Love the Hugh

The L.A. Times is becoming quite the rag these days. Look what Hugh Hewitt has to say about it today:

The deaths of 14 Marines yesterday and seven more the day before staggered Marine Corps families across the United States. I think it would have been entirely appropriate for every paper in America to run coverage of this great loss of brave men, with details about their families.

But the Los Angeles Times chose, on its front page, to quote an Ohio school teacher who came to the headquarters of the Ohio battalion that had suffered the losses:

"How much more are we expected to give?" asked Nancy Chase, 47, a schoolteacher who came to place flowers and flags at the entrance of the battalion's headquarters.

"We are patriotic people. We love our country. But how many lives are enough?"

A few paragraphs down, the writer adds:

Military service has a long tradition here. It is a popular option in a town where most of the jobs are in manufacturing and the median family income is just over $53,000 a year.

The Chase quote appears again as part of the caption on the lead photograph on page A6, which shows the legs of people holding hands in front of a fence outside the headquarters of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment in Brook Park, Ohio.

I don't know the political opinions of the reporter, or of Ms. Chase. I do think that the quote selected by the writer is not one that any of the Marines killed would have chosen to include in a story about the grief that accompanied their deaths. I don't think they would have appreciated the insinuation that they were Marines because they needed a job.

Insulting.

In short, I don't believe they would have appreciated having their sacrifices pimped by an anti-war paper on the day their deaths were being absorbed by their families, loved ones and friends.

Shameful.