You Say Goodbye and I Say Hello

So, we accept the premise that those pushing for investigation or potential prosecution for these crimes are merely in it for political vengeance, and not justice and the very soul of Western rule of law?

Please, read up on your Hilzoy.

Geez, Jay. What did that song ever do to you?

Thank you. People have asked what exactly is “beltway wisdom”. You put it all in your piece.
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The undercurrent is not just “the club takes care of our own” but a certain contempt for both the ability of the governors to do hard things and for the governed to handle it.
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Again, thank you for that service.

Indeed, this was written exacly like you were already anticipating the likely reaction from Swamplanders but I have to belabor the obvious anyway.
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First of all you’re lumping all the Bush scandals together in a way that detracts from the particularly dire nature of the torture scandal. You use word ‘moderate’ and ‘left’ in Villager-friendly but objectively false ways. There’s nothing particularly ‘moderate’ about covering up a crime and there’s nothing particularly leftist about favoring a thorough investigation. And for what its worth, I’m not enamoured enough with Obama’s legislative agenda that it would break my heart to see it impeded by partisan sniping anyway.
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I might add that our compliance or failure to comply with the 1984 Convention against Torture rather affects our foreign policy going forward. The choice between looking forward or behind is a false one.
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And contrary to Mr Thurber’s assertion, Obama isn’t using a whit of his political capital. The calls for investigation have quite a life of their own.

When did America become Minority Report? We are talking about criminal investigations. BY FREAKING DEFINITION, we are talking about “looking back”. That is what criminal investigations do. Because crimes occur, like, in the past and stuff.
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Prosecuting crimes is not optional. If Obama chooses to direct his Attorney General to not prosecute the crimes of the past administration, he will not only become morally culpable, he will basically obstructing justice, exposing himself to international criminal prosecutions, and further politicizing the DOJ.
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Too bad Jay couldn’t have addressed any of that.

So we can’t deal, as a country, with a flagrant violation of international and domestic law by some of the most powerful people in the country over the last eight years because it’s a political nightmare?

God forbid another Republican ever gets elected president again. They’ll have Guantanamo Bay back open by sundown on their first day in office.

Ditto to Pinto. That so called piece (of crap) is replete with 100% all-natural CW. As I type this, I look slightly to the right and see who–JNS & AS. Swarm and hubris are the two words that spring to mind, what’s left of it at least. Was it Rose who mentioned anti-intellectualism earlier? These two writers take it to a whole ‘nother level: read them often enough and U2 can say sayonara to your intellect. Please, no mas, no mas. It’s enough (almost) to make a fella miss MS.

Using political capital on something people want? Doesn’t that earn political capital?
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“A new Gallup Poll finds 51% of Americans in favor and 42% opposed to an investigation into the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects during the Bush administration”
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http://www.gallup.com/poll/118006/Slim-Majority-Wants-Bush-Era-Interrogations-Investigated.aspx
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And that was BEFORE the memos became public.
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But if both Peggy Noonan and Norm Ornstein agree that’s enough for me.
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Contempt is the only word that seems to fit.

Edit: That was supposed to be smarm, as in (M-W):
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1 : revealing or marked by a smug, ingratiating, or false earnestness
2 : of low sleazy taste or quality

And just to be clear, though no one is more deserving of our unfettered contempt than most of the MSM, if investigation/prosecution does not go FWD, it’s the president who will be above all/buck-stopping to blame. Would it provide more cover for him if the media weren’t shilling for the black-chopper crowd, sure, but that hardly veils him from the condemnation he should and will receive.

Yesterday…
torture was an easy game to play,
now its time to make the culprits pay,
Oh I believe, in Yesterday.
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Suddenly…
Rumsfeld’s calling his pal Dick Che-ney,
“There’s a shadow hanging over me.”
Yesterday left suddenly.
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Why’d…they…break the law?
I don’t know, they wouldn’t say.
They…trashed…Ge-ne-va,
Now it’s time, they’re put away-ay-ay-ay…
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Yes, Today.

PNNTO: And that was BEFORE the memos became public. But it was also before the full court wingnut press that what matters is whether is worked, led by Cheney, echoed by the usual suspects, and dutifully and stenographically broadcast by the msm. Now, there remains substantial doubt that torture provided any useful information that wouldn’t have been, or already was, retrieved by traditional methods.
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But I am afraid the “debate” has been successfully shifted.

wvng, I hear what you are saying but I disagree.
This reminds me of the “widely popular Bush” when he was in fact widely unpopular. Or “President Clinton must resign” even as his numbers stayed high.
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The “debate” may have shifted in their echo chamber but not in the public. And as jcapan mentions BHO may regret listening to those wise and helpful Beltway types.

everyone remembers the price the GOP paid for its zealous pursuit of President Bill Clinton in the 1990′s.

