The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Unprincipled and Unhinged Left: Marcy Wheeler as Case Study

Posted on | April 14, 2023 | 1 Comment

Marcy Wheeler has a Ph.D. in comparative literature, and exactly how that qualifies her as an expert on national security can only be explained by the fact that liberalism, per se, is counted as a credential by most journalists (who, really, have no other qualification beyond that).

We’ve seen this phenomenon in recent years with the way liberals on Twitter go from issue to issue as instant “experts” on whatever topic is in the headlines. In 2016, every liberal with Internet access suddenly became an expert on Russian intelligence, but in 2020 the same people became epidemiology experts. Last year, they all became experts on Ukraine. Qualifications? They don’t need no stinkin’ qualifications! They’re liberals, which makes them automatically qualified.

So it is with Marcy Wheeler, whom I recall from the Bush years as being obsessed with the idea that Karl Rove should be “frog-marched” for his supposed role in the PlameGate affair. We have the word of Jane Hamsher — wow, remember her? — on the deranged depths of Wheeler’s PlameGate fixation: “Marcy Wheeler knows more about this case than any other human on the face of the planet.” Except, of course, Rove was never indicted, spoiling liberal hopes of a “Merry Fitzmas.”

Marcy Wheeler is a blogger, full stop. Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t qualify you as a national security expert, and the OCD-infused quality of Wheeler’s work — going down rabbit holes to pursue whatever paranoid conspiracy theory the fringe Left may be temporarily fixated on — is more or less self-discrediting. All of this is preamble to Wheeler’s headline yesterday about the Pentagon leak:

The Narcissist with a Top Secret Clearance
Trying to Impress Teenagers
in a Ukraine-Russia Chat Room

Which is a fair take, if you begin with the assumption that leaking America’s top secrets is a bad thing, which I always have. Even though the contents of the leak by Massachusetts Air National Guard private Jack Teixeira included useful information — e.g., Ukraine’s manpower shortage, which Biden has concealed with a lot of unrealistic happy talk — nevertheless, I believe Teixeira should be prosecuted and sent to federal prison, as should any service member entrusted with classified information who violates that trust. But has Marcy Wheeler consistently demanded maximum punishment in such cases? No, she has not.

Manning Faces Up to 136 Years
in Prison for Alerting You to What
Your Government Does in Your Name

That was Marcy Wheeler’s headline in 2013, after Bradley Manning was convicted. In case you’ve forgotten, that case happened while the “War on Terror” was still continuing during the Obama administration. Because the Left considered this “Bush’s war,” they were irate that Obama did not immediately end it as soon as he took office, and therefore leaking national security secrets was good, because it undermined the U.S. war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan. For some reason, Marcy Wheeler has forgotten whatever “principles” led her to sympathize with that Courageous Truth-Teller Formerly Known as Bradley Manning.

Whereas Bradley/“Chelsea” was praised by Wheeler for “alerting you to what your government does in your name,” there is no such praise for Teixeira because . . . Well, Orange Man Bad or something.

Y’know, I’ve always said that politics is a team sport, and I understand that this means that partisans don’t get to choose their fights. We defend our team, and criticize the opponent. The issues over which these fights occur will change over the course of time, and at different periods Our Team may be the party in power, or the disgruntled opposition. Given the variability of these factors, strict 100% consistency on policy matters may be impossible. But if Wheeler has any cynical self-awareness about how her status as Democrat team player has affected her attitude toward national security leakers, she’s hiding it pretty damned well.



 

 

Category: Liberals

Comments

One Response to “The Unprincipled and Unhinged Left: Marcy Wheeler as Case Study”

  1. How Did He Get Those Secrets? : The Other McCain
    April 15th, 2023 @ 7:23 am

    […] comments on a previous post, Dianna Deeley raised the idea that Teixeira is a “fall guy,” but I don’t want to […]