Cindy Sheehan isn’t the only woman conservatives love to smear.
Mac has a nice post on Pesky’Apostophe about the right-wing smear campaign currently underway against Discovery shuttle commander and pilot Eileen Collins. As Mac noted in a previous post, Collins made herself a target for wingnuts when she had the nerve to remark upon the environmental damage she saw while orbiting the Earth:
[…] “Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It’s very widespread in some parts of the world,” Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
“We would like to see, from the astronauts’ point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used,” said Collins, who was standing with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi in front of a Japanese flag and holding a colourful fan.
Collins, making her fourth shuttle flight, said the view from space made clear that Earth’s atmosphere must be protected, too.
“The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it’s so very thin,” she said. “We know that we don’t have much air, we need to protect what we have.”
As Mac noted at the time, right-wingers “might start to try to smear Eileen Collins—you know, connect her to some environmental group or something, say she’s got an agenda, maybe even say that she hates George W. Bush/freedom/America. Because that’s the way it usually goes.”
While that conversation hasn’t yet reached any of the bigger conservative blogs, the smear campaign has already begun here, here, and here.
My favorite quote so far is this one, from The Deep Freeze:
‘Cause, you know, there’s not all that much difference between a space shuttle pilot and Paris Hilton (besides the years of training in science, of course).
Now, the only mitigating factor I can think of on behalf of these conservatives is that many of them are well-acquainted with the nether regions of the universe, and might very well have spent more time in deep space than Ms. Collins.
4 Comments on "Gentlemen, Start Your Smear Campaign"
JLo:
This seems the height of pettiness to me. An American–dare I say a patriot?–risks her life to lead a mission to space to show that we can, and these folks would rather piss on her than consider what she says. Seriously. Do these folks have so much time and so little regard for the quality of the air they breathe that this is the best way they could spend a day?
Let’s see, shall we have the bile or the venom today? Oh, let’s go with the bile.
Redd Turtle Research & Creative Copy » Blog Archive » Shut the F*** Up:
[…] I read this and thought to myself - are you kiddin’? Are you really going to try and compare an astronaut to celebrities? Nothing against celebs - but I doubt anyone but Richard Branson is interested in going to the damn moon. Much less capable. An accomplished and highly regarded pilot mentions that we aren’t taking care of the earth and she isn’t patriotic. For God’s sake get a grip. We aren’t taking care of the earth. My three year old can see that. […]
Neil Shakespeare:
LOL. The link to “The Political Teen” website was most precious. Loved the comment by “V of K”:
“I’m only mildly surprised she didn’t somehow manage to blame the deforestation on Karl Rove.”
No, I believe that was James Watt, the Reagan guy who wanted to cut down all the trees to make a nice big landing strip for Jesus.
Good to know we’ve got sharpthinkin’ political teens out there…
RAD:
http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/collins.html
Commander Collins (Colonel, USAF) has the following special honors:
“Defense Superior Service Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Air Force Meritorious Service Medal with one oak leaf cluster, Air Force Commendation Medal with one oak leaf cluster, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal for service in Grenada (Operation Urgent Fury, October 1983), French Legion of Honor, NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal, NASA Space Flight Medals.”
A decorated veteran of the Grenada operation.
Just one more example of the Right hating the Troops…
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