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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
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HA
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BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
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Am I the only one who remembers the Republicans retaining both houses of Congress and gaining stealing the Presidency after they tried impeach Clinton for getting some head? Does anybody remember a price the GOP paid for investigating Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich in the form of Congressional hearings?
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I take great solace in knowing that Time magazine will have to do more downsizing real soon….

The Village theory of justice, cribbed from Michael Palin as the Lord of Swamp Castle: “‘Let’s not bicker and argue about who killed who!’”

SG-I think that is Beltway speak for-
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“In 1998, the Senate held steady and the Democrats picked up five House seats. That result—the first time since 1822 that the party not in control of the White House had failed to gain seats in the mid-term election of a president’s second term—was understood as a protest against impeachment inquiries then underway against a by-then-popular Clinton. ”
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http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0611.glastris.html

PNNTO
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If the Dems were guaranteed to lose just 5 seats in the House in order to nail those bastards I am pretty sure everyone would be down with that tradeoff.

Jay Newton-Small:
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In striving to hit that middle ground…
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…which explains the moderate path it has chosen to follow.
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“For Obama, there is no great plus in looking back and trying to make the Democrats’ adversaries from the Bush years pay with an extra pound of flesh,” says Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. “Independents, including those who drifted over from the GOP because of their unhappiness with the rightward turn of the party — and its incompetence — are not likely to resonate to attacks, and most voters want a focus on problem-solving, meaning looking to today and tomorrow, not yesterday,”
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As much as they would enjoy some retribution, most congressional Democrats also understand the peril…
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…the pressure is mounting from the left wing…
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…both parties might have very good reasons to look forward and leave the past behind
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There is an identifiable (at least to outsiders like us) set of assumptions and premises –an ideology, if you will– that underlie these claims, Jay Netwon-Small, namely:

1) The “middle ground” is always the prudent, responsible and successful path for governance, and also politically.
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2) Justice for the crimes of elites –along with public investigation of their conduct– is by definition retribution exacted by political winners
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3) The most important populist political constituency to be courted is always the low-information, low-engagement political center (“Independents…who drifted over from the GOP”)
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4) The public, always centrist in its leanings, can’t tell the difference –even if it were to be enunciated to them as such– between retributive political theater (the Lewinsky impeachment) and substantive resolution of misdeeds in governance (Iran-Contra), and so can always be counted upon to look darkly upon such proceedings, regardless of polling data.
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5) Washington politicians know that the public demands centrism of them –regardless of what their constituents actually want in terms of representation– and therefore understand “the peril” of straying from the middle on important issues
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6) Popular unhappiness with the centrist policies and positions of their representatives is leftism, and organized public expressions of that unhappiness is “pressure from the left wing”
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7) Both political parties would be more successful in terms of public favorability, if they were more centrist…especially now that Democrats are in power

What I find interesting about this piece of yours is that you’ve managed to muddy the difference between the public’s disapproval of Congress –and therefore Congressional Investigations into Bush Administration criminality

Poll: Public Does Not Want Torture Probe
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CBS News/N.Y. Times Survey: Most Say Waterboarding Is Torture, But Disagree With Calls For Congressional Investigation
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The recent release of detailed memos describing harsh interrogation techniques used on suspected terrorists under the Bush administration has fueled calls for a Congressional investigation.
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But most Americans do not want an investigation, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.
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According to the poll, sixty-two percent of Americans do not think Congress should hold hearings to investigate the administration’s treatment of detainees. Only a third of Americans thinks Congress should investigate. That’s the same proportion as thought so in February.
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Republicans overwhelming oppose Congress holding such hearings, and sixty percent of independents agree. Democrats – much like Democratic representatives in Congress — are more divided. Forty-six percent say Congress should hold hearings, while fifty-one percent say they are not necessary.

, and Justice Department or Independent Prosecutor criminal investigations into Bush Administration criminality

Poll: Most want inquiry into anti-terror tactics
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WASHINGTON — Even as Americans struggle with two wars and an economy in tatters, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds majorities in favor of investigating some of the thorniest unfinished business from the Bush administration: Whether its tactics in the “war on terror” broke the law.
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Close to two-thirds of those surveyed said there should be investigations into allegations that the Bush team used torture to interrogate terrorism suspects and its program of wiretapping U.S. citizens without getting warrants. Almost four in 10 favor criminal investigations and about a quarter want investigations without criminal charges. One-third said they want nothing to be done.
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Just because the public is anti-Congress doesn’t mean that we are anti-investigation…we’re just wary of another eight years of Whitewater-style wastes of time and money that culminate in another orgy of Lewinsky-esque revelations. We do want the law enforced for elites suspected of heinous crimes, however.
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It seems as if you’ve effectively confused these two distinct ideas, Jay Newton-Small, in some sort of strangely obtuse effort to define proper, normal investigation of past misdeeds in the worst political light available.
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I understand that you probably believe that you’ve simply reported the facts as they are in the Beltway political universe without passion or favor. I understand that you probably believe that you have made every effort to exclude political ideology from your description of events. Unfortunately for your efforts, this entire professional methodology of yours is itself an expression of an ideology, and results in a product that is inherently political in content (and consequences for the political environment), and not in any way neutral. All you have done by advertising the centrist political philosophy that imbues your reporting is to further alienate your readership, who can sense the difference between your ideas and theirs, and who no longer trust you enough to ascribe that difference to your proclaimed objectivity. The rightists learned a long time ago that they could make journalists uncomfortable by describing that alienation from the public as “the liberal media” (thus the “Fair and Balanced” campaign), but the public now suspects it’s something else, and are more and more aware that their interests are not being represented by a press corps that defines itself by its opposition to them and their non-centrist, non-technocratic, non-objective political sympathies.
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Do you understand why the claim that centrism is the professional ideology of the national political press corps resonates so strongly with engaged news consumers, Jay Newton-Small?
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Can you understand that you have written a profoundly centrist description of reality into this piece of yours?

