Forgiving Brooke Baldwin

Posted on | April 29, 2015 | 33 Comments

by Smitty

Another day, another unfortunate utterance by someone on the Left. Watching the clip, it’s clearly a scripted set-up between her and good ol’ Elijah “fake racial slurs” Cummings.

But let us express compassion for poor wee Brooke, a thirty-something special snowflake from the UNC Chapel Hill Department of Commie Propaganda (that is, Journalism). When I went to boot camp in 1987, my company commander was a SMC Baldwin. That’s Chief Signalman for you civilian types, though the rating was apparently merged with Quartermaster in 2004.

I kind of wonder what old Baldwin would think of his namesake slandering veterans as though military service turns Americans into some kind of foreign, invasive species. Veterans support and defend the Constitutional right of Brooke and her ilk to be as false and useless as they want to be. There is some irony to be mined in how the era of Hope and Change segregates Americans into victim groups, like the Baltimore rioters, and target groups, like veterans, Christians, and males (trifecta for me!).

So, take your paycheck, Brooke. Take it knowing that, even though you’re on the wrong team, at least some veterans forgive you. We pray that wisdom find you, and you truly repent past the casual tweet and instead start doing some useful reporting. While you had EC on camera, for example, you could have diverted from your talking points to inquire if Cummings approved of Martin O’Malley’s 2013 gun law, which probably did little to help societal politeness recently in Baltimore.

But, again, we’re in a forgiving mood, and, besides: we expect absolutely nothing from you whatsoever, Brooke. It’s only when you veer negative that something must be said.

via Breitbart

Category: CNN, Media Bias

Comments

33 Responses to “Forgiving Brooke Baldwin”

Quartermaster
April 29th, 2015 @ 5:46 am

Wiki, as usual, has some problems. Training of lookouts was not a QM responsibility and we were always supposed to be able to do the SM job as well, although few us could keep up with it as we didn’t do it enough. The Coastie QMs also went through the SM’s school and also had duties in the CIC, which was the Radarman’s job, or Operations Specialist now. Placing the SM responsibility under the QM rating makes some sense, but if the QM watch stander has to do the SM job while steaming in fleet formation, then things could get a bit hectic.

My CC was RD1 Woolen. Shows how long ago I was in. Also, SMC was as high as an SM could go. After that he had to become a QM. Torqued many of them quite badly.
Southern Air Pirate
April 29th, 2015 @ 6:44 am

No this was an intentional slur that was part of the continued rage against the Bush Wars. That goes this way: PTSD from combat is bad. We have had war since 2001. The Buah Wars are evil. Bush is evil. The veterans have been leaving the military to become police. PTSD makes you a Hulk like rage monster. All veterans have PTSD. Therefore all cops are raging Hulk monsters looking to kill someone, because of the evil wars of Bushitler since 2001.
DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Forgiving Brooke Baldwin
April 29th, 2015 @ 7:09 am

[…] Read it. […]
BLBeamer
April 29th, 2015 @ 7:11 am

Given the parlous state of print journalism these days it seems more likely to me that those Baltimore rioters are actually unemployed and frustrated ex-journalists. When will the Man realize that He can’t continue to lay off, fire or under-pay partisan hacks simply because no one wants to read their drivel? No newsprint – no peace!
JeffWeimer
April 29th, 2015 @ 7:13 am

And they weren’t that great a fit with QMs anyway – they were usually in the comms division with RMs, Making the QMs has hurt our signaling capability, IMO.

Kinda like IC-men. They could go as high as ICCS, then had to become EMs. Many never worked in the Engineering department and would be lost as a Top Snipe. It’s been fixed in the last 2 years – ICs are now seaman rather than fireman branch and they have their own Master Chiefs. They darn near went away altogether and split between EM and ET, kinda like DS split between FC and ET.
Jim R
April 29th, 2015 @ 7:31 am

It’s all of a piece: the left has been convinced that combat vets are all psycho killers since Vietnam. DHS put out a study warning that returning vets are likely to become right-wing terrorists. So, no surprise that a lefty reporter would say, just as casually as she might say that the sun rises in the east, that vets-turned-cops are trigger-happy thugs just itching to shoot people.
Dindu nuffin
April 29th, 2015 @ 8:03 am

Hoax and chains is what we got
Adjoran
April 29th, 2015 @ 8:05 am

I for one find the rare moment of candor from her and CNN refreshing. Most of the time, they pretend to be loyal Americans supporting the country’s best interests. But such a false front seems hard to keep up all the time.
Dindu nuffin
April 29th, 2015 @ 8:05 am

Not sure what that means, but many thanks for your service
Quartermaster
April 29th, 2015 @ 8:22 am

Smitty and Jeff know.
JeffWeimer
April 29th, 2015 @ 8:24 am

QM – Quartermaster. Not the Army supply type in any way, shape, or form. Ship navigation specialists.

