The New York Times apparently thought Memorial Day would be an especially good day for a hit piece on President Bush and John McCain.

The editorial in today’s NYT really is a disgrace. It’s filled with so many lies and distortions that if the paper really doesn’t have a left-wing agenda they should probably find a new editor since he clearly doesn’t edit.

The first and probably most outrageous statement in the piece goes after President Bush for having “squandered” soldiers lives in an “unwinnable war”. I’m sure families who lost a loved one in Iraq really enjoyed the cowardly New York Times calling their sacrifice a waste.

Having saddled the military with a botched, unwinnable war, having squandered soldiers’ lives and failed them in so many ways, the commander in chief now resists giving the troops a chance at better futures out of uniform. He does this on the ground that the bill is too generous and may discourage re-enlistment, further weakening the military he has done so much to break.

The second part of the above quote is also false. President Bush never said the new G.I. Bill was “too generous” he simply said the educational benefits should be an incentive to re-enlist. Basically, you would get half the benefits for your first enlistment, and the other half after your second.

Staggering the benefits will allow the military to retain its best and brightest at a time when they’re need most. It’s not just President Bush who thinks the new G.I. Bill should be changed, but the Secretary of Defense, The Joint Chiefs, and all the military’s top brass including General Petraeus.

The President never disagreed with the benefits in the bill, but merely how they’re offered. But the editorial again makes this false assertion:

Mr. Bush — and, to his great discredit, Senator John McCain — have argued against a better G.I. Bill, for the worst reasons. They would prefer that college benefits for service members remain just mediocre enough that people in uniform are more likely to stay put.

They wouldn’t prefer that, so the NYT is again lying.

The final part of the Memorial Day hit piece goes to make more false claims, mischaracterizations, and outright lies.

They have seized on a prediction by the Congressional Budget Office that new, better benefits would decrease re-enlistments by 16 percent, which sounds ominous if you are trying — as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain are — to defend a never-ending war at a time when extended tours of duty have sapped morale and strained recruiting to the breaking point.

Their reasoning is flawed since the C.B.O. has also predicted that the bill would offset the re-enlistment decline by increasing new recruits — by 16 percent. The chance of a real shot at a college education turns out to be as strong a lure as ever. This is good news for our punishingly overburdened volunteer army, which needs all the smart, ambitious strivers it can get.

The parts in bold are either totally false or misleading. The first part in bold talks of “sapped morale” and “strained recruiting” both of which are nonsense.

I don’t know which troops they took the time to talk with (likely none) but the morale of our military has never been higher.

The second part in bold is wrong, but is likely a result of complete ignorance on military matters rather than the usual left-wing bias.

Nobody has argued that the bill would offset re-enlistment by increasing new recruits, but that’s precisely the problem.

New recruits are great, but right now the military is trying to keep the very people the Times editorial acknowledges would leave. The idea is to retain experienced battle hardened soldiers who can aide in ongoing missions and train new recruits.

A 16 percent decrease in experienced soldiers being offset with a 16 percent increase in “virgin” soldiers would be a disaster for our armed forces.

The New York Times doesn’t know what the hell they’re talking about as usual, but the least they could do is wait to print their fresh lies and distortions the day after Memorial Day.