Euphemisms for torture: Check.
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The rule of law = vengence or “a pound of flesh”: Check
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The criminal justice system = “looking back”: Check.
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Monica Lewinsky morally equivalent to possible war crimes: Check.
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Did you even put a moment’s thought into this piece? This is pure unadulterated conventional-wisdom drivel. You didn’t have to wait for the release of the torture memos to write this crap.
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At least Joe Klein sounds like he’s wrestling a bit with the question of why he doesn’t believe the law applies to the powerful.
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And when all this happens again, you’ll all be spouting the same garbage again, mark my words.
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Jesus H F’ing Christ!

Naturally my explitive-laced rant comes in just seconds after Stuart’s carefully reasoned arguments.
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JNS: Ignore my comment and read Stuart’s. He’s actually trying to engage with you people.

Also I hate emoticons.

Stuart, thank you for that. Should be required reading for the lot of them. Let’s start with JNS and AS, and maybe people could send it on over to the entire WaPo staff and MoDo too while they are at it.

calkate:
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MoDo too
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Maureen Dowd is a deeply psychologically disturbed, frustrated, amateur fetish sex worker:

File under: Another Modo “Beautiful Agony” column.
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Reading Maureen Dowd’s piece in the NYT, “Shake, Rattle and Roll”, shed absolutely no new light on the subjects it alleged itself to be about: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guiliani.
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None.
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But that clearly wasn’t the point. Because what it did accomplish, very effectively, was to let Ms. Dowd peel herself down to her taxi shoes and nipple clamps and walk giddily around the block in front of a whole bunch of people.
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Stripped of what passed for its context, here is the just the vocabulary she used in her column; just the subtext, staked out spread-eagle for your prying eyes.

dominatrix
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disciplining
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upstart
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flick the whip
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unapproachable
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voice, gaze and body language
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punishing
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brought to heel
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mesmerizing display,
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iced them.
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responds
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belittling
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strong woman
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keep him in line
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master
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the art of (the) loving
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refused to meet his eyes
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she owned him
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tortured
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brazenly
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cut
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dragged
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control freak
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letting her take control.
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all the vulnerable places
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Without ever uttering her name
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laced
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spank

Now it is a little hard to suss out whether or not Ms. Dowd is trolling for a new lover or telegraphing her erotic shopping list her to an existing one, but from her perch atop the NYT she is without doubt doing one or the other.
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And while I have my very strong impression of which side of the stockade she wants to be on, whether she likes to be the one on her knees and trembling, or the one circling slowly and whispering is still a trifle ambiguous.
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What is not difficult to figure out — regardless of which end of the leash she yearns for — is that Ms. Dowd very much likes the idea of being put through her paces in front of a crowd.
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Very, very much likes the idea.
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And while I respect all of consensual, adult Roads of Excess that lead to the Palace of Naughty, Bad Fun, I really do wish Ms. Dowd would quit twisting reality, bending the politics of people she clearly despises over a barrel, and then flogging it to a pulp just to suit her barely sublimated need for a particular brand of gratification.
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Write mediocre erotica, Ms. Dowd, or write about politics.
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Or write both.
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But as thrilling as it may make you feel down in the ol’ Dowd Fun Area, please quit using your column to badly trick out one and pretend it’s the other.

, so it is worthless for her to read serious commentary, except in combination with several anticonvulsives, and only as a form of experimental sensory deprivation therapy for her profound psychosis.

