Enough with Nancy Pelosi
Posted on | May 15, 2009
My colleagues are at it again, and by that I mean they are salivating over Republican talking points and ignoring the real issues.
This week’s diversion, of course, is the dizzying discussion of what Nancy Pelosi knew and when she knew it, as if that actually matters. Whether Pelosi, or any other member of Congress knew or did not know about what the Bush administration was doing in the name of the American people but behind our backs is irrelevant.
What matters is what the Bush administration did and why did they hide it.
The second part of that is easily answered. They hid it because they knew it was wrong. They knew it was torture, and they knew it was wrong. Period. End of story. Despite my beloved colleagues game attempts to convince you otherwise, there is no gray area here. The “ticking bomb” scenario only happens on “24.” So let me say this again.
Torture is wrong. The Bush administration tortured people in our names. Torture is wrong. Always.
So please. Let’s shut up about what the CIA did or did not tell Nancy Pelosi in 2002. Let’s talk about what the United States was doing to detainees in 2002. And 2003. And 2004. All the way up until George W. Bush left office. Maybe longer.
Let’s talk about how many of the detainees who underwent torture — and torture goes far beyond waterboarding — were actually “terrorists” at all. And how many of them came to hate the United States after their treatment at the hands of U.S. interrogators.
And let’s talk about how the vice president’s office desperately wanted some connection between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, and it didn’t really matter if it was true or not. They only wanted to be able to say they had “intelligence” connecting them. What they didn’t say, though, was that the “intelligence” was wrung out of detainees under torture. What would you tell an interrogator if you were waterboarded 83 times in a month? 183 times?
Let’s talk about an administration that bent the Constitution to its will and wants it to stay that way so that no one will know the extent to which they undermined the very foundation of this country.
And let’s launch an investigation of these things. An independent investigation that can look into everything — including what Nancy Pelosi knew or didn’t know, what she objected to or didn’t object to.
But most of all, let’s stop this insane game of speculation, coming up with document after document, each one appearing to contradict the one before — but all of them being a very vague and incomplete record of a shadowy and hidden policy.
Nancy Pelosi isn’t the problem here, and yet my colleagues have spent countless hours discussing her, and virtually no hours discussing why there’s even a question about her role at all.
It’s time to stop. Now.
It’s time to stop being afraid, time to own up to what’s been done by us and to us.
Time to stop pretending to be a moral giant among nations and actually become one.
Time to say the word “torture” and look it square in the face, to acknowledge that this is what we did.
Until we do, recovery from the disaster of the last eight years will elude us. This point is key. It is the very symbol of the depravity that follows when a nation’s leadership believes the law does not apply to them, no matter how “great” that nation believes itself to be.
We must put it behind us. But before we do, we have to take it all in, embrace what we did, as distasteful as that is. Only then can we truly let it go and move on.
To do otherwise is to condemn ourselves to follow this destructive path again.
Enough with the distractions. Nancy Pelosi is not the issue. Nancy Pelosi is just a shiny object the Republicans are dangling in front of our ADHD eyes. And we, my colleagues and I, are jumping after it like a cat after a moth. Even if we catch it, the victory will be insubstantial because we’ve ignored the real issue.
Torture. That’s the real issue — the only one that matters in this discussion.
Stupid is as stupid does
Posted on | May 13, 2009
Politico chief political analyst Roger Simon reports that the Republican National Committee is holding a special session next week so they can vote on — and approve — a resolution renaming the Democratic Party. After next week, according to the RNC, it will be called the Democrat Socialist Party.
Simon doesn’t talk about that, though. His article is about Michael Steele, the black guy the RNC put in charge to make it look like they aren’t a bunch of racist assholes but whom they don’t give a shit about and regularly kick in the teeth. Steele opposed the special session, which will include passing a couple more idiotic resolutions, and opposes the renaming resolution too, although he does agree that the Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism.”
Referring to the Democrats officially as the Democat Socialist Party “will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans.”
Now there’s an understatement. And that’s really about all that needs to be said about Steele, but Simon goes on for two pages about how the Republicans don’t like him and all. If you’d like to see what he said, click here. Or stick around and let’s talk about the real issue.
Simon quotes an RNC member saying the Steele “has a tin ear when it comes to the building (i.e., the RNC staff), the RNC and the party,” but don’t you really think it’s the GOP that has the tin ear when it comes to the American people?
So, they may be winning on the torture debate, for now. But what else? Those teabaggeries went over like the proverbial lead balloons. Their nemesis, Barack Obama, is still polling unwaveringly high, meaning that folks are kinda liking the president with the funny name. They’re latest Big Issue is whether Wanda Sykes went too far at the White House Correspondents dinner, about as big an issue for the average American as the price of a loaf of bread in a London food market. And if Darth Cheney running all over the place bitching about Obama wasn’t enough, now his little girl Liz is out doing the same, most recently saying the president is siding with terrorists or some such nonsense.
Somehow, I’m not expecting the Other Daughter, the Lesbian One Mary, to follow Liz’s footsteps. I think she’s got a Cheney grandchild to be worrying about right now.
