Bataan Death March

We lost Goddammit! Get in line and quit grousing!

We lost Goddammit! Get in line and quit trying to escape! Forward MARCH!

Let’s nip this one in the bud.

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz compared his 21-hour speech on the Senate floor against Obamacare to the infamous Bataan Death March that killed hundreds of American troops at the hands of the Japanese during World War II. Cruz was speaking Wednesday at the conclusion of his remarks thanking staff who stayed up through the night for his speech.

“Now in 31 minutes we will be concluded,” Cruz said. “I don’t want to miss the opportunity within the limited amount of time is imperative that I do, which is to thank the men and women who have endured this, this Bataan Death March. And I want to take a little bit of time to thank by name. I want to start by thanking the Republican floor staff and cloakroom. I want to thank Laura Dove for her fairness, for her dealing with crises and passions on all sides and for her effectiveness in the job. And this is an interesting occurrence to occur so early in her job and I thank her for her service.”

Now the libs are offended by a military reference they would otherwise routinely scorn? (If they even knew what it was before some old dog snarled.) Sure. How many ways can they make up false causes for their deep disgust and anger at the locutions of conservatives? Answer: Countless.

Context is everything. Every major pundit and beltway type has condemned Cruz’s defunding fight as a cataclysmic and even suicidal impulse toward political disaster. “Bataan Death March” is unquestionably a succinct summary of how his critics have characterized Cruz’s tactics — a doomed path to the massacre of his own party’s future prospects given his opposition to ObamaCare in this way and at this time. What was he saying? “I thank you for all the work you did in what everyone must have told you was a lost cause.”

It’s also not a bad analogy. The March occurred after the U.S. forces on Corregidor surrendered. The Japanese did their best to dispirit and kill the troops they were leading to inhuman prison camps. The triumph of the Death March was that so many troops survived. They kept moving, kept helping one another, confident that if they could survive this ordeal, rescue would one day come. As it did. In other words, in the face of total defeat and disaster, they never gave up. Would that we could say the same about Republican leadership right now. But we can’t. John McCain of all people spoke on behalf of the occupying force and after claiming credit for having fought an honorable fight proclaimed that we are now defeated and must accept the consequences. Is anyone as outraged by that statement of surrender as they are by Cruz’s defiance and determination to keep fighting?

But by all means let’s play the new game of being enraged by anything, everything, over nothing, because somebody we don’t like said it.

Phooey.

btw, ObamaCare when fully implemented will kill a lot more people than the Bataan Death March did. Everyone shies from Palin’s term Death Panels. That what the affordable Care Act is, a humongous Death Panel. Regulations that increase delays before treatment, reduce research & development, drive doctors out of practice, seniors out of access to timely Medicare and Medicaid care, force dangerous choices for no insurance over too expensive insurance, bureaucratic control of transplant opportunities based on nanny state values, and the clip-clip-clip of hospital layoffs and cost-cutting because insurance companies will tighten the strings just trying to stay alive.

It all adds up to death on a large scale. Shortened lives, ruined lives, bungled treatments, indifferent doctors and nurses who kill you by no longer caring enough or being able to fight through the red tape. Kind of like being bayoneted on the side of the road. But more insidious.

But, you know, Cruz was out of line in what he did and what he said. Got it.

2 thoughts on “Bataan Death March

  1. It’s bad enough when the left twists a couple of words in a marathon speech to tag the speaker as dismissible. But when the right side does it to one of their own… betrayal upon betrayal. Cruz needs to be undermined from behind, really? I’m generally hopeful, but this is pure hopelessness and anger.

    • You’d also think that McCain would have learned from the ’08 election that none of the left will ever like him beyond his role as useful idiot. But here he is, still trying to curry favor with them. Maybe he thinks that if he’d only picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate instead of Sarah Palin (like you know he wanted to) he would have won in a landslide. I’m sure that’s what his staffers tell him.

      Also, I hadn’t realized that Krauthammer was against Reagan three times. I just don’t trust anybody who has spent too much time near DC.

Comments are closed.