hardly think that the Dem's rush to surrender can be about anything else.
BTTT
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