www.prospect.org/weblog/2006/09/post_1477.html#010031
The national Democratic Party is no longer worth the cement needed to sink it to the bottom of the sea. For an entire week, it allowed a debate on changing the soul of the country to be conducted intramurally between the Torture Porn and Useful Idiot wings of the Republican Party, the latter best exemplified by John McCain, who keeps fashioning his apparently fathomless ambition into a pair of clown shoes with which he can do the monkey dance across the national stage.
here, limning the pathetic gullibility at the heart of the "compromise." There is nothing in this bill that President Thumbscrews can't ignore. There is nothing in this bill that reins in his feckless and dangerous reinterpretation of the powers of his office. There is nothing in this bill that requires him to take it -- or its congressional authors -- seriously. Two weeks ago, John Yoo set down in The New York Times the precise philosophical basis on which the administration will sign this bill and then ignore it. The president will decide what a "lesser breach" of the Geneva Conventions is? How can anyone over the age of five give this president that power? And wait until you see the atrocity that I guarantee you is coming down the tracks concerning the fact that the president committed at least 40 impeachable offenses with regard to illegal wiretapping. On the question of whether or not the United States will reconfigure itself as a nation which tortures its purported enemies and then grants itself absolution through adjectives -- "Aggressive interrogation techniques" -- the Democratic Party hadno opinion. On the issue of allowing a demonstrably incompetent president as many of the de facto powers of a despot that you could wedge into a bill without having the Constitution spontaneously combust in the Archives, well, the Democratic Party was more pissed off at Hugo Chavez. On the subject of what kind of a nation we are, and to what extent we will live up to the best of our ideals, the Democratic Party was as mute and neutral as a stone. Human rights no longer have a viable political constituency in the United States of America. Be enough of a coward, though, and cable news will fit you for a toga. However, because I know it is vital for the Democrats to "recapture" the good Christian folks, there's a passage from Scripture that seems apropos: "When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it."
September 22, 2006 10:32 AM I'll just say this - this blog post echoes in my mind as a reflection of why I adamantly refuse to register an affiliation with any political party. If I may quote Ambrose Bierce: "CYNIC, n - A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision.
September 22, 2006 10:36 AM We're not laughing at you liberals, we're silently weeping for the loss of a whole segment of the. Citizens who just don't care about their own safety or the safety of their fellow Americans. It's sad and pathetic, and as soon as the liberal philosophy has faded from public consciosness through conversion or senescence, we'll all be better off. Our intelligence force needed to know, spelled out in law, what tools they had at their disposal to gather information, and now they do. Obviously, we couldn't gather information because these techniques were not spelled out in law! Now they are, so now we can get information, and now we'll get him.
September 22, 2006 10:43 AM Hey y'know, I'm sure our "leaders" will have a very, very strong opinion once some horrific test case comes out and the polls show 60%+ margins against it. I can just see Reid in 2010: "I can't BELIEVE the Republicans made us pass this torture bill!" News flash to Democratic pols: before we start arguing that working people need to sacrifice in the name of social responsibility, the FRIGGING POLITICIANS might want to start.
September 22, 2006 10:50 AM God, the Democrats were painfully brain-dead on this one. How about, instead of trying to guess how things will play out on some particular bill, just standing up and shouting about what the right thing is? We've got the most un-American president in history here, trashing so many of the things that made this country great. Loudly denouncing this bill from the start was the only way to go, and the entire party apparatus is too stupid to figure that out. I hate the fact that Democratic politicans are total idiots when it comes to politics.
September 22, 2006 10:54 AM Our intelligence force needed to know, spelled out in law, what tools they had at their disposal to gather information, and now they do. Pissylist: a tool at the disposal of the forces of unintelligence. The editorial boards have given the Dems a way to salvage this, stand on principle, and in doing so challege the media's love-affair with McCain. And if they don't, they'll be receiving non-interrogatory kicks up the ass.
September 22, 2006 11:01 AM I am, of course, completely ignoring the fact that we had bin Laden surrounded at Tore Bora in the fall of 2001, but that our commander in chief was too stupid to send in the troops, and has since then lacked the willpower or fortitude to get the job done.
September 22, 2006 11:01 AM I think Pierce should be congratulated for arriving at just the kind of finger pointing post that draws out the Specialists of the blog world. I'm afraid the only solution is to give folks enough rope to hang themselves on stuff like this. I don't like what I know of this "compromise" so far, but if Bush manages to continue a regime of pointless torture and illegal end runs around rule of law, the person damaged will be a John McCain, who said he cared deeply about not having that happen. There are not a lot of good answers here - the debate of the past few weeks revealed, as things have since 9/11: that a group of genuinely fearful men, who fundamentally distrust the ability of our laws and our Constitution to maintain order and justice in an uncertain world, have resorted to illegal, unconscionable actions to achieve dubious aims and goals, all in the name of making the world safer. And to this, Pierce, says, shame on us for not making a stronger case against it. but let's not lose sight of who should really be ashamed of what here. The problem with all of this is not just the torture and imprisonments of innocents; the real problem here is the lengths these people feel is necessary to convict the guilty. When we've lost faith in our system of laws to identify, prosecute, and imprison the guilty, that's when we're doomed. And until Democrats can comfortably say that, I'm not sure just what we have to add to this sorry, misbegotten debate.
September 22, 2006 11:02 AM specialist - I must respectfully disagree with you. No matter what horrors this new destruction of the soul of America reaps, Osama bin Laden is as safe as any human being on earth so long as the Republican party has need of him to continue its policy of uugga bugga, the scary brown people are gonna git you if you don't vote Republican. Osama will be captured only when the Republicans no longer run America. I think the odds of that happening probably leave Mr bin Laden feeling pretty safe.
These guys have lost the right to use the term Christian. As I said earlier about Malkin and her ilk, GWB had better hope that there's no afterlife for him to answer for his deeds.
September 22, 2006 11:20 AM while i agree with pierce's disdain, and with the obliviousness with which the dems failed to realize that of course slimeballs like mccain and graham would fold, it is, of course, possible for the dems to filibuster this national disgrace.
September 22, 2006 11:20 AM Our intelligence force needed to know, spelled out in law, what tools they had at their disposal to gather information, and now they do. Obviously, we couldn't gather information because these techniques were not spelled out in law! Now they are, so now we can get information, and now we'll g...
|
http://csua.com/feed/