Star Spangled Crap

At first it felt like a warm-hearted and genuinely nice thing to say: "Hey, whether or not you're for the war, seriously guys, we all should be so grateful for all the men and women serving in Iraq!" Pundit after pundit, guest after guest on tv/etc preface everything they said with this comment. And only recently have I started wondering, what the fuck - do we really need to say this? Has ANYONE come on tv and said "Hey, I'm against the war, and the troops can go fuck themselves?" No. And these twits like to act chagrined when they say this, like they're preaching to the millions and millions of Americans who are sitting around thinking about how much the troops suck. They'll throw out this patriotic cliché and we're supposed to get all teary, all "hey, what a great guy!" and throw them 4th of July parties whenever they come on tv again. They act like they just invented the sentiment. Gimme a fucking break. It's bad enough we gotta hear how "unpatriotic" being against the war is; but we also gotta get this shit - and if we're lucky, only one story about some sergeant overseas who somehow contacted Senator Fuckwad's office to report what it's like over there. Maybe what "patriotic" really means is not wanting those "precious, heroic troops!" in harm's way in the first place when 1/2 the country disagrees with the very war they're in. But I'm getting sidetracked - knock it off with your by-the-numbers tearjerker crap. You're not a hero for stating the obvious, you're just wasting mine and everybody else's time.