David McElroy

Charlotte and her sisters got their names — from the writing Bronte sisters — because of their tendency to spend time with books. When she was a kitten, she had a “thing” for a specific copy of “Fahrenheit 451,” which I always thought was funny. In this week’s picture from the zoo, she’s atop a biography of 19th century English minister George Mueller a few days ago. I’ll bet they read the books when I’m not looking.

On Saturday, we looked at how insane and stupid the left-wing MSNBC host Ed Schultz was to charge a Republican U.S. senator with racism when there wasn’t a hint of it. Today, we look at how right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh is just as partisan and ignorant in a knee-jerk way.

Late last week, Barack Obama sent 100 U.S. troops into Uganda to train government troops in how to fight against a violent religious group calling itself the Lord’s Liberation Army. I’m strongly opposed to Obama’s move to involve the United States in any country’s affairs, but that doesn’t mean the rebel group isn’t vicious and savage — as evidenced by this example of the group’s typical punishment for people who don’t co-operate, which is cutting off lips, noses and ears.

However, since Obama is supporting the faction attacking the Lord’s Liberation Army, that was good enough for Rush Limbaugh to give his support to those barbarians in a knee-jerk way. On Friday, Limbaugh’s website featured a story with this headline: “Obama Invades Uganda, Targets Christians.” The copy seems to be a transcript from Limbaugh’s show, on which he said:

Keep Reading

Right after World War II, a revolutionary group forced the Vietnamese emperor to resign and then declared Vietnam independent of French colonial rule. The emperor headed to the southern part of the country and established a new capital in Saigon, where he got his new government recognized by the U.S. and French governments.

In 1949, U.S. President Harry Truman ordered U.S. military advisors into the country to train the South Vietnamese forces in how to use American weapons. From that tiny detachment of advisors grew a war that killed more than 58,000 Americans, some of whom hadn’t even been born yet when the advisors were first sent.

I couldn’t help thinking about that as I read Friday about Barack Obama sending about 100 armed U.S. troops into Uganda to train government forces fighting rebels for a religious group calling itself the Lord’s Resistance Army. Will more Americans get sucked into a conflict that we know almost nothing about? I don’t know. The only thing I’m sure of is that there’s no reason for U.S. taxpayers to be paying for training another country’s army in a civil war.

Keep Reading