OT, but that’s kind of the point of my post…
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I don’t know if anyone watched CBS news, but the situation in Mexico is scary. This Guardian piece is also worrying: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/27/swine-flu-search-outbreak-source I understand that the MSM is trying to calm people, but there are some important questions someone needs to ask. First, is there a procedure for implementing an emergency international public health apparatus in Mexico? We may be nearing that point. Second, what measures are being taken to ensure that stocks of antiviral medication are not unnecessarily depleted? Third, what are authorities doing to ensure that undocumented immigrants (many of whom have undoubtedly been to Mexico recently) with flu symptoms feel free to access medical facilities?
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There are obvious holes in the official Mexican narrative about the flu. For example, they are maintaining – or at least they were a few hours ago; I haven’t checked recently – that no one under the age of 20 has died. That is clearly untrue. And the lack of reliable data from Mexico makes international efforts to evaluate the flu threat far more difficult. Given the transnational nature of these types of illnesses, the public health failures of individual countries put everyone at increased risk. I understand the need to avoid panic, especially since the swine flu does not appear to be especially virulent, unlike SARS with its 15% mortality rate. And I understand the need to respect Mexico’s sovereignty. But the media needs to start asking these questions that are just begging to be asked; it’s not a matter of seeking out the tough questions, it’s a matter of not running away from them.
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We all hope, and I expect, that we are not moving towards a pandemic. But eventually a pandemic will emerge. When that happens we will need an active media to help keep foreign and domestic governments honest and keep us informed about medical developments.

The public’s approval for such things shouldn’t be such a big factor as it apparently is. What’s right is right. If there is reasonable suspicion to believe the law was broken it should be investigated. In my opinion, public opinion is relevant when it comes to domestic/social policy, but on legal policy, it’s simply a matter of right and wrong. It only takes a few moments of interaction with the general public to know that they aren’t well-qualified to judge on matter such as these.
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And sg, Clinton wasn’t impeached for “getting some head”. He was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Just because it was about sex doesn’t diminish it. And I seem to remember Clinton’s approval ratings going up during the scandal and the Republicans’ ratings going down. Also, while they gained the White House in 2000 (535 votes, while a small margin, still counts), they lost ground in the congressional elections (notably losing for Senate seats).

“Naturally my explitive-laced rant comes in just seconds after Stuart’s carefully reasoned arguments.
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JNS: Ignore my comment and read Stuart’s. He’s actually trying to engage with you people.”
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Art, as far as JNS/AS are concerned, your rant is probably as productive as Stuart’s (Welcome Back Kotter BTW!) reasoned tomes. Though I reckon his aims are different: not merely scorn for the apparently stupid. God knows his methods will spread the gospel of new-cubed journalism more effectively.
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And Rose, pop “Outbreak” out of the old VCR and have a drink. Or perhaps I’m just naive (not to mention safely ensconced on an island in thus-far caseless Asia).

I considered your advice, Oregon JC.

“I considered your advice, Oregon JC.”
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Genuinely good to hear it man. Sabbaticals are always a good thing–from work, from these Twittery 2nd lives, from our very sense of self.

And JNS, if you are going to use the words of the Beatles to link to such unadulterated crap please have the professional courtesy to give them credit for the work product. You would ask the same if you had work product.

“Look Forward or Back?”

Good example of a false dilemma. The same people justifying torture will be arguing next week for a concept of universal morality. If the people want to insure torture never happens again they will have to do something about it on their own, without any help from gutless politicians like Obama, and with no help from the dying, and hopefully dead soon, MSM.

Jay Newton-Small given your predilection for looking forward why don’t you write a story advocating the release of England and Graner from prison. Surely their incarceration is holding back the adoption of universal health coverage or do you believe the law only applies to the little people, and not politicians or lawyers.

Check out this NYTimes article about how the debate over torture was shaped a year and a half ago
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/media/28abc.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
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Now ask yourself, knowing that the torture techniques were eventually going to come out in various reports like the Senate Armed Services Committee report or the Red Cross reports, how likely is it that Kiriakou wss actually sent out under the guise of a “whistleblower” but who was actually a propagandist. Think about it, this guy who is supposedly “blowing the whistle” not only gets just about all of the facts wrong, he actually introduces the meme that waterboarding worked and saved lives, all under the auspices of “shining light”. How unsurprising is it that Brian Ross doesn’t see that he has been used to spreak that propaganda to the masses? How unsurprising is it that all the other major mainstream outlets fell all over themselves to book the guy without trying to check any of his claims?
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At this point in the court of public opinion at least I fear that this guy has actually won. Especially because or mainstream media is all about covering their own ass that they are loathe to announce to the world that they helped to spread a lie.

my opinion, public opinion is relevant when it comes to domestic/social policy, but on legal policy, it’s simply a matter of right and wrong
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This isn’t quite true. Public opinion is absolutely relevant when it comes to writing law in the first place. Much as I dislike the retroactive immunity granted the telecoms, and the other efforts to legislate away Bush era overrreach, these actions at least took place with full and open debate. If people are really intent on rendering torture legal, they can advocate abrogating the 1984 Conventions and repealing the Reagan era laws that were passed to insure US compliance.
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Insofar as no one is advocating that course of action, torture apologists are being incredibly deceitful and dishonest.