SM – Signalman. Flag waving, flashing light morse code, flag hoist communications. Direct line of sight ship to ship communications. Jack Nicholson’s Budduski in The Last Detail.

RD – Radarman. Now known as OS (Operations Specialist) in the Navy. Coast Guard still calls them RD. The guy tracking contacts on a radar screen. QM very nearly merged with OS about 10 years ago, as there is a lot of overlap in duties. but the SM merge would have required too much varied knowledge for individual Sailors to be effective in all of them.

FC – Fire Controlman. Weapons control system technicians and specialists. Does not put out fires, he starts them.

ET – Electronics Technician. Fixes radios and radars.

EM – Electrician’s Mate. Exactly what it says. Shipboard electrician.

IC – Interior Communications Electrician. Maintains the shipboard telephone systems, gyros, and everything else the EMs don’t want to deal with today.

DS – Data Systems Technician. The best damn rating in the Navy. So good they had to pre-emptively disband us before we took control. Repairs shipboard mainframe computers and radar consoles.
Quartermaster
April 29th, 2015 @ 8:26 am

As you rose in rate, the SM’s practical factors included more and more of the QM stuff. I agree with you on the hurt part. The Coastie’s QMs were a combination rating and they went to the SM school as well. On the east coast the QM and SM ‘A’ schools were in the same FTC at Newport when I was in. They later moved it to Orlando, then Norfolk. I think they kept them together at both places, but there was never any commonality in the Navy, only with the Coasties. Now the Coasties have merged the QM rating with the BMs, which makes absolutely no sense.
#BaltimoreRiots: What did happen to Freddie Gray? | Batshit Crazy News
April 29th, 2015 @ 8:31 am

[…] This story makes no sense. I am definitely not justifying rioting and mayhem, but how does a 25 year old man go into a police van and come out with his spine almost severed and with injuries that shortly thereafter killed him? I am inclined to give the police the benefit of doubt, but a case like this one (at least with what little Baltimore P.D. has released) quickly erodes that sentiment. The Baltimore P.D. won’t even disclose why Freddie Gray was arrested in the first place. Baltimore’s handling of Freddie Gray’s death makes Ferguson’s initial public relation effort in connection with the Michael Brown shooting look downright competent. Instapundit: As Baltimore burns, O’Malley speaks out and Hillary talks about bumper stickers, Hope and Change, and Loretta Lynch’s first test Wombat: Baltimore erupts in riots Katie Pavlich: Mom slaps son TOM: Anarchy in Baltimore and (Smitty) Mayor of Baltimore in Dire Straits EBL: Wasn’t that White House Corespondent’s Dinner Just Fabulous? Regular Right Guy: Democrats Burning Down Baltimore Instapundit: Roger Simon: Why Baltimore? An American Tragedy and CNN Blames Military Veterans? Michelle Malkin: Baltimore citizens are running with the space the Mayor gave them Twitchy/Kevin Williamson: Baltimore is the left, fighting the left, over the failed policies of the left Instapundit: Remember O’Malley’s Anti Gun Law Smitty: Forgiving Brooke Baldwin […]
JeffWeimer
April 29th, 2015 @ 8:40 am

That was one of the (many) odd disconnects between the shore organization and actual fleet practice.
Adobe_Walls
April 29th, 2015 @ 9:03 am

While I take your point this was a serious breech of message discipline. Whatever small controversy raised by this incident detracts from the overall message strategy. That message is of course ”send money now” is the only cure for urban unrest.
LoneSage
April 29th, 2015 @ 10:37 am

Looks like a plant, scripted interview. The left has to vilify veterans (thank you veterans for your service) so they won’t be listened to once they find their voice. If they find their voice they would be a force on the political front that could make much needed changes towards a Constitutional following government from all three branches. Could even include some jail time for some. Once all personal morals and opinions can be declared hate speech punishable by law it will be too late to do anything.
Steve Skubinna
April 29th, 2015 @ 11:15 am

It has always sat heavily upon the left, the pretense that they “support the troops.” That is a tactical lie, as they belatedly realized that harassing and spitting on returning veterans played out extremely badly in America’s living rooms.

