Yesterday, in a gratingly stupid post, Steve “Mister Furious” Perry at MNMon said (with emphasis added):

Bribes — more commonly known as signing bonuses — are “one of the main reasons why the Army has been able to meet its recruiting goals in spite of the ongoing specter of serving in Iraq,” [author Michael] Massing writes.

He would seem to be one of those lefties who “supports the troops” because “it’s a good place to put all the people who are too dumb to be me” – but that’s not really the point.

One would think that if the troops were just a bunch of bribed mercenaries, this would not be the case:

According to Army statistics … 70 percent of soldiers eligible to re-enlist in 2006 did so — a re-enlistment rate higher than before Sept. 11, 2001. For the past 10 years, the enlisted retention rates of the Army have exceeded 100 percent. As of last Nov. 13, Army re-enlistment was 137 percent of its stated goal.

You wouldn’t think a poor, “dumb” kid who came to the service out of desperation would stick around after they loaded up on bonuses and swag. Would you?

People have commented, here and elsewhere, about the tone the Monitor has taken since Perry – former City Pages editor back when it was known as a place with some damn fine journalism sprinkled in among the ofay hipsterism – took over. What was once a genial, well-meaning and frequently dumb group propagandablog has turned into a shrill, shallow, gratingly obvious vehicle that would seem to be trying for a slice of the Kos/MyDD market, with a nasty stupid streak and an appetite for uncritically gurgitating press releases.

I’m trying to figure out where it was that Steve “Mister Furious” Perry made the switch from “good journalist and editor” to a sort of intellectual Alexandra Dupre.