While we’re on the subject of the media being played like a fiddle by the intelligence community, here’s Brian Ross expressing surprise:

Mr. Kiriakou was the only on-the-record source cited by ABC. In the televised portion of the interview, Mr. Ross did not ask Mr. Kiriakou specifically about what kind of reports he was privy to or how long he had access to the information. “It didn’t even occur to me that they’d keep doing” the waterboarding, Mr. Ross said last week. “It doesn’t make any sense to me.”
He added, “I didn’t give enough credit to the fiendishness of the C.I.A.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/business/media/28abc.html?_r=1
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The notion that waterboarding works, was planted a long time ago. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…..

Didn’t Kiriakou become a talking head on torture at ABC?

When Republicans are accused : don’t criminalise politics. When Democrats are accused: the rule of law must be applied. Doubletalk: the most valued currency in Washington and New York.

Over at The Plumline Greg has an interesting connection to the internals of an NYT polls on torture and the NYT’s reluctance to use the term. The doubletalk express is moving along.

Boy, JNS, you really disappointed me.
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I read the verse and assumed you were telling us that you’d found more appropriate employment.
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Then I found out that it was another one of your sh!tty attempts to trivialize Bush’s lawless dictatorship.
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Your contempt for me as a commenter is exceeded only by my contempt for you as a stenographer.

No thanks to JNS or Brian Ross
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http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/torture/despite-dc-media-reticence-huge-majority-says-waterboarding-is-torture/

JNS — At the very least, you are kind of tone deaf in this post. The problem is that in your unrelenting quest to provide balance, your effectively marginalize an issue that is extremely important to a significant group of people and considered a substantive issue to the majority of people and put it on par with the fantasy based rantings of the Glen Becks on the other side.
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I mean really, do you not reflect on your posts, or as the Obama doctrine dictates, think before you speak? You made a conscious choice to label the desire to get information out in the open as being driven by a desire for retribution. For the life of me I cannot reconcile so I remain puzzled as to how a member of the fourth estate could be on the side of diminishing the importance of the concept of “sunlight being the best disinfectant.”
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And for the record, I don’t believe for a second and I’m sure I’m not alone in my certainty, that Obama is taking this more moderate approach for any other reason than his warranted belief that you and the rest of your immature brethren would exploit any investigation in such a destructive manner that all the major challenges facing our country would go unaddressed.
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There is only so much the Obama administration can do to transform this country into something that will continue to thrive going forward without the cooperation of the rest of our society. It’s enough that the GOP is unwilling to play the role of statesman and refuse to engage beyond the role of obstructionist that appears to be the 2010 election campaign strategy of choice. If the media continues to insist in doubling down on this strategy, which seems to be the case from reading your posts and from other examples of some of your colleagues, we won’t get this done.
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No, you should not carry water for the Obama administration the way you did for Bush. However, you should also not think somehow carrying water for the GOP obstructionist representatives is the same as providing balance.

Is there not a different angle to write about this from? The MSM seems to want only to address this from the perspective of the position this puts the White House in or advocating for no prosecutions for this reason or that, but not really addressing that crimes were committed and who within the previous administration committed them. I know we have a pretty good idea, but there is a lot more to learn here that has not been previously disclosed.
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This all is fairly simple and the MSM is trying really hard to push the meme that it is pretty complicated. Members of the previous administration broke U.S. and international laws. There is ample evidence that members of congress were complicit. The hits the previous administration and congress will take for this is pretty much not material. Nor is the latest polls showing the American public thinks this or that. There is a lot more at stake here. Either we are a nation of laws or we are kingdom with kings and lords to whom the law does not apply.
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If we are a nation of laws then something has to be done about this and it does not matter whom it brings down. If nothing is done it is pre-ordained that it will happen again, because there will be no deterrent. The lesson future administrations and congress will learn is that with the help of the media they can get away with anything.

The clear legal precedent is that if someone is convicted of the crime of water boarding we execute that person. The problem for the current administration and Congress is how far the culpability goes. How many elected officials sat idly by knowing that this was going on, afraid to risk political capital?

I would be most happy to say goodbye to your lack of competence and integrity. Maybe you could get a job selling commercial real estate to old ladies?

Guys,
I’m with you insofar as opposing torture, including waterboarding, but perhaps I can point out something you’re missing.
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When you compare today’s torture to the “techniques” of the Stalin era, as Cliff has done, or any other infamous abuses of prisoners in history, it sounds hysterical to a lot of people who aren’t really engaged in politics. They are not an example of JNS’ “independents” or SZ’s “centrists.” They are simply people who don’t troll the news networks looking for nuggets of information. Their engagement is low.
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Anyway. My point shapes up something like this. How many journalists have volunteered to undergo waterboarding? A lot. Some have undergone the practice for more than twenty minutes. Now let’s take a random Vietcong torture practice. Say, suspending somebody over a bamboo shoot that eventually grows through their torso. Now, how many journalists have volunteered for that in their capacity to inform the public?
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Equating waterboarding the mastermind of 9/11 and assorted al-Qaeda lackeys with far more brutal torture of innocent people is not going to win you anything from the other side. It’s going to make you seem hysterical. Same thing goes with putting the insect inside Zubaydah the insectiphobe’s box. The interrogator had to inform him the insect was neither poisonous nor capable of biting. Thinking of holding that up in comparison to breaking fingers, beating the feet, or running somebody over with an SUV?
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Don’t do it. It’s smarter.

