Patriotism, on the march

A chairman and co-founder of Move America Forward, San Francisco radio talk-show host Melanie Morgan has been rallying Americans since 2004 to support the war on terrorism and the U.S. military. In July 2005, Mrs. Morgan led a delegation of talk-radio hosts to Iraq to interview U.S. troops. These interviews were broadcast live, unedited and unfiltered. The resulting “Voices of Soldiers” program won the Associated Press award for Best Special Program. Last year, she wrote the Amazon.com best-seller “American Mourning,” which tells the story of two American heroes killed in the war on terrorism.

talk-show host Melanie Morgan has been rallying Americans since 2004 to support the war on terrorism and the U.S. military. In July 2005, Mrs. Morgan led a delegation of talk-radio hosts to Iraq to interview U.S. troops. These interviews were broadcast live, unedited and unfiltered. The resulting “Voices of Soldiers” program won the Associated Press award for Best Special Program. Last year, she wrote the Amazon.com best-seller “American Mourning,” which tells the story of two American heroes killed in the war on terrorism.

This week and next, she is leading Move America Forward’s march for victory from Nevada to Washington, D.C. Here are excerpts from a telephone interview with The Washington Times.

Question: What would you like to tell people about Move America Forward and the Victory Tour?

Answer: Move America Forward is the largest pro-troop organization in the country with over a million members, and we are very excited to be joining together with a number of other pro-troop organizations, leading up to General [David H.] Petraeus’ report on the surge, which is due somewhere around September 15. We are hoping to have between 30,000 and 50,000 people in Washington, D.C., to support General Petraeus and ask Congress to give his report a fair hearing.

Move America Forward is going to begin this process by starting in Carson City, Nevada, in front of the offices of Senator Harry Reid, and we are going to travel 4,384 miles across the nation with 27 stops, with rallies calling for continued support of the U.S. troops based in Iraq.

We call it the Fight for Victory Tour, and we feel that this is taking place at a very critical time. The surge is beginning to show success in Iraq, and the additional 20,000 troops that have been stationed there have made a dramatic difference, and even the so-called mainstream media is beginning to take note of that. We have been getting reports back from the Brookings Institution, their two scholars have been there, and they have reported that there is definitely a change in military tactics and strategy, and it’s working.

We want to call the public’s attention to this fact, and we are going to do that by working around the national media, which is refusing to report the truth about what is happening there, with our 27 stops across America and the local media, so the word can get out.

Q: There is a concentrated effort — by the left, blogs, YouTube and DailyKos — to attack you. Can you tell us the nature of the attacks? Are they personally life-threatening attacks or just on the Move America Forward movement itself?

A: I have received dozens and dozens of death threats and some of the most vile and reprehensible e-mails that anybody could possibly imagine, or maybe not. I mean I never thought that people were capable of such hatred because a proud, patriotic American woman like myself has joined with others to deliver a message to America that we support our troops.

I had no idea it was so controversial, but apparently it is in this politicized day and age. I have been getting hit personally, and YouTube attacks, e-mails that go to my personal Web site; it’s just been astonishing to me the level of vitriol that has been leveled at me.

Q: Speaking of attacks, last year there was another attempt by the left to lead an ad boycott against your station, KSFO, over comments characterized by the New York Times as “violent, racially offensive and religiously insensitive.”

A: Yes.

Q: Did you lose any advertisers from that attack?

A: We lost a few advertisers in the very beginning of the attack, but then they came back again and other advertisers came on board, so the efforts by some of these people, who are what I call “crackpots with keyboards,” were largely unsuccessful. They tried to get me blackballed from MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews.” That was a miserable flop.

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