Posted by Erick Erickson on 
Why Bowe Bergdahl Matters 

Barack Obama traded five Taliban soldiers for Bowe Bergdahl. Despite State Department statements to the contrary, we know at least one of those Taliban headed back out to kill Americans. 

But the Bergdahl situation matters at a different level than that. It matters because the White House, when confronted by who Bergdahl once, sought to smear the people who pointed out he was a deserter instead of dealing with reality. The smears included attacking honorable American soldiers who dared to point out their colleague was a deserter.

Megyn Kelly had Bergdahl's fellow soldiers, Evan Buetow, Cody Full, Gerald Sutton, and others, on her television show shortly after the news of the Bergdahl trade. Kelly and the soldiers came under withering attacks from the left and people inside the Obama Administration.

Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Brandon Friedman, suggested the soldiers were psychopaths.

Barack Obama himself used Bergdahl's return as a photo op to suggest he was acting as a great Commander in Chief.

Leftwing activists like Brian Beutler, Joan Walsh, Josh Marshall, and others took to their various media platforms to attack conservatives for daring to challenge the prevailing media narrative about Bergdahl's release being some sort of great triump.

Even now they are spinning rapidly to claim it would have been irresponsible to leave a man behind and that, somehow, no one knew he was a deserter.

And that's just it. This is why Bergdahl matters. It was known at the time from his fellow soldiers and others what had happened. Instead of dealing with the reality, the White House and its defenders chose to attack the character of American soldiers, members of the media who challenged their narrative, and conservatives.

This is another example of the left being so invested in Barack Obama that they'd deny reality and let terrorists loose rather than admit this should never have happened in the first place.

And the punchline is this. The same President who let loose five Taliban for one deserter and possible would be Taliban is telling us to trust him negotiating with Iran.