A better song choice for Ms Small would have been “Just My Imagination” by the Temptations with the late, great Eddie Kendricks as the lead singer on the recording. The media imagination is active and, like “24″, bears no relation to reality.
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When the Attorney General scandal was initially noted by Josh Marshall, MSM first said that the AG issue was unimportant. Next the issue became one being pushed by the “anti-GW Bush left”. Only belatedly did MSM admit that there was wrongdoing by the DOJ. The misbehavior by Gonzales et al did not fit the storyline that the MSM was ready to tell. MSM could not stretch their imaginations to envision a politically biased DOJ.
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Amy Sullivan writes about her concern that Obama favors immoral science over morality. Ms Sullivan could not assimilate the part of Obama’s speech addressing morality. The morality concern was a figment of Ms Sullivan’s immagination. Her brain did not process the fact that Obama was also concerned about morality because Ms Sullivan had written her story before Obama spoke his first word. Fabrication rules.
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Ms Small imagines any review of the Bush administration as leftist payback.
This is the scenario that she has set up in her mind. There does not have to be any relation to reality. The cry is let’s just let bygones be bygones. The push to determine whether torture was done in the name of the people of the United States is unimportant. She cannot perceive that justice could be the goal of an inquiry.
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Calling MSM stenographers is inaccurate. What MSM has become are scriptwriters. They visualize a set of circumstances and fit the observed data to the scene they are ready to describe.

yoshi
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Name more than 3 journalists that have undergone waterboarding and ESPECIALLY name the one who went for more than 20 minutes. Thanks.

Thinking of holding that up in comparison to breaking fingers, beating the feet, or running somebody over with an SUV?
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yes yoshi, we are all aware that the US torture regime was specifically designed to maximize suffering while minimizing physical damage. That was not done over any special concern over the welfare of the victims. That was done specifically to avoid criminal liability.
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The relative civility of US torture compared to that of our ruthless former enemies would be truly touching if it were based on anything but naked self-interest on the part of the interrogators.

……………..is not going to win you anything from the other side.
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I don’t think many of us expect a lot of rational thought to come from “the other side” these days. Nate Silver has a post regarding torture and polls. That comments mirror those of start above.
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….I wanted to comment briefly on the apparently contradictory polling result from Gallup which suggests that, while most Americans think “harsh interrogation techniques” against suspected terrorists are justified, a 51 percent majority also want a federal investigation into the use of these techniques.

Gallup’s interpretation is that this isn’t really about torture — rather, it’s about investigations. We Americans like to investigate!

While a slim majority favors an investigation, on a relative basis the percentage is quite low because Americans are generally quite supportive of government probes into potential misconduct by public officials. In recent years, for example, Americans were far more likely to favor investigations into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys (72%), government databases of telephone numbers dialed by Americans (62%), oil company profits (82%), and the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina (70%).

I don’t necessarily debate this interpretation, but I think it’s somewhat incomplete. Although many people regard torture as a moral absolute, for others (perhaps most others) it is more of a sliding scale: certain types of torture may be permissible against certain types of persons in certain — presumably fairly extraordinary — circumstances. A Pew poll released last week, for example, has 15 percent of Americans saying torture is “often justified” against terrorism suspects and 25 percent saying it is “never justified”. The majority of 56 percent are somewhere in the middle, saying torture is “sometimes justified” (34 percent) or “rarely justified” (22 percent).

Thus, people may want an investigation into the torture so that they can see whether or not this was the “right” type of torture. They want the details, because they think the details matter.

This is perhaps compounded by the fact that Gallup used the deliberately ambiguous phrase “harsh interrogation techniques” rather than “torture”. An ABC-Washington Post poll, which did use the phrase “torture”, did not show as significant a number of people who were inclined to think the interrogations were OK but nevertheless wanted an investigation into them.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
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When you mention “the other side”, I envision the folks who laugh as they watch Rush slapping himself in the face stating “Look I’m torturing myself”, as the other side. The dittoheads are not going to give any quarter. Ant type of torture would be acceptable.
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I think the Independents and “Low-engagers” are going to consider waterboarding torture. The Vietcong are not going to be used as the Gold standard for setting the line of where torture begins for anyone not truly on the “other side”.

