v. tr.
1. a. To spread or daub with a sticky, greasy, or dirty substance.
b. To apply by spreading or daubing: smeared suntan lotion on my face and arms.
2. To stain by or as if by spreading or daubing with a sticky, greasy, or dirty substance.
3. To stain or attempt to destroy the reputation of; vilify: political enemies who smeared his name.
4. Slang. To defeat utterly; smash.n.
1. A mark made by smearing; a spot or blot.
2. A substance to be spread on a surface.
3. Biology. A sample, as of blood or bacterial cells, spread on a slide for microscopic examination or on the surface of a culture medium.
4. a. Vilification or slander.
b. A vilifying or slanderous remark. [my boldface; italics in original]
Recently a reader who goes by the handle "John in Tokyo" took me to task in the comments to this post for linking approvingly to a post in another blog that was strongly critical of the general tone of Glenn Reynolds' posts. While short on specifics, I think that the essence of the post was accurate.
Nevertheless as John said "This resembles nothing that Glenn has written," let me discuss the snide tone at the end of this post:
MORE: A reader emails:
Listen, if the Left believes that 7 soldiers out of 150 thousand abusing Iraqis detainees can sully the honor of the whole military, then this one shell is proof that Saddam had an extensive WMD program.
Sounds fair to me!
Why does this bother me? Allow me to bore you for a few minutes with some personal history. My dad was a civilian employee of the US Army. My friends growing up were the sons of career soldiers. I grew up in that environment with a healthy respect for those in the military who did their jobs honorably; even during the Vietnam War (when his dad was protesting against it which I'm sure he did honorably). I have never referred to Vietnam veterans generically as "baby-killers", an appellation I have reserved solely for those who deserve it like William Calley, and it's certainly not only the left that holds that view.
My first two jobs were working for the US Army. Summer of 1973 I worked at the Accounting Division of the Rheinland Pfalz Support District at Panzer Kasern in Kaiserslautern, Germany. I maintained a file room and was paid the princely sum of $1.60/hour (minimum wage at that time, which should give you an idea as to how little it has risen in 31 years). I worked with a number of career civil service employees as well as a number of German LN's (local nationals), several NCO's, some privates a couple of Spec. 4's and a couple of lower ranking commissioned officers (captains and lieutenants). I had respect for all of them and never any issues with any of them save a second lieutenant fresh of out of OCS (Officers Candidates School) who thought he was God (something that is not that rare among newly minted second lieutenants as many sergeants will tell you). The following year I worked at the US Army Medical Material Center for Europe, which was a medical supply depot that served operations that ranged (at that time) from Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia to Oslo, Norway. The father of a good friend of mine was the CO there and I spent most of my time working with Spec 4's and a few E-5 sergeants doing inventory in the warehouse. I was the one who would get on the tines of the forklift and get raised to the top of the warehouse to count boxes at the top of pallets some twenty feet high. As I had experience from the year before, I was paid $1.75/hour!
At my high school, I often worked with GI's under a program called Operation Transition which was (to the best of my knowledge) designed to help GI's who were leaving active duty transition to other careers. These individuals were often teacher's assistants or served on staff at school. The father of one my best friends (a Lieutenant Colonel Paul Child, if I recall his name correctly) was the Executive Officer for the 94th Air Defense Artillery Battalon in Kaiserslautern and was probably one of the most throughly honorable men I have ever met in my life. If my memory is correct, he had taught English at West Point at one time.
So, after all this exposure to military personnel over the years the one conclusion I feel appropriate to come to is the conclusion that like any cross section of society, the military has both good, honorable people and a few, shall we say, less than honorable people. I also certainly don't believe that my thoughts on the above are sui generis on my side of the political aisle. In any event, my issues are not really with the uniformed military, but with the mendacious, deceitful, and morally obtuse civilian leadership
This is Glenn merely engaging in a form of McCarthyism. [By the way I e-mailed Glenn about this and he responded "I thought McCarthyism consisted of associating people with communists. Not according to the site linked and to the American Heritage Dictionary.] Why bother acknowledging that those who disagree with you may have a more nuanced view when it's easier to tar everyone on the left with the Indymedia or ANSWER brush?
Randy,
I have to take issue with the fact that you spent 5 paragraphs explaining why no one should suspect that you belong to a tiny minority (on both sides of the spectrum) who look on people who serve as generally bad people, or that you're not taking issue with members of the military but with its civilian heads.
If people want to stretch the bounds of rhethoric to defend Glenn Reynolds; I don't think that we should have to we have to be defensive with where we're coming from. I read Glenn's post, and I read the link, Glenn was as is usual being an idiot. He took two events, unrelated from each other except for the fact that it helps his politics, created a strawman out of liberal critics of Rummy by saying that we're out there arguing that most people in the military act like the seven. Then tied it together with the chemical weapon shell.
The problem is not politics per se', but conservatives who want to stretch the facts to create a truism to tie us to. People would understand as resonable if we're arguing that Rummy should go and approval may have come from higher up, but no one would agree with us if we're somehow infering that because of that everyone in the military is evil. So they have to stretch everything beyond recognition.
Sorry about the long reply, I just think at this point, it's better to point out the flaws in their rhetoric than to have to explain that we're not somehow anti-american everytime we're in an argument.
Posted by: laddy | May 19, 2004 at 11:33 PM
Laddy,
I see your point, but I don’t think that it needs to be a zero-sum game. When I was writing that post, I wasn’t feeling defensive, I really just wanted to show how utterly clueless Glenn can be when he makes his presumptuous McCarthyist generalizations.
As for his rhetorical style, here’s a glaring example: he’s using a smearing generalization to criticize what he believes to be a smearing generalization. His wife is a psychologist. Perhaps she can explain to him what projection is.
Posted by: Randy Paul | May 20, 2004 at 10:17 AM
"Smear"? "McCarthyism"? What are you babbling about? Nothing in the linked item and nothing in your post has the merest indication of the great infraction you denounce. What a nut.
Posted by: megapotamus | May 21, 2004 at 03:35 PM
You know I can take criticism on the substance of what I write, but the ad hominem I will not countenance. You failed to address the issues I brought up, but chose to insult me.
Goodbye and good luck.
Posted by: Randy Paul | May 21, 2004 at 03:41 PM
i'm with you on this one randy. and it was also nice to learn more about your personal history.
i do have to say though that sometimes it gets difficult to dissect liberal from left from leftist from chomskyite etc etc etc. after all, everyone uses their own labels. ted rall said on the o'reilly factor that he's just another liberal democrat. so its hard to figure what memes are really gaining traction within each of the various levels of public opinion. i know that somehow i've been grouped with the right, and i know that not to be a fact. everybody makes labels for others and everyone makes labels for themselves. its a big mess.
Posted by: Glenn | May 21, 2004 at 03:59 PM
Glenn,
Boy do I agree with that! BTW, I noticed on Joe Katzman's blog that you'd recently had surgery. I hope you're doing better.
Posted by: Randy Paul | May 21, 2004 at 04:15 PM
much better, sir, thank you very much.
Posted by: Glenn | May 21, 2004 at 04:51 PM