Dover: Tell me, Mr Gates

Sometimes, the ignorance coming out of Washington DC is so stunning, I am rendered almost speechless. From Thunder Run comes the following:

Tell Me Mr. Gates....How Can You Lift the Ban After This?

Please Mr. Gates, tell me how you can continue forward with your plan to lift the ban after visiting Dover and having, as your press release notes: ".... very moving experience ..."?

Gates Pays Respects to Fallen Servicemembers at Dover
By Gerry J. Gilmore
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, March 17, 2009 – Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates traveled to Dover Air Force Base, Del., last night to pay his respects to four servicemembers killed recently in Afghanistan, a senior Pentagon official said here today.

Gates “wanted to personally honor the sacrifice” of the three soldiers and one airman who died last weekend in a roadside bomb attack near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters.

Jalalabad is located between the Afghan capital of Kabul and the Pakistani city of Peshawar.

The secretary’s visit to Dover last night “was a very moving experience for him,” Morrell said....

There is more, of course. Go here and read the rest, and be SURE to read the comments. David, and two Gold Star Families, goes beyond my "ignorance" comment.

The insanity continues.

Is THIS what we want at Dover?

Claire over at Knee High in the Hooah! has a column up that serves as a reminder of what we do NOT want at Dover:

Never forget the disrespect that media has shown our fallen soldiers in the past

Mar 3rd, 2009 | By Claire | Category: 1-Featured Article

As the debate goes on about the lift of the ban on media at Dover we need to remember this story from a year ago.

Excerpt from Sweetness and Light. The bolded parts of the story are from S&L, but the underlined parts are my emphasis.

Images of dying Texas soldier ignite debate

Jan. 31, 2007, 12:23AM

EXCERPT

By MICHAEL HEDGES and JAMES PINKERTON

WASHINGTON — A photograph and videotape of a Texas soldier dying in Iraq published by the New York Times have triggered anger from his relatives and Army colleagues and revived a long-standing debate about which images of war are proper to show.

The journalists involved, Times reporter Damien Cave and Getty Images photographer Robert Nickelsberg, working for the Times, had their status as so-called embedded journalists suspended Tuesday by the Army corps in Baghdad, military officials said, because they violated a signed agreement not to publish photos or video of any wounded soldiers without official consent.

New York Times foreign editor Susan Chira said Tuesday night that the newspaper initially did not contact the family of Army Staff Sgt. Hector Leija about the images because of a specific request from the Army to avoid such a direct contact.

“The Times is extremely sensitive to the loss suffered by families when loved ones are killed in Iraq,” Chira said. “We have tried to write about the inevitable loss with extreme compassion.”...

"Sensitive" and "compassion." Yeah, riiiiiiiiiiight.. Go read the rest over here.