It’s interesting that Holder visited historical torture sites in London, and today, snagged this agreement over extraditions and law enforcement exchanges.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1894347,00.html
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You see, the world perfected the “bobblehead yes” diplomatic strategy in response to the “if you’re with us, you’re against us” position established by our fearless leaders in the previous Administration.
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It was a very effective way to counter Bush, but it seems that Obama’s “apology” tour is bearing fruit.
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The kind, I think, that the pro-torture crowd does not want…

SG:
Christopher Hitchens, Mike Guy, Kaj Larsen (too bad Hannity will never make good on his promise to be waterboarded for charity). The last one went for over 24 minutes. Tough guy.
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http://current.com/items/76347282_getting-waterboarded.htm
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Since I spent very valuable megabytes of my limited bandwith watching the full 10 minutes again, I trust you will too. Sometime. It’s excellent journalism.
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PD:
Well, yeah. You think we’re concerned, particularly, over whether we’re polite to KSM? This is a duh moment.

yoshi
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I knew about two of those 3 but I asked for MORE than 3 because you initially said there were “a lot” and you also said one lasted for more than 20 minutes. There is something I should point out however. What Larsen went through wasn’t actually waterboarding. For one he was on a level plane which helps to keep the water from going up your nose. Thats why when waterboarding they do it on an inclined plane to keep the head lower than the rest of the body. For two with waterboarding you don’t stuff the rag down a persons mouth. I don’t know whether that makes it worse or better but I do know it keeps the water from running down the throat freely like it does in real waterboarding. If you want to see the difference compare and contrast Hitchens and Guy.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/20/playboy-journo-bets-he-ca_n_189280.html
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Now maybe the Larsen cat just had the wrong people demonstrating on him but he didn’t actually go through what was described in the OLC memos nor what the other two journos went through and thats the reason why he was able to last a marginally amount of time longer than Hitchens or Guy. And probably why his demonstration looks a lot less distressing than the other two.

Regarding volunteering for waterboarding, an army interrogator on KO talked about the difference between that experience (or SEAL training) and the experience of being waterboarded during actual interrogations intended to extract information.

I knew about two of those 3 but I asked for MORE than 3 because you initially said there were “a lot”
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Repeat after me: I will not move the goalposts. I will not move the goalposts.
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There is something I should point out however. What Larsen went through wasn’t actually waterboarding.
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You may want to tell that to the ex-Special Forces operatives who waterboarded him. If you are also an ex-SERE instructor, they might listen to you.
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BTW, I believe in the run up to the actual act, he did explain that his head was going to be lower than his heart, because water still actually makes it in.

Dee: No, you should not carry water for the Obama administration the way you did for Bush. However, you should also not think somehow carrying water for the GOP obstructionist representatives is the same as providing balance.
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Perfectly said. Thank you.

And Stuart re MoDo
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I always knew her writing made me feel unclean when I reluctantly read it. Now I understand why!

I should also add that the reason for the incline in waterboarding is not to make it harder on the victim – it is to actually keep them from drowning.

Getting back to JNS’s piece: Two separate debates are running in parallel.
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One debate is between those who advocate for torture and those who are against it.
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The second debate starts from the premise that torture is both reprensible and — as a simple matter of fact — illegal. The second debtate concerns whether government officials should be accountable to the law.
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A lot of the media is still caught up in the first debate. For them, torture is a policy question, akin to questions about the tax code. Should we have more torture, or less torture?
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They view the second debate through the lens of the first debate. To them, torture is a political debate, and decisions about criminal prosecutions are political questions, to be decided by the usual horse-trading.
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So Joe Klein comes out against torture as though he is taking some hugely courageous moral stand. Yet for him, it is enough that Obama signs a few executive orders.
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The Republicans would love for the country to remain fixated on the first debate. If they lose that debate, no problem — they lost a policy debate. No harm, no foul. And if they get back into power, they can always restore torture to its “proper” place in U.S. foreign policy.

Excuse me, SG, I mistakenly thought that you discounted two of the three I mentioned. Here is a fourth:
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http://hotair.com/archives/2006/11/04/video-steve-harrigan-gets-waterboarded-on-fox/

And Rose, pop “Outbreak” out of the old VCR and have a drink. Or perhaps I’m just naive (not to mention safely ensconced on an island in thus-far caseless Asia).
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jcapan, no it’s because I’m very young and healthy and thus vulnerable! Seriously, this doesn’t look like the pandemic, although it’s sad to see what’s happening in Mexico. Fortunately, we’re not living in a state that was heading towards collapse long before any flu. But there is a scientific consensus that a pandemic is coming, and we all need a functioning media when that happens. Part of the problem is that the Obama administration, the WHO and other countries can’t really ask some of these questions because they are kind of rude. It’s not their job. This is what the media is supposed to do!
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Instead they’re just being vaguely optimistic but alarming in their vagueness, which just fuels more panic. Plus, it’s quite possible, probable even, that if they asked tougher questions we’d learn that in reality the risk is less than it may now appear. The probable implication of the Mexican statistics’ inaccuracy is not that the threat is more serious than we think, but that’s it’s less serious because they are massively underestimating the total number of cases and thus severely exaggerating the death rate.