So once in a while the mask slips. They can’t understand, even on a remote theoretical level, why anybody would enlist. Our military is comprised of ignorant racist sexist xenophobic killers (if white) and pathetic no hope minorities desperate for any way out of the crushing oppressive system. So they mouth the words of support, often through gritted teeth because they’re speaking a code they have no real hope of breaking. You and I, Smitty, are alien creatures to them. They fear us and hate us but they do know they are not supposed to vocalize that outside of the faculty lounge or the newsroom or their safe spaces.

I neither forgive her nor hate her. I disregard what she has said because she inhabits a different universe from mine.
Steve Skubinna
April 29th, 2015 @ 11:20 am

My father told me that when he first went into the Navy (early fifties) the SM and QM ratings were combined.

Heck, since I’ve been out there have been huge changes in the ratings as new ones are created and others merged. The MAs for example have grown like a weed – my first ship, an LHA, had I think two rated MAs and the rest of the MAA force was made up of POs TAD from other departments. Also, you couldn’t enlist as an MA, but had ot cross over after making PO in another rate. The MAs have also taken all the shore force protection billets the deck ratings used to get.
Steve Skubinna
April 29th, 2015 @ 11:23 am

I would not rule out a large contingent of (fill in the blank) Studies majors. Gotta be a lot of rage in spending lots of somebody else’s money on a couple of degrees you too late find are useless in the job market.

Because of those damned Republicans and their racist war on women. And, uh, the cis-males.
Steve Skubinna
April 29th, 2015 @ 11:26 am

In leftist mythology there are only victims and oppressors. If you are not one than you are the other. It’s as simple as that.
Steve Skubinna
April 29th, 2015 @ 11:31 am

Oh, I think they realize that veterans are massively not in their constituency. As such they don’t give a damn for them.

But they are aware that many Americans, while not veterans themselves, do respect vets and do not share their scorn and contempt, and that displaying it openly is bad optics.

Have you ever noticed that a progressive never apologizes for whatever offensive act or statement they have made? It’s always a pro forma “sorry if anyone was offended.” That’s because a) they’re not sorry at all, and b) they honestly can’t understand why anyone would take offense.
Evi L. Bloggerlady
April 29th, 2015 @ 12:31 pm

https://twitter.com/MsEBL/status/593463238924308480
Evi L. Bloggerlady
April 29th, 2015 @ 12:32 pm

https://twitter.com/MsEBL/status/593466057265938434
Quartermaster
April 29th, 2015 @ 2:21 pm

I’d say it makes sense since QMs and SMs were ship board ratings and really didn’t have much to do ashore. When I was in there were a few girl QMs, and all they got to do was take care of dispense charts.
RichFader
April 29th, 2015 @ 4:00 pm

Hope and Change has been more dangerous to the world than climate change.
Quartermaster
April 29th, 2015 @ 7:51 pm

When I was in MAA was something you were assigned and there was no rating. The MPs for the Navy were all Marines.
theoldsargesays
April 29th, 2015 @ 9:14 pm

Which LHA were you on Steve?
I did my first Med cruise aboard LHA-2 USS Saipan.
theoldsargesays
April 29th, 2015 @ 9:16 pm

BINGO!
Steve Skubinna
April 29th, 2015 @ 11:34 pm

Peleliu, LHA-5. I am literally a plank owner – after commissioning and shakedown we went back to the yard to have addiitonal flight deck tie downs installed, and I snagged one of the circular cutouts from the holes they made to weld them in to.

So sitting on a shelf at home is a piece of Peleliu’s flight deck. She was decommissioned last month. Wish I’d been in San Diego to be there.
Steve Skubinna
April 30th, 2015 @ 7:23 am

These days you won’t see Marines doing security on base unless there are special weapons there.
Quartermaster
April 30th, 2015 @ 9:56 am

When I was in Marines were on the gates at NOB NORVA, but the base had a civilian police force
Brooke Baldwin Apology Tour Rule 5 | Batshit Crazy News
April 30th, 2015 @ 10:22 am

[…] if Smitty can forgive Brooke, so can I. She did […]
theoldsargesays
April 30th, 2015 @ 6:34 pm

Very cool man.
I did Med cruises aboard Saipan & Guadalcanal and a short Caribbean cruise aboard Guam.
Having been aboard the LHA prior to the LPH’s they were, of course, a big step down as far as flight deck size and aircraft storage space.
Good memories from all though.