So... much... spin...
Look, we all know that anything done by this administration will be painted in the worst possible light by the right, no matter if they would have done the same in their place (and then painted it in the best possible light). It's so predictable at this point.
This reminds me of the Pat Tillman saga in reverse. Remember him? All-American safety at Arizona State, starter for the Cardinals in the NFL, walked away from millions of $$ to join the Army Rangers and fight in Afghanistan. Good looking dude in a muscular granite-jaw sort of way, looked like a GI Joe character.
Then he gets killed in combat. The administration releases that it was a heroic death in battle with the Taliban and the media lap it up like a Japanese pornstar in a bukkake scene. He was trumpeted around as a sort of propaganda piece - Coulter, Hannity, all the usual suspects, kept invoking him as a symbol of what was good and necessary about our bullshit wars, tons of flag-waving. Ann Coulter creamed her panties rhapsodizing about him: "virtuous, pure, masculine like only an American male can be". He was on Fox 24/7, built into this legend of a Right Wing American Hero.
Then a funny thing happens. Some of the "facts" about his death didn't quite line up. Finally it comes out - he was gunned down by his own unit in a confusing event characterized by gross incompetence. It was a full-blown coverup by the army, aided and abetted by the right wing media and talking heads. It comes out he was an avowed atheist, thought the Iraq war was completely illegal, his favorite writer was Noam fucking Chomsky, and supposedly predicted in the event of his death they'd "parade me through the streets". The complete opposite of the legend created by the right wing, I dunno if anyone remembers just how blatantly they used him as a tool and a rallying cry.
Now Bergdahl ain't no Pat Tillman, that is for sure. He sounds like an unstable guy who walked away from his unit and probably had trouble beforehand too, certainly wasn't too popular with his platoon-mates. There are guys like this in every war and we never intentionally leave them to rot and die in captivity if we can help it. We get them back, there's an investigation, and if further punishment is warranted they'll get it. There are literally thousands of deserters each year during these last two wars. There were over 50,000 during WW2. Some people are just not cut out for a combat zone, and some that originally were eventually crack under pressure or disillusionment. It happens all the fucking time.
Here's a little further context for Bergdahl's platoon for those curious, to me it sounds like there was a serious leadership and organization problem across the board there. Was not a tightly run ship:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/us...-troubles.html
My point is that no matter what, shit will get spun to the millionth degree, and part of the problem is people like Vendzilla just parroting stuff before all the facts have come out, and parroting other nonsense just pulled out of his (or O'Reilly's, etc) ass because it fits his ideology. "We don't negotiate with terrorists" "He's a hostage not a POW" and so forth. It's like clockwork.