MSNBC Host Sparks Outrage by Doubting Use of 'Hero'

(Newser) – MSNBC host Chris Hayes fired up a Memorial Day Weekend controversy yesterday by saying he was "uncomfortable" with calling fallen soldiers "heroes," the New York Daily News reports. “I feel uncomfortable about the word hero because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war,” he said on his show, Up With Chris Hayes. He approves of "hero" when it comes to acts of heroism, he said, but “it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic.”

Veterans and critics wasted no time returning fire:

• "Chris Hayes’ recent remarks on MSNBC regarding our fallen service members are reprehensible and disgusting,” said Richard DeNoyer, the head of a top veterans group, reports Fox News.
• "Memo to Chris: they are heroes, and you don't get a vote," wrote Kurt Schlichter on Breitbart. He added that Hayes "sounds like one of my commie grad students trying to impress credulous freshman girls after a choom session in the quad."
• "I think these reactions push the point too far," writes James Poulos in Forbes. "To be sure, the point would go very far indeed if Hayes had said American soldiers are not heroes. Instead, he focused on his discomfort with describing all our servicemen and women as heroes."
• "Questioning—rather than bolstering—orthodoxies is inherently controversial," tweeted blogger Glenn Greenwald. "That's what makes Chris Hayes' show so rare for TV—& so valuable."