Speaking of lesbian, it would appear that New Hampshire is now the 6th state in the union to allow same-sex marriages. You may recall last week that the state’s legislature sent the bill to the desk of Democratic governor John Lynch, who had previously said he wasn’t interested in signing it. He didn’t, and according to the Granite State’s constitution, it became law at midnight last night. *Update — see my response to Andrew below. The 5 day wait has not yet gone into effect, so it’s still not law*
The GOP’s still sticking to extremist social issues and name-calling as it’s big strategy. GW and John Boehner and Tom Delay and all those truly stalwart individuals have been using “Democrat party” when they should be using “Democratic Party” for some time. It’s a perjorative thing, you see, that actually got started more than 100 years ago and comes and goes, depending on how little leg the Republicans have to stand on at any given point in time.
This latest swing of its use began during the 2006 midterm elections, which was just about when folks were starting to wake up to Republican bullshit and shift Congress to the Democratic side.
Saying “Democrat party” is a purposely perjorative thing, though, on account of grammar. Democratic Party, you see, is what’s called a proper noun. That’s the name of the party — calling it anything else is wrong, and it’s intended to be a slight, an insult.
Add that to “socialist,” which the Republicans have decided resonates with people outside their base with no evidence showing that to be true, and you got yourself one humdinger of a throwdown.
So here comes the Republican National Committee with its fancy resolution to make it official — as if one party can officially change the name of the other paraty — that will actually serve two purposes — it will insult the Democrats and jab at Michael Steele.
There’s just one teensy weensy little problem. Nobody gives a rodent’s derriere. And all it does it make the Republicans look exactly like what they’ve become — petty, vindictive little dictators with no ideas and no sense of decency.
Well done, gentlemen. I look forward to your resolution next week. When you keep doing stupid things like this, you make it impossible for my colleagues to present you in any kind of decent light. It’s just too much of a stretch. Kind of like reporting that the fire department responded to a call about an intoxicated group of men not only threw empty paint cans into their 55-gallon drum fire, but then added not one, but three 20-pound propane cylinders when they ran out of paint cans. There’s just no way you can make that look like a good idea.
As Bertrand Russell once said, “Most people would die rather than think. In fact, they do.”
Sadly, the Republicans appear headed rapidly in that direction.
But maybe that’s for the best. Then we could split the Democratic Party into two and have a real opposition party, with both parties focused on what’s good for the American people instead of what’s good for their personal fortunes.
You know, that little thing called “the greater good.”
Oh, and by the way, she’s a lesbian too
Posted on | May 12, 2009
I just spent 45 minutes trying to say this:
by digby
Are we really going to have a hissy fit about Wanda Sykes making crude jokes about the fatuous gasbag now? Really? It’s inappropriate now for someone to joke about Limbaugh being the 20th highjacker? The guy who called the majority leader “Mullah Daschle?” Who called Obama, “Osama” about 7,320 times? Even Keith Olbermann is wagging his finger over this — the guy who names Limbaugh the worst person in the world virtually every night.
According to Keith, the problem isn’t so much what she said, it’s that she said it at the White House Correspondents dinner which is an inappropriate venue. These are very sensitive, important people, you know, and it’s rude to be rude in front of them. It embarrasses the poor souls to have someone make crude jokes about the crudest, most despicable man in politics. Why that should be, I do not know.
But Pat Buchanan gets to the heart of it: it was mean to the Republican Party. Attacking Limbaugh was attacking Republicans everywhere according to him. He wasn’t even there but he is the head of the GOP and And no matter what swill he puts out on his radio show to millions of people every single day, that just isn’t done.
They should just get rid of these stupid events. Every year the press corps demonstrates what idiots they are. They get huffy when the joke’s aimed at them, they think it’s hilarious when it is crudely personal and aimed directly at the first lady, they laugh uproariously when the president jokes about not finding weapons of mass destruction but get the vapors when somebody takes aim at Rush Limbaugh. Really, it’s just too ridiculous.
Believe me, 45 minutes and 800 words later, I had a pile of mush. Digby says it all. The only thing I can add is that it’s just a little Through the Looking Glass to say, as some have said, that the reason Ayatollah Limbaugh can say whatever he wants about whoever he wants and Wanda Sykes should avoid joking about him is that he is a Serious Political Commentator and she is a mere comic.
Excuse me, but isn’t that the point? What’s serious about calling the president Osama? Wanda Sykes IS A COMIC. SHE TELLS JOKES. IT’S HER JOB.
And seriously, drop the stupid dinner. If it’s not obvious enough that the White House correspondents are the political equivalent of sports writers, putting them at the political equivalent of an athletic banquet sure makes it absolutely clear.
Jesus, get a life, people.
New at Newswriter's Guide to the Market- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- New at Newswriter's Political Fail Blog
- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
Found out for themselves
Media madness
The News Writer’s colleagues
Totally fun
-
Contact the News Writer
-
-
This work is licensed under
a Creative Commons License.
