The liberal media and administration officials are seething with shocked outrage at the release of a video depicting the desecration by urination of three Taliban corpses by four U.S. Marines. Interestingly, the American public is neither as incensed nor apparently even shocked by the revelation. The Washington Post in its online account has included a reader poll with these three options:

What was your reaction to the video that appeared to show Marines urinating on three Afghan corpses?

It's an unacceptable desecration - 12%

It's an embarrassment - 7%

It's not surprising -- things like this happen in war - 81%

Total Votes: 13,445

No doubt the enraged elites will be equally outraged at such poll results, evidence of the validity of their snide condescension toward the majority of Americans who to them are nothing more than vulgar barbarians clinging to their God and their guns. What that poll says to me is that the American people understand that while urinating on your dead enemy may show a serious lack of respect, it in no way rises to the level of seriousness of that of actually killing them.

But then again, the liberals are the same folks who don't give second thought to launching a Hellfire missile from a drone and wiping out a squad of Taliban or Al Qaeda but woe be unto the American trooper who dares inflict pain on a survivor to obtain critical intelligence. They're the same fools who deplore American forces for not fighting fair. Of that concept, warrior/author, Col. David Hackworth, R.I.P., famously said, "If you find yourself in a fair fight, you didn't plan your mission properly."

Democratic Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, was quick to describe the actions of the Marines as, "Utterly deplorable." What I find utterly deplorable is another news story today that is being ignored by the liberal media although it is spreading in the conservative blogosphere. It concerns an excerpt from a new book about our Mideast wars by Michael Hastings, The Operators, wherein a state department official describes the less-than-commander-in-chief-like behavior of Barack Obama on a visit to Baghdad:

After the talk, out of earshot from the soldiers and diplomats, he starts to complain. He starts to act very un-Obamalike, according to a U.S. embassy official who helped organize the trip in Baghdad. He's asked to go out to take a few more pictures with soldiers and embassy staffers. He's asked to sign copies of his book. "He didn't want to take pictures with any more soldiers; he was complaining about it," a State Department official tells me. "Look, I was excited to meet him. I wanted to like him. Let's just say the scales fell from my eyes after I did. These are people over here who've been fighting the war, or working every day for the war effort, and he didn't want to take f**king pictures with them?"

As an old combat infantryman who served, incidentally, in the same Airborne infantry regiment at the same time as Col. Hackworth in Vietnam, I've witnessed post-mortem desecration, usually not by our troops, but not infrequently by our Asian enemies, not to mention our Asian allies. Such practices are not uncommon in many regions of the world and generally only become news when it's our troops who get caught doing it. My reaction to this incident tends to reflect the views of that huge 80% majority polling at WAPO that things like this happen in war.

So for our Marines, that's a big Semper Fi!

To the Marines involved in this incident, some advice from Ol' Sarge: You may be under heavy fire for now, but that poll, in one of the nation's most prominent major liberal newspapers, should tell you that the American people are willing to forgive and forget. We can only hope that Leon and his generals will take note of the numbers. What all our warriors have to remember is that with these liberal airheads who unfortunately control most of the news, it's OK to keep hunting down these jihadists and killing them as long as you do so in a tastefully sensitive manner. You know, like a metrosexual Marine Corps.

So hey, you tough-guy Marines, next time, to keep from whipping up a froth among the weenies at WAPO, just keep 'em zipped.