“I take great solace in knowing that Time magazine will have to do more downsizing real soon….”
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I’m with you, SG. This episode is proof positive that we should just let it all burn down and start over from scratch – and not just Time. And I don’t care much what real journalism is lost in the meantime. An amoral press can’t serve a free, democratic people and, without shame, it can never reform itself.

When you compare today’s torture to the “techniques” of the Stalin era, as Cliff has done, or any other infamous abuses of prisoners in history, it sounds hysterical to a lot of people who aren’t really engaged in politics.
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Oh bullsh!t.
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Conservatives poop their pants when Obama doesn’t wear a flag pin. They manufacture hysteria over his birth certificate.
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So I’m allowed to get worked up over the systematic torture of innocent people.

When you compare today’s torture to the “techniques” of the Stalin era, as Cliff has done, or any other infamous abuses of prisoners in history, it sounds hysterical to a lot of people who aren’t really engaged in politics.
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Oh bullsh!t.
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Conservatives p00p their pants when Obama doesn’t wear a flag pin. They manufacture hysteria over his birth certificate.
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So I’m allowed to get worked up over the systematic torture of innocent people.

Cliff, I’m not talking about the right wing.

Fine, then pretend I didn’t type “conservatives” and replace it with “some people.”

The right wing makes up the flag pin nontroversies. People who aren’t engage in politics, or in other words, people who don’t frequent partisan blogs, are the people I’m talking about.
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I believe there is a silent majority from what I’ve seen. It’s just that they’re not really left or right.

“When you compare today’s torture to the “techniques” of the Stalin era, as Cliff has done, or any other infamous abuses of prisoners in history, it sounds hysterical to a lot of people who aren’t really engaged in politics.”
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If that’s true, it’s only because they haven’t been told that what we did is completely equivalent to anything done by Stalin – once a government tortures and murders innocent people for political purposes, there isn’t any moral difference. Just as they were never told that our past president was a psychopathic ignoramus, our past vice president was a paranoid megalomaniac, that they turned their backs on the Al Qaeda problem and allowed 9/11, that their case for war in Iraq was a pack of lies, that they committed treason when they outed Valerie Plame, etc. etc. The problem is our Village Press is really just an appendage of our power-elite, deciding what is useful for us to know, and what is bad for business that we shouldn’t be told. In other words, people find it hard to believe that we’ve done what we’ve done because we have an intentionally misinformed public.

People who aren’t engage in politics, or in other words, people who don’t frequent partisan blogs, are the people I’m talking about.
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Then I don’t really have to worry about coming across as hysterical to them, now do I?

“young and healthy and thus vulnerable!”
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Ah, OUAT a wonderful combination! No, seriously, Rose, I’ll be following your commentary on this, as I continue to ignore the media. The Japanese press is equally prone to hysteria, so I’m in full lockdown, bubble-mode. I did read at some pt. that the average year sees like 35,000 flu deaths, so it’s hard to be concerned given the #s out thus far.

Using the words to a Beatles song for a post about torture is just tasteless. It’s more than tasteless, it’s outrageous. What next? Posting the words to “Come All Ye Faithful” over a picture of Bill and Monica?

Cliff, I was talking about the general presentation of the anti-torture advocates in the eyes of the general public. You’re just being difficult.

shepherdwong:
Torture for political purposes? Uh, I don’t believe so. And when have we sanctioned the murder of people, for or not for political purposes?

Of course Obama will be doing investigations on torture. What if some of his buddies were sent to the torture chamber?

Also, he needs to know about technique because he will want to avoid a reputation of torture president of the century. Journalists can breath a sigh of relief. He’ll lighten up on us a bit.

Also, what is it with talentless poets feeling the need to post?

I am a poet about to publish my first book and I get embarrassed for these people and whoever they are dating. Hint, hint, hint. Maybe they should stick with what they are goood at teehee.

Check my work which will probably be in anthologies someday @

http://jesse_evalin.livejournal.com

It is a preview to my first book The Secrets of Rich Men and Wealthy Women.

Fluidity of movement in poetry is, my me and most, appreciated more than at some lame attempt to rhyme. That being said, I use rhyme as well.

“What is it with talentless poets feeling the need to post?”
Remember all the flak Walt Whitman took over his “There once was a man from Nantucket” poem? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

“Torture for political purposes? Uh, I don’t believe so.”
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Everyone gets to choose what they will believe.
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“And when have we sanctioned the murder of people, for or not for political purposes?”
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Ah, you must be joking.

No. There really are guidlines to excellence otherwise we’d have anthologies three times as large. Writing must not be your specialty.