Spencer Ackerman tags this paragraph as the part of President Obama's Fort Hood remarks most likely to draw conservative ire over "political correctness":
This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in a time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations – all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.
Maybe it will--it's hard to underestimate the GOP's commitment to being as monochrome as possible. But if one actually reads the speech, in which Obama lists the fallen by name, you see that the nod to diversity in the above paragraph is almost unnecessary. The fallen being honored today have names like Frederick Greene and Amy Krueger, but they also have names like Libardo Eduardo Caraveo, Francheska Velez, and Kham Xiong. To say that our armed forces are "man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations" isn't "politically correct."
It's just correct.
Photo of first responders at Fort Hood via the U.S. Army's Flickr stream.-